Richard Faragher is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) and the Biogerontology Research Foundation

Is 150 years really the limit of human lifespan?

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2021-06-08 19:30:06

Richard Faragher is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) and the Biogerontology Research Foundation. He is a member of the scientific advisory board of the Longevity Vision Fund.

While most of us can expect to live to around 80, some people defy expectations and live to be over 100. In places such as Okinawa, Japan and Sardinia, Italy, there are many centenarians. The oldest person in history – a French woman named Jeanne Calment – lived to 122. When she was born in 1875, the average life expectancy was roughly 43.

But just how long could a human actually live? It’s a question people have been asking for centuries. While average life expectancy (the number of years a person can expect to live) is relatively easy to calculate, maximum lifespan estimates (the greatest age a human could possibly reach) are much harder to make. Previous studies have placed this limit close to 140 years of age. But a more recent study proposes that the limit to human lifespan is closer to 150.

The oldest and still most widely used method for calculating life expectancy, and thus lifespan, relies on the Gompertz equation. This is the observation, first made in the 19th century, that human death rates from disease increase exponentially with time. Essentially, this means your chance of death – from cancer, heart disease and many infections, for example – roughly doubles every eight to nine years.

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