Research has found that there is no sign of a fixed age limit for the human body.
This finding was drawn from a study based on the lifespans of the longest-living individuals from the U.S., the U.K., France and Japan for every year since 1968. One of the individuals studied was Susannah Mushatt Jones, who died in New York last year at the age of 116.
“We just don’t know what the age limit might be. In fact, by extending trend lines, we can show that maximum and average lifespans could continue to increase far into the foreseeable future,” said Siegfried Hekimi, one of the researchers.
“Three hundred years ago, many people lived only short lives,” continued Hekimi. “If we would have told them that one day most humans might live up to 100, they would have said we were crazy.”
The study, performed by a team from McGill University in Canada, was conducted partly in response to a paper published last year, suggesting that there was a natural limit to the human lifespan, despite medical advances.
Hekimi, as well as his colleague Bryan G. Hughes, believe that the age limit suggested by last year’s paper – 115 years – could be temporary. There have been several age plateaus and drops recorded in the past, while the overall plateau continues to increase.
For example, the age plateau in 1980 would have been around 111 years, using the same research methods of last year’s study. Though this analysis suggests a leveling off, the projected age limit continues to increase every year.
Thus, the age plateau depends on how the numbers and statistics are interpreted.
As humanity continues to make new breakthroughs in science and medicine, Hekimi believes that humans could possibly live to 150 years or beyond.
“I can never rule out that we’ll see this ceiling broken,” said Jan Vijg from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, one of the researchers in Hekimi’s study. “Maybe we can be successful in generating new drugs that work against diseases. Work against the aging process overall deserves way more publicity.”
However, several experts have disagreed with Hekimi and his colleagues, arguing that they did not use enough data in their research to come to a solid conclusion.
Those who agree with Hekimi assert that the biological evidence of increased human lifespans outweighs the statistics.
Despite this debate, it is clear that, as wealth grows and medical treatments improve, life expectancy is rising. Humanity has yet to see if there is a biological barrier to living far past 100.
Jeanne Calmet holds the record for the longest life, dying at 122 years and 164 days old. Violet Brown of Jamaica, 118, is currently the oldest person living.
