The slowdown in life expectancy may be a sign of the 'limits of human lifespan'



The 20th century saw an explosive 'life expectancy increase,' with life expectancy (average life expectancy at birth) increasing by three years every decade. However, a new paper suggests that a similar explosion in life expectancy is highly unlikely in the 21st century.

Implausibility of radical life extension in humans in the twenty-first century | Nature Aging

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-024-00702-3



Life expectancy is increasing at a slower rate this century — and it may be because we're reaching our human limit | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/health/ageing/life-expectancy-is-increasing-at-a-slower-rate-this-century-and-it-may-be-because-were-reaching-our-human-limit

S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois at Chicago and four other researchers published a paper on life expectancy in the academic journal Nature.

According to Olshansky and his colleagues, life expectancy in the 19th century was '20 to 50 years,' which is very short by modern standards, because survival rates did not improve due to the impact of epidemics and epidemics.

However, in the 20th century, improvements in public health and advances in medicine led to a 'longevity revolution' in which life expectancy, which had increased by an average of one year every century for the previous 2,000 years, increased by three years every decade. Olshansky and his colleagues reported that the improvement in figures was due to a decline in early-life mortality in the first half of the 20th century and a decline in middle-aged and elderly mortality in the second half of the 20th century.

However, Olshansky and his colleagues estimate that life expectancy will increase by just 2.5 years over the next 30 years.



The most likely reason for the slowdown in life expectancy improvement to about one-third is that humanity is approaching the upper limit of its life expectancy, Olshansky and his colleagues explained.

In other words, many elderly people will already die from the accumulation of cell and tissue damage caused by biological aging, and their lives cannot be extended any further.

However, if there were a way to slow down or rejuvenate cellular aging, it may be possible for people to live longer in a younger state.

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in Science,   Creature, Posted by logc_nt