BioQuakes

AP Biology class blog for discussing current research in Biology

Is There a Limit to How Old Humans Will Get?

In the 1900s, the life expectancy for humans in the United States was approximately 50 years. Since then, the age to which humans can live has only grown. In 1997, a woman by the name of Jeanne Calment died at the age of 122- an astounding increase from the life expectancy less than a hundred years ago. A new study written about in the New York Times explains that Dr. Vijg, an expert on aging at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, feels that we have now reached our “ceiling. From now on, this is it: Humans will never get older than 115.” Dr. Vijg and his graduate students published their pessimistic study in the journal Nature, presenting the evidence for their claim.

For their study, Dr. Vijg and his colleagues looked at how many people of varying ages were alive in a given year. Then they compared the figures from year to year, in order to calculate how fast the population grew at each age. For a while, it looked as though the fastest-growing group was constantly becoming older; “By the 1990s, the fastest growing group of Frenchwomen was the 102-year-olds. If that trend had continued, the fastest-growing group today might well be the 110-year-olds.” (NY Times Article). Instead, the increases slowed and eventually stopped, leading Dr. Vijg and his colleagues to conclude that humans have finally hit an upper limit to their longevity. Further research into the International Database of Longevity seemed to validate their findings; No one, except in rare cases like Ms. Calment, had lived beyond the age of 115. It appears as though human beings have hit the ceiling of longevity.

There was a varied mix of responses to the study. Some, like Leonard P. Guarente, a biology professor at MIT, praised it, saying “it confirms an intuition he has developed over decades of research on aging.” Others, like James W. Vaupel, the director of the Max-Planck Odense Center on the Biodemography of Aging, called the new study a travesty and said, “It is disheartening how many times the same mistake can be made in science and published in respectable journals.”

This study is by no means conclusive. It is simply one more piece of research in the ongoing debate over whether human beings will continue to live longer, and will continue to be debated by many experts in the field.

However, one must wonder whether living longer should be the goal. After all, as Dr. Vijg pointed out, “aging is the accumulation of damage to DNA and other molecules. Our bodies can slow the process by repairing some of this damage. But in the end, it’s too much to fix. At some point, everything goes wrong, and you collapse.” While morbid, he makes a valid observation: Humans can only go so long until necessary bodily functions begin to break down. Rather than worrying about whether we will live to an extraordinary age such as Ms. Calment, I concur with Dr. Vijg; the focus should be on living the most amount of healthy years and taking care of our bodies. While it may seem like a great idea to live to the age of 125, what good would that do if you aren’t able to continue with the activities you enjoy because your body is breaking down?

 

Other Relevant Articles:

In Depth Explanation of Longevity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longevity

A brief summary of Dr. Vijg’s findings (a bit shorter than the NY Times article): http://www.newser.com/story/232121/human-lifespan-has-likely-maxed-out.html

An interesting article about an entrepreneur’s quest to make people live even longer: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/11/-sp-live-forever-extend-life-calico-google-longevity

 

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1 Comment

  1. oxergin

    Like you mentioned it is more important to live healthier years rather than counting the years of your life left. I found some suggestions that allow us to better care for ourselves, and that can possible lead to a higher life expectancy. Some of these ideas include, eating less, maintain healthy relationships, and be a determined worker in whatever you do. These suggestions may lead to a longer life simply because they advise us to care for our bodies.

    http://www.livescience.com/17314-tips-live-longer-longevity.html

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