The Future of Human Longevity

Abstract

Recent scientific publications suggest that human longevity records stopped increasing. Our finding that the mortality of centenarians has not decreased noticeably in recent decades (despite a significant mortality decline in younger age groups) is consistent with this suggestion. However, there is no convincing evidence that we have reached the limit of human life span. The future of human longevity is not fixed and will depend on human efforts to extend life span.

The Future of Human Longevity: Time for a Reality Check

“…However, this extension of MRAD by 5 years is a mere hypothesis, and one could imagine that the plateau of the maximal life span has been reached, just as plateaus of sport records have also been reached [6] . Indeed, this is in keeping with the lack of a noticeable decrease in the mortality of centenarians mentioned by Gavrilov et al [1] and as shown in their Figure 1.…”

The plateau of human mortality: Demography of longevity pioneers

“…Other studies, however, have reached an opposite conclusion: the better the data, the less the appearance of leveling (9–10). A recent work (11) reports exponential increases persisting even beyond 110 in sparse but high-quality data drawn from a collection of countries.…”

“…Within the limits of precision, supercentenarian hazards showed no improvement over time. These findings have been challenged (11) with analysis of the same IDL data by different methods. In the wake of limitations on precision and continuing controversy, the IDL project is now being extended to cover people who survive to age 105 or more.…”

Can Pension Funds Partially Manage Longevity Risk by Investing in a Longevity Megafund?

“…It seems to be such lately and this leads for example Vijg and Bourg (2017) to consider that it will necessarily remain as such. But the latter is not a proof, as noted by Gavrilov et al (2017) who even observes a constant centenarian mortality since 1940. Comparing the effects of current interventions in various animal species and humans Ben-Haim et al (2017) suggests a further increase of 30% of lifespan, i.e., 150 years of maximal lifespan may be at reasonable reach based on ongoing developments.…”

“…However, it is difficult to imagine that life expectancy may become much higher than the age of 100 only with lifestyle improvements (see Gavrilov et al 2017): health care improvements will de facto be the main driver for large longevity increases. A longevity scenario is for example that 35 new molecular entities and biologicals are still produced per year but now they mostly address critical life limiting conditions, such that each therapy on average adds one week of year to life expectancy.…”