Apr 28, 2023 04:39 PM
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/human-age-limit
EXCERPT: . . .Robine’s friend Jay Olshansky, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has a different take on the matter. “Whether mortality rates plateau or whether they continue to rise is probably completely irrelevant,” says Olshansky. The sheer fact that it’s hard to generate reliable death rates past the age of 110 tells us everything we need to know about the upper limit on human longevity, he says—the fact there are so few supercentenarians tells us we’ve already reached the upper limit to human longevity. As the only person ever to live longer than 120, Jeanne Calment is simply a statistical outlier, Olshansky says. Other people might break her record by a few years, but it doesn’t mean that human lifespans are heading up, and up, and up.
In fact, Olshansky thinks that our obsession with ultra-long-lived humans is the wrong approach. “Studying these extremely long-lived people is like studying Usain Bolt when it comes to running and saying, ‘Yeah, we can all run that fast,’” he says. “To hold them up as what’s possible for everyone is naive.” On the contrary, Olshansky says that the quest for longevity in the developed world is mostly already over. We already live exceptionally long lives, he points out. In 1990 Olshansky wrote a paper arguing that eliminating all forms of cancer—which was responsible for 22 percent of US deaths at the time—would only add three years to the average US life expectancy. Once you get to a certain age, if one thing doesn’t kill you, then there’s something else around the corner that will.
Olshansky argues we should shift our attention to helping people live healthier lives, rather than simply focusing on overall lifespan. That’s a view shared by Juulia Jylhävä, a principal researcher at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and scientific consultant at MedEngine, a medical data science company based in Finland. “We should surely be more focused on healthspan and how to maintain not only health, but also functional abilities,” says Jylhävä.
Healthspan—years lived in good health—might be the unsexy cousin of longevity research, but figuring out ways for people to live healthier lives could have a much greater impact than extending lifespan by a few years... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPT: . . .Robine’s friend Jay Olshansky, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has a different take on the matter. “Whether mortality rates plateau or whether they continue to rise is probably completely irrelevant,” says Olshansky. The sheer fact that it’s hard to generate reliable death rates past the age of 110 tells us everything we need to know about the upper limit on human longevity, he says—the fact there are so few supercentenarians tells us we’ve already reached the upper limit to human longevity. As the only person ever to live longer than 120, Jeanne Calment is simply a statistical outlier, Olshansky says. Other people might break her record by a few years, but it doesn’t mean that human lifespans are heading up, and up, and up.
In fact, Olshansky thinks that our obsession with ultra-long-lived humans is the wrong approach. “Studying these extremely long-lived people is like studying Usain Bolt when it comes to running and saying, ‘Yeah, we can all run that fast,’” he says. “To hold them up as what’s possible for everyone is naive.” On the contrary, Olshansky says that the quest for longevity in the developed world is mostly already over. We already live exceptionally long lives, he points out. In 1990 Olshansky wrote a paper arguing that eliminating all forms of cancer—which was responsible for 22 percent of US deaths at the time—would only add three years to the average US life expectancy. Once you get to a certain age, if one thing doesn’t kill you, then there’s something else around the corner that will.
Olshansky argues we should shift our attention to helping people live healthier lives, rather than simply focusing on overall lifespan. That’s a view shared by Juulia Jylhävä, a principal researcher at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and scientific consultant at MedEngine, a medical data science company based in Finland. “We should surely be more focused on healthspan and how to maintain not only health, but also functional abilities,” says Jylhävä.
Healthspan—years lived in good health—might be the unsexy cousin of longevity research, but figuring out ways for people to live healthier lives could have a much greater impact than extending lifespan by a few years... (MORE - missing details)
