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No Cap On Life Expectancy?

Posted by michael on from the head-in-a-jar dept.

Samarkind writes "An article over at Science Daily (no registration req'd) talks about the average life expectancy for people going up all over the world by an average of 3 months per year. They also say that the somewhat pervasive idea that people can only live so long just isn't true. The kicker that I got from the article was that the average life expectancy for men is 65... isn't that about when I'll retire?" Remember the life expectancy includes all the people who die at age 2 or 15 or 21. If you make it past 25 or so, you've got good odds to make it to 80.

4 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Cause not stated by crow · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One shortcoming of the article is that the cause for the increase is not stated. Many causes for increasing life expectancy have no implications regarding a maximum lifespan. If all we're doing is reducing early deaths through improved vaccinations and safety, then we've made no progress in disproving the idea of a maximum lifespan.

    Another way of looking at it would be: The life expectancy for people born today is higher than for people born twenty years ago. That doesn't mean that the life expectancy for people who are 60 today is any better than the life expectancy for people who were 60 twenty years ago.

  2. Oldest living human? by crow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So if the conclusions of this study are true, not only should we see life expectancy continue to rise, but we should be frequently setting new records for the oldest living human.

    A few years ago, the oldest person in modern history died in France at an age something like 122. Will that record be 150 in a hundred years?

    Unfortunately, accurate age information was not available for the general population until the previous century, so we don't really know what the change in that record has been for a statistically-valid period of time. (Besides, when looking at one in billions, it's hard to say you're being statistically valid.)

    1. Re:Oldest living human? by C4v3_7r0ll · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually, the average life expectancy number is increasing mostly because of the drop in infant mortality rates. So the oldest people aren't necessarily going to get older. Instead, you will see more people making it to adulthood and therefore getting old.

      What would cause increase in the age of the oldest people would be things like gene therapy, cleaner living conditions, less diseases and less stress. All these factors increase the likelyhood of dying younger.

  3. Something seems off here... by realgone · · Score: 3, Interesting
    From reading the article, it looks like this claim is based only on statistical analysis of life expectancy data. More specifically (from the article):

    In their study, Vaupel and Oeppen reviewed longevity data from developed countries, including Australia, Iceland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.S. They found that life expectancy in such countries is steadily increasing by three months a year, per year.

    "The key issue for policymakers to understand from our study is that there appears to be no finite limit to life expectancy," says Vaupel

    Somehow, reaching that conclusion from that data seems incorrect. Just because a value is increasing at a steady rate doesn't mean it will continue to do so. Simple example: a dropped object will accelerate for a time then hit terminal velocity (in a real-world situation).

    The fact that our life expectancy continues to increase may simply indicate our lifespans haven't yet hit their "terminal velocity" (as determined by biological/environmental factors).

    In other words, they ain't dropping us from high enough yet. =)