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Researchers Say Human Lifespans Have Already Hit Their Peak (newsweek.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Newsweek:
We have reached our peak in terms of lifespan, athletic performance and height, according to a new survey of research and historical records... "These traits no longer increase, despite further continuous nutritional, medical, and scientific progress," said Jean-FranÃois Toussaint, a physiologist at Paris Descartes University, France, in a press release... For the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Physiology, a team of French scientists, including Toussaint, from a range of fields analyzed 120 years' worth of historical records and previous research to gauge the varying pace of changes seen in human athletic performance, human lifespan and human height. While, as they observe, the 20th century saw a surge in improvements in all three areas that mirrored industrial, medical and scientific advances, the pace of those advances has slowed significantly in recent years.
The team looked at world records in a variety of sports, including running, swimming, skating, cycling and weight-lifting. Olympic athletes in those sports continually toppled records by impressive margins from the early 1900s to the end of the 20th century, according the study. But since then, Olympic records have shown just incremental improvements. We have stopped not only getting faster and stronger, according to the study, but also growing taller... [D]ata from the last three decades suggest that heights have plateaued among high-income countries in North America and Europe... As for our human lifespan, life expectancy in high-income countries rose by about 30 years from 1900 to 2000, according to a National Institutes of Health study cited by the authors, thanks to better nutrition, hygiene, vaccines and other medical improvements. But we may have maxed out our biological limit for longevity. The researchers found that in many human populations, says Toussaint, "it's more and more difficult to show progress in lifespan despite the advances of science."
The team looked at world records in a variety of sports, including running, swimming, skating, cycling and weight-lifting. Olympic athletes in those sports continually toppled records by impressive margins from the early 1900s to the end of the 20th century, according the study. But since then, Olympic records have shown just incremental improvements. We have stopped not only getting faster and stronger, according to the study, but also growing taller... [D]ata from the last three decades suggest that heights have plateaued among high-income countries in North America and Europe... As for our human lifespan, life expectancy in high-income countries rose by about 30 years from 1900 to 2000, according to a National Institutes of Health study cited by the authors, thanks to better nutrition, hygiene, vaccines and other medical improvements. But we may have maxed out our biological limit for longevity. The researchers found that in many human populations, says Toussaint, "it's more and more difficult to show progress in lifespan despite the advances of science."
"These traits no longer increase, despite further continuous nutritional, medical, and scientific progress ..."
Perhaps not as much progress has been made as our scientists say then?
"Human Lifespans Have Already Hit Their Peak Based on Current Methodologies and Technology" should be the title. My thought is that new methodologies and technologies, such as being able to keep cellular information from deteriorating as people age due to replication degradation, should increase lifespan. My understanding is that almost all body cells are replaced every seven years, but each total replacement is less accurate than the previous one. After a few replication cycles, information deteriorates, similar to a photocopy of a photocopy.
A new kidney would have saved him. We need a plan to grow new organs, even if it's in pigs or in brainless human bodies. Of course the Christian fundamentalists will never let this happen. Fucking hypocrites.
My condolences, annon. Regarding organ growth I was thinking something similar. At the turn of the XX Century people thought more or less the same, they believed that humans could never travel at higher than 20Km/hr, or couldn't run faster than some record of the time. Then tech changed and we did. Once they figure out the kinks of individual organ cloning without having to grow a whole being (and hopefully, without having to grow them inside an existing being, such as a pig) then well be in another era of pushing back those limits.
+Raider of the lost BBS
...since natural selection is actually the mechanism for evolution, yet society has totally undermined it with its ongoing mission to remove even the slightest possible risk to humans. It also mandates that even the most unsuitable people banging out kids as fast as they can is supposed to be celebrated by all.
1) It is not true that human life spans, height, and athleticism naturally improve. They assumed this by looking at an unusual period of time, the last century. There was NO natural, gradual improvement.
2) What is true is that in the past hundred years we made three different discoveries, each of which INSTANTLY raised lie expectancy, height, and athleticism to their current values. But it took a long time for that knowledge to spread. There are still people out there smoking cigarettes, drinking to excess, etc. Those three issues were healthy lifestyles (life span), nutrition (height), exercise (athleticism).
3) There are several discoveries that are not advances in healthy lifestyle, nutrition, or exercise that are very promising new ways to improve all three of those statistics. Genetic engineering and cyber-replacements could each individually increase any or all of those three things.
Technically, we can already increase anyone's height that has lost both legs. (https://www.quora.com/When-someone-is-getting-two-artificial-legs-can-they-pick-their-new-height)
The basic question they asked shows their assumptions are silly.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Doesn't this story come out every 15-20 years or so?
It basically says the same thing, that humans will never get better/taller/faster/more attractive than today. Then they say the same thing in 15-20 years, except that everything got better/faster/taller/more attractive during that time.
There is a 1 in 3 chance that you will get cancer. A cancer-riddled society is a profitable society.
Your manufactured food supply is poisoned. We will never clean up our food chain because that would cost too much. An obese society is a profitable society.
Alcohol, tobacco, and other poisons will continue to be legal no matter the impact. An addicted society is a profitable society.
Death is no longer a natural event. Death is now manufactured.
Could we live a longer, healthier life? Yes. But you must find a cure for Greed first. Good fucking luck with that shit. Might as well order that snow-cone maker for Hell.
And then, you can also just disregard this crap and have a decent life on earth, regardless whether there is an afterlife or not. Incidentally, if there is an afterlife, it will be very likely just you getting reincarnated into a new body, not necessarily in this universe. And yes, that means that for most, life is going to continue to suck.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.