Study Suggests There's No Limit On Longevity (smithsonianmag.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Smithsonian: The science of longevity is surprisingly controversial, mainly because there are so few people of extreme old age -- defined at 110 years or older -- around to study. So researchers look to statistics to try and figure out how long people can live. [Ben Guarino reports via The Washington Post] that in 1825, actuary Benjamin Gompertz put forth the idea that the odds of dying grow exponentially as we age. Further research bears that out. Between the age of 30 and 80, the odds of dying double every 8 years. What happens after that, however, is not completely figured out. According to a controversial study released in 2016, which analyzed data from 40 different countries, the average person could make it to 115 with the right genes and interventions, and a few genetic superstars would be able to make it to 125. But that was it, they argued. There was a wall of mortality that medicine and positive thinking simply cannot overcome.

But not everyone is convinced by that data. That's why for the new paper in the journal Science, researchers looked at the lifespans of 3,836 people in Italy who reached the age of 105 or older between 2009 and 2015, with their ages verified by birth certificates. What they found is that the Gompertz law goes a little haywire around the century mark. According to a press release, a 90 year old woman has a 15 percent chance of dying in the next year, and an estimated six years left to live. At age 95, the chance of dying per year jumps to 24 percent. At the age of 105, the chance of dying makes another leap to 50 percent. But then, surprisingly, it levels off, even past 110. In other words, at least statistically, each year some lucky person could flip the coin of life, and if it comes up heads every time, they could live beyond 115 or 125.

Comments

Seems odd

[alvinrod]

Is that a consequence of biology or the result of a mathematical oddity arising as a result of so few people living that long and those who do being exceptional cases? The results seem somewhat counter-intuitive, so I'm inclined to think it's the latter case.

I'm more interested in seeing what the interventions that are currently available (and those that will become available over the next several decades) will do in the long run. Maybe they won't extend the total amount of time all that much, but if I can feel like I'm 40 when I'm 90, I won't complain too much if I still check out at 100.

Re:Seems odd

[Anonymous Coward]

or the result of a mathematical oddity arising as a result of so few people living that long and those who do being exceptional cases?

It's the former, more than the latter. Once you get to a small enough pool of people, individual traits override general norms. For example, if only 10 people a year make it through 110 but one dies of a bear attack, then suddenly mathematically you can say there's a high incident of bear attacks when you're 110. The real stupidity, of course, is if no one has ever lived past 125, then obviously mathematically a coin flip would always land tails and you must die at 125. But another average for the age group argues some other high (say 95%) but constant value which obviously isn't true.

Same thing with trying to use past age extensions that there *must* be further age extensions in the future. Past behavior is not a guarantee of future performance.

Re:Seems odd

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like a bunch of speculation and fluff, rather than new scientific evidence that such things as telomere shortening don't put a hard upper cap on how old we can get.

Re: Seems odd

[reanjr]

I wonder if it has something to do with relying on birth certificates. It could be that those around 100-110 years old who have a birth cirtificate are -for whatever reason - skewing the results.

Re: Seems odd

[fahrbot-bot]

I wonder if it has something to do with relying on birth certificates. It could be that those around 100-110 years old who have a birth certificate are -for whatever reason - skewing the results.

I imagine everyone in that age range has (or had) a birth certificate. Finding and verifying them is the difficult thing. For example, my wife's father was born in 1916. When he died in 2005 (age 89, near Watertown, NY) we needed an official copy of his birth certificate. The original (paper) birth certificate was in the basement of a church in Waynesville, NC, which was the town where he was born. Who knows how difficult it might be to find reliable birth records for older people in Europe born before the two world wars...

Re: Seems odd

[JaredOfEuropa]

skewing the results.

Then, a "big data analyst" will conclude that issuing a birth certificate extends our life span.

Re:Seems odd

[Anonymous Coward]

after 80 people want to die. Just talk to your grandmother.

Re:Seems odd

[gweihir]

It just shows that you can nice-looking mathematical models that even seem to fit the available data, yet are completely wrong nonetheless. Amateurs at work.

Re:Seems odd

[Anonymous Coward]

but if I can feel like I'm 40 when I'm 90,

That's the real issue. There's more to life than just the number of years you are alive. Statistics and birth certificates are meaningless.

It's not how many years you live, it's the quality of your life that matters.

Right now, a typical person who is 100 years old, even if they are in relatively good health for their age, is extremely weak and frail. Barely able to walk, barely able to function. Do you really want to live like that for **ANOTHER** 100 years? That's not life, that's a prison sentence.

But, if I could be 150 years old and in the same physical/mental condition that I am at 40 or 50, now I'm interested.

But this is going to require some sort of medicine or treatment that is administered early in life and that slows the aging process. Otherwise, this is all just pointless wankery.

Re:Seems odd

[nospam007]

"Is that a consequence of biology or the result of a mathematical oddity arising as a result of so few people living that long and those who do being exceptional cases? The results seem somewhat counter-intuitive, so I'm inclined to think it's the latter case"

No genetics or the right food can save you from being run over by a bus.

Re:Seems odd

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The assumption was the chance of dying went exponential. But there may be a stability plateau out there nobody has reached yet. Well if not stable then stable-er than exponential anyway.

Your cells stop dividing i.e. renewing, and slowly just die off of old age until there aren't enough cells alive in this or that organ to keep you alive.

But if there are some core of cells that live much longer, or keep dividing, and you can survive the die-off of everything else...

It's a great concept but is it true.l?

Re: Seems odd

[Anonymous Coward]

... And what else should they rely upon, besides birth certificates? That's the only official, most likely verified source I can think of.

Reading some comments make me think that Americans find it unbelievable that other countries have far higher life expectancy, such as Italy or Japan. The fact that people die early in the US doesn't mean that the rest of the (first) world has the same problem.

Re:Seems odd

[Applehu Akbar]

Wasn't there a grand total of one person who survived beyond 115?

Re: Seems odd

[Anonymous Coward]

its just fluff crap semi science

Re:Seems odd

[postbigbang]

Or mowing a lawn in a white neighborhood while being black in the USA. Or being a journalist in a newsroom when someone has a grudge. Or simply being a kid in school when someone gets a hold of family weapons and slaughters you.

Perhaps going to a wedding in Yemen. Being on a 747 that moves accidentally in to Russian airspace. Or dying in the Arizona desert to escape the brutality of puppet Central American regimes.

Maybe it was black lung disease, asbestos, benzene. Decades of nicotine or alcohol addiction. Something's going to get you, and nihilistic surveys on Italians means only that they escaped these things and ate well and exercised.

Re:Seems odd

[Anonymous Coward]

There was an Indonesian guy who lived to be 146. He had outlived all of his peers, his children and his grandchildren. Near the end of his life, he said he just wanted to die because there was nothing left for him.

Death, after a time, is something that is a good thing. It would be horrible to live in a world that has become cold, distant and unfamiliar to you. Living forever is a fate that would be worse than death.

Re: Seems odd

[fahrbot-bot]

We have birth records online, why don't you?
I guess the lack of a highly centralized government makes it hard to coordinate anything.

I imagine new(er) birth records are also online, but that tracking down and entering old(er) records (like from 1916) is difficult and cost/time prohibitive to do en-mass.

Re: Seems odd

[Anonymous Coward]

As one who has every intention of living forever I say you may be right about yourself and many with your outlook. As for me I'm 56 going on 30 and life is and always will be an adventure. I suspect I'll feel the same way when I'm out among the stars on my 1,000 year birthday.

Re:Seems odd

[Wycliffe]

The assumption was the chance of dying went exponential. But there may be a stability plateau out there nobody has reached yet. Well if not stable then stable-er than exponential anyway.

Your cells stop dividing i.e. renewing, and slowly just die off of old age until there aren't enough cells alive in this or that organ to keep you alive.

But if there are some core of cells that live much longer, or keep dividing, and you can survive the die-off of everything else...

It's a great concept but is it true.l?

A 50/50 chance of dying each year isn't much of a plateau. Also, even if there is a plateau, your quality of life at 105+ isn't very great no matter who you are. You are typically pretty weak and decrepit. It might be useful from a scientific aspect if we can figure out why the remaining cells are more hardy and we can make the other cells behave similarly but unless we can halt aging before people start going down hill, it's almost a curse. It also would be a financial disaster to have a huge number of 100+ people who could barely work sticking around indefinitely.

Re: Seems odd

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 9 over that age alive right now.

Are you really this lazy?

Re: Seems odd

[reanjr]

There isn't any other reasonable source to rely on. But that shouldn't stop you from pausing to recognize that the one area showing statistical variance coincides with a time period when records start to become sketchy.

the study is wrong

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

With a sample of 7 billion, no one has lived past 115. If the study does not predict a limit it is wrong.

It is arguing "there is recorded instance of someone dying in the year 116, 117 etc, so no one will die at those ages."

Re:the study is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

You make a good point, but actually the sample is not 7 billions (we don't know when those currently alive will die) the sample is whatever number of billions of people who have died so far.

Re:the study is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeanne Calment 122 years, 164 days -- beats your 115.

Re:the study is wrong

[Njovich]

What a weird line of thinking. Just because nobody has thrown head 64 times in a row (in a proper coin toss), doesn't mean that there is some fixed limit on the amount of times you can do it. With only 7 billion, or 10 billion, or 20 billion people the odds of someone reaching 130 are very small, but not impossible. You'd think people on /. would understand how quickly 1/2^n grows.

Re:the study is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

If there is a fixed odd of dying each year, there is no upper limit. Whatever the odds, there is always a chance to survive 156 years more. It is just the odds are very low and 7 billions is not enough to get one.

Re:the study is wrong

[hai_Priesty]

Argument from article is closer to "While we have little sample of people living over x years, that doesn't mean everything have to die by x years.

The sample is not 7 billion and multiple verified people has hit over 115. On top of what other replies already suggested, there have also been multiple claims of people from developing countries - especially many claims from remote and highland rural areas (which fits the current narrative of low stress, plenty of exercise and simple diet being conducive of longevity) - of people over 120.

While most claims either remain unverifiable or since debunked because of the sketchy record keeping in the 19th Century (in many places birth cert didn't even exist then, Carmelo Flores Laura https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... being an example), there is a reasonably high chance that a small handful of the longevity claims are real but undocumented.

Re:the study is wrong

[Aighearach]

I'm more worried about the awful starting conditions than the growth rate. Who cares if he got the growth rate wrong if the starting conditions are orders of magnitude off?

7 billion people alive now, not already died, well that's a small error. But larger is the fact that most of those people do not even live in countries where there is enough civic continuity to be able to trust old documents; many people in the world do not even use the same calendar, or treat counting the years of life with the same seriousness. To a lot of people in the world, it is like asking a stranger their weight; they don't really think that you have some right to an exact literal answer, and they'd be surprised if you took the answer to be like that.

Or places like Italy, where there was a war big enough to destroy a lot of documents right around the time of the surprising numbers, and also a lot of people at that time lied about their ages to join the military... and then were still in the military after the war when they needed their documents re-created... and they probably didn't want to admit the lie in that situation. You don't just need the people to present an old-looking piece of paper, you need to have the right civic conditions, continuously, in order to trust the documents and compare them to each other directly.

My wife always answers off by 1 first, then sometimes corrects the answer, because where she is from the custom is to use the age the person will turn this year! So it doesn't matter when in the year a person's birthday is, everybody gets a year older when a new year starts. It took me a few years to figure that one out, too. I thought she was just being a pessimist!

And then, not every country makes an effort to record all the deaths. In a lot of places there is no special documentation of deaths unless there was a court case, and one of the parties had above-average wealth. At age 130, most people would have spent any retirement savings, and there wouldn't be any court cases after they died. The older the get, the less likely it becomes.

Furthermore, if Grandpa says, "I'm 135 this year," do people all around the world rush to call Guinness, or do they just assume he doesn't remember numbers very well anymore? These records seem premised on having a younger relative who knows your age, has access to your documentation, and also cares about records. Very few of the interviewed "oldest people" seem impressed by the interest, or credulous of actually having the record. Some of them even get a sly smile when they say, "Oh, am I that old?!"

Re:the study is wrong

[rtb61]

Talking about big numbers, the study in it's entirety is shallow thinking insanity. First question, are you alive or are your cells alive because suck it up folks, you are born, live and die, every single day of your life, part of you is dying and part of you is being reborn. To live in reality is to die continuously, it's just that the dying catches up and overtakes the being reborn. To go beyond cellular existence is to extend quantum conscious existence, where you cells share a quantum field state that defines the conscious you, keeps those billions of cells juggling a shared existence, as they are born, live and die.

Sometime things are never as clear as they seem. For example to control your emotions, it is always assumed that you limit them, why, from my understanding to control my emotions is to choose the ones I wish to feel and express and generally promote a sound physiological state to live pleasantly. A freeman is a slave to nothing and no on, not even their own emotions or life. Control your emotions, why wouldn't make yourself feel happy and content, why would you choose to feel nothing or let others control your emotions for you.

Do you already live forever, just a matter of relative time as a fraction of infinite space and time?

Re:the study is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a very simplistic model.

A 100 year old person isn't exactly as healthy as a 25 year old person.
We don't just go from being alive and healthy do being dead.
Rather we degrade little by little as we grow old until we don't have enough functionality to keep on living.

When the first 100 year old that is as healthy as they were when they were 25 shows up then I can agree with there being no limit on longevity.
Until then I would say that it is just a matter of not looking into how the body ages close enough.

Re:the study is wrong

[rkordmaa]

Almost all of them will die before age of 100, heck a large part of them will die before age of 40. If a person is at good health at age 100+ yes they have a good chance of making few more years, but what's the chance of making to 100 at good health in the first place? Pretty lousy. Are you fat? Not going to make it. Do you drink, smoke or do drugs too much? Not going to make it. Are you poor? Not going to make it. Are you unlucky when crossing the road? Not going to make it. Even if you live a perfect life, you are more likely to get cancer than to make it to 100+ and then you are not going to make it. Attrition rate in life is pretty bad and aging makes it much worse, organ functions decline, mass loss in bones and muscles, including heart, nervous system damage piles up, probability of cancer goes up etc, etc. Nobody dies of old age as such, but longer you live, more likely you are to face something fatal, or have lesser problems sum up to fatality. Eventually the survival rate drops to zero. 7 billion or not, exponent catches up to any sample size pretty fast. If you manage to bypass all the early deaths, then yes, actual limit is probably much further than ~120 years, but there is a definite biological limit on a cellular level. Aging does eventually kill off cellular division, that's a known fact from shorter lived species. This limit is harder to find in humans, keeping aging tissue samples in petri dishes for over a century is a pretty tough challenge.

Re:the study is wrong

[AmiMoJo]

No one has lived their lives in careful isolation from anything that might harm them and taken perfect care of their health and won the genetic lottery.

That's the real issue with old age. Stuff starts to break, damage accumulates, eventually something fails.

Re:the study is wrong

[CrimsonAvenger]

With a sample of 7 billion, no one has lived past 115

The sample is rather larger than 7 billion, since it includes not just the people alive now, but the people who lived in the 20th century who are no longer alive. Probably closer to 15 billion than to 7.

And someone may have lived past 115 that we just missed. Say, some Buddhist Monk born in the 19th century, no birth certificate, no record of his death....

Re:the study is wrong

[squiggleslash]

It doesn't include all the people alive now, just those that are over 115 years old, which is probably less than a hundred. It also doesn't include everyone who has died in the 20th Century, just those whose birthdays are known and reliably recorded. That's most people in the developed world, but not all of them.

Re:the study is wrong

[mark-t]

It might not be "outside the laws of physics" impossible, but that doesn't mean it's not still impossible for all practical purposes.

Re: the study is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

About 100 billion people have died. Of course that's not a very useful metric. Most of those people lived and died without modern medicine, and for them 60 years (or even 40) old was nearly impossible.

Memorize these names

[ravenshrike]

Elisabetta Barbi, Francesco Lagona, Marco Marsili, James W. Vaupel, Kenneth W. Wachter.

These statisticians are 115 times more deluded than Pons and Fleischmann

Re:Memorize these names

[gweihir]

I would make that 2^115. I would also call them amateurs, calling them statisticians is an insult to statisticians, at least if the story is basically right.

Re:Memorize these names

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an insult to statisticians, not them:

That's why for the new paper in the journal Science, researchers looked at the lifespans of 3,836 people in Italy who reached the age of 105 or older between 2009 and 2015, with their ages verified by birth certificates. What they found is that the Gompertz law goes a little haywire around the century mark

That's far more than enough for a statistical sample, especially for a limited population (i.e., those older than 105). There are several opinion polls that are run among less than one third of people.

Re:Memorize these names

[gweihir]

It is enough to make some medium confidence claims for ages 105 to 120 or so (no idea what the maximum age was they had in significant numbers, i.e. >100 or so). Incidentally, you are not only stupid but uneducated. "Opinion polls" are something fundamentally different.

Re:Memorize these names

[Anonymous Coward]

It is enough to make some medium confidence claims for ages 105 to 120 or so

... which is what they wrote in their paper, if you actually read the source instead of the Slashdot title. And since life expectancy has been growing since the beginning of mankind, it is more than reasonable to assume that it will also be valid in the future, when life expectancy will most likely be higher than now, as well as its tail values.

Incidentally, you are not only stupid but uneducated.

Said by one random average libturd, it sounds like a compliment.

Re: Memorize these names

[Anonymous Coward]

Libturd? Are you getting insult advice from your third grade child?

"Hur hur, I called someone a poopy"

Re: Memorize these names

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to log in. Anyways, feel free to choose the insult that best suits you.
 

If only..

[meglon]

... we could live on statistics, and not need things like... stem cells.

Only Limited by Money

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor people can't purchase the privelege and need to die as mandated by law.

And don't forget to sieg heil the homeland this July 4th! ae911truth org

Re:Only Limited by Money

[jpaine619]

Right... Because there's all those rich people living to 150.....

Delusional leftie.....

Re: Only Limited by Money

[Anonymous Coward]

You really cant assign a "wing" to cranks these days. The bottom of the tunnel this guy is at is where right and left meet.

Aging is a biological process

[Anonymous Coward]

No it isn't. Healing is a biological process, but damage is an entropic process, and the difference between the two, i.e. damage that your body doesn't know how to repair correctly, is called "aging". You can't just increase healing to compensate for damage because you need just the right kinds of cells in the right places; excessive healing is called "cancer".

You could sort of get around this by growing brand new organs, or even a brand new body, from stem cells, but your brain ages too, so you'd eventually become a senile old vegetable with a beautiful young body.

Re:Aging is a biological process

[Immerman]

No, cancer is it's own thing - a cell-line that rebels against the body's constraints in favor of personal immortality. Healing in contrast requires cells to carefully integrate themselves into the existing lattice. And a core problem in that regard appears to be the formation of scar tissue, which "patches things up" quickly, but also prevents new cells from properly integrating.

Re: Aging is a biological process

[Anonymous Coward]

Aging is genetic. You need to die for evolution to do its thing.

Between 0 and 18 you are fine, becoming healthier by the day in fact, but between 70 and 88 the damage becomes irreparable all of a sudden? No, nature decided you must die.

Re: Aging is a biological process

[turbidostato]

"Aging is genetic. You need to die for evolution to do its thing."

That's not exactly true. Death is needed only on steady populations (i.e.: on systems at their carrying capacity). Evolution is still capable of doing its thing without deaths as long as population is allowed to grow (i.e.: immortality plus space travel).

Re:Aging is a biological process

[omnichad]

I assume what they mean by excessive healing is that more DNA replication leads to more transcription errors and a higher risk of cancer. If they didn't, I guess they're just wrong.

Re: Aging is a biological process

[Anonymous Coward]

It is always to a particular gene's advantage that its host organism have the longest possible fertile lifespan as long as there is no trade-off in the quantity or quality of offspring. Nor do the elderly "have to die" to make room -- you can always attack some other tribe or species and make them die instead. It's just that the cost of maintaining our bodies approaches infinity as entropic damage accumulates and our organs deteriorate into useless hunks of scar tissue.

A Simple Explanation

[JayTech]

Genesis 6:3

Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”

Ok, problem solved. Quick, some tell Elisabetta Barbi, Francesco Lagona, Marco Marsili, James W. Vaupel, and Kenneth W. Wachter! With all the free time they'll have now, maybe they can come up with a formula that explains why humans need sleep.

Re:A Simple Explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

The book of Genesis is one of the first science books ever written. It correctly, albeit vaguely to account for the audience of its day, describes the creation of the Universe also known as the Big Bang in some circles.

Re:A Simple Explanation

[JaredOfEuropa]

A "science book" should contain research (or the results of research) that follows the scientific method: falsifiable hypotheses that are tested through experimentation and observation. The bible is just a bunch of facts given by some guy-in-the-sky. Even if those facts are correct, that doesn't make the book a scientific one.

Re:A Simple Explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

The bible isn't a bunch of facts. It is a fact that the earth exists and a fact that man exists, and the bible is an attempt to link the two of them to a specific deity (that may or may not exist). It is a story book.

Facts are truth that are independent of whether they are observed or not. There are no "alternative facts", only alternative interpretations that result from an incomplete observation or understanding of the facts.

For example, each and every time the subject of the pee-pee tape (whether or not it exists has not yet been determined, so its existence is not yet a fact for most of us because we haven't observed it) opens its mouth or sends a tweet, more facts about its character, integrity, and intelligence are provided for all to see. Some of us interpret those facts one way, others, interpret them a different way. Some of the interpretations are stupid (that's a fact) and some are not. But the facts are the facts and don't change with or because of our interpretations of them.

Re:A Simple Explanation

[tenco]

Well, that was before god killed every living thing in sight. Noah obviously got a new deal with his 900+ years. ;)

Re:A Simple Explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

Noah occurred before this, no new deal...

Re:A Simple Explanation

[Maeric]

Genesis 6:3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”

This verse in the Bible is most likely referring to the coming flood and not how long they should live. There were a number of people after Noah's time that lived beyond 120 years old. Including Abraham that lived to 175 years. His wife Sarah was 127 years old as well. Adam lived to 930 years old. My understanding is that people started to have shorter life spans than 900 years because of genetic degradation. That is also why there was no law, back then, against marrying your brother or sister. After a time, when genetics became an issue, God made it a law not to marry within your own family. This all lines up that we live in a cursed world that is subject to degradation.

Re:A Simple Explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

A "science book" should contain research (or the results of research) that follows the scientific method

Someone doesn't know their history... Tycho Brahe would not have been considered a scientist, from your point of view.

Re:A Simple Explanation

[tenco]

No, Genesis 6:3 is before the flood.

Despite all the medical advances

[MrKaos]

Maybe we're just really crap at looking after ourselves and each other.

50% chance

[phantomfive]

So a 50% chance of dying every year? Wow, that's just the comfort I needed on these long, cold, dark nights.

Re:50% chance

[Mostly a lurker]

Let's look at what this statistic really implies. The chance of reaching 115 is already (with current medical science) extremely low. The very, very few who make it that far have a 50% chance of dying each year. On that basis, fewer than one in a thousand will live to the age of 125 (1 in 2**10). So, yes, it is conceivable, but so unlikely that it will likely never really happen.

Re:50% chance

[gweihir]

What is really going on here is that the model is obviously broken.

Re:50% chance

[Junta]

Well, the model is likely incrooect, but people expecting an eternal increase in percentage... Well it can't go over 100%...

They are saying a person who lives to 122 basically flipped a coin 17 times in a row and came up 'heads' (after they had done the already statistically unlikely task of making it to 105). If the probability did indeed level off, that doesn't mean there is realistic chance of making it very far if the probability is really high.

Re:50% chance

[phantomfive]

Yeah, but it's not broken in the way I want it to break.

Re:50% chance

[gweihir]

Well, yes. And there is no possible test to find out whether the model holds past 120 or so (too few/no samples). For example, if there was a hard cut-off at 130 that does not have a large influence before 125, this would not even show up.

But essentially it comes down to people not understanding exponential decrease and reading things into this study that are not there.

Re:50% chance

[Anonymous Coward]

Paper is very misleading by giving numbers. There is no 50% chance of dying, that applies to everyone, because not all of the people had the same life quality and reasons why they lived so long.

Yeah but...

[Anonymous Coward]

this also means creimer will be around ... for centuries.

I plan to live forever

[Major_Disorder]

So far so good.

Re:I plan to live forever

[ebvwfbw]

Who wants to live forever?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:I plan to live forever

[Quirkz]

Aw, thought you were going to link to Queen's song from the A Kind of Magic album.

Re:I plan to live forever

[ebvwfbw]

OMG, I had no idea and I thought I knew all of their work. However I still love to hear Sarah sing. Hot chick.

I would have loved to be in the audience for the Queen show. Looks like they really put in the time to do it right with a big band.

My father's father's mother was

[Anonymous Coward]

105.

And then she died.

1800s to 2000s.

Dictators...

[Mats Svensson]

Oh PLEASE let Donald, Vlad, Kim, and all the other assholes die well before the cure for aging is rolled out.
Can you Imagine having those monsters around for all eternity?

Re:Dictators...

[aliquis]

Stefan Löfven, Annie Lööf, m.fl..

Re:Dictators...

[fahrbot-bot]

Oh PLEASE let Donald, Vlad, Kim, and all the other assholes die well before the cure for aging is rolled out.
Can you Imagine having those monsters around for all eternity?

Not to mention Dick Cheney. He's had 5 heart attacks, a coronary artery bypass, coronary artery stenting, coronary balloon angioplasty, had a cardioverter-defibrillator implanted, had an endo-vascular procedure to repair popliteal artery aneurysms, was outfitted with a left-ventricular assist device, and had a heart transplant.

Cheney's been one heartbeat away from no heartbeat since 1978.

Re:Dictators...

[Aighearach]

He's only 77, he might have another few hundred years to look forwards to.

Re:Dictators...

[Ecuador]

Yeah, talk about a horror story, Kim Kardashian living forever!

Re: Dictators...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Oh PLEASE let Donald, Vlad, Kim, and all the other assholes die well before the cure for aging is rolled out. Can you Imagine having those monsters around for all eternity?"

Oh ye of little imagination that someone even worse could arise.
And the wealthy could also keep their grip on power for all eternity.

The best move is not to play, BAN All research into extending human life spans.

Re:Dictators...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think any of those are close to being as bad as Donald, Vlad or Kim then there is a big likelihood that you are intentionally limiting your information bubble to a neo-nazi propaganda outlet.

Re:Dictators...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

This is a problem but not for Trump as he is term-limited at worst. It's the fuckers in Congress and the Senate who will need term limits. And the lifetimer judges, and not just on the Supreme Court.

If people didn't die of old age or disease, the world would probably be split in half right now under the dictators of Alexander the Great and Ghengis Khan.

Re:Dictators...

[drinkypoo]

This is a problem but not for Trump as he is term-limited at worst.

You're making assumptions, like that the rule of law will be observed. Stop it. That assumption is spectacularly unsafe, always has been, and is even moreso today.

If people didn't die of old age or disease, the world would probably be split in half right now under the dictators of Alexander the Great and Ghengis Khan.

History suggests that someone would surely have stuck a knife in 'em by now.

Re:Dictators...

[aliquis]

I don't.
They are worse.

But it wasn't hard to figure out what kind of person you were and where-from. There's just one group of people so fucking retarded. Maybe you should give it some thought why you are the only ones. The rest of the world isn't neo-nazi. It's just normal.

Noise

[Anonymous Coward]

sample noise

Controversy

[93 Escort Wagon]

The submission suggests scientific controversy... but the philosophical controversy regarding whether this is actually something humans should strive for is probably a much bigger deal.

Re:Controversy

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite.

No one in their right mind wants to live to a 100, let alone beyond that.

When young, act like an idiot.
When middle age, fight to keep your head above water.
When in your senior years, get selfish, get a convertible and buy organic.

The American Idiot Dream.

Re:Controversy

[justthinkit]

We are meant to have an arc to our life.
There is no arc in an old folks home.

House M.D. nailed it

Cell density

[Anonymous Coward]

Some tissues are very "cell dense." Dermal, brain, muscle, liver, spleen. They are composed of mostly living cells. Other tissues, bone, cartilage, connective tissues, are "intercellular matrix dense." Put a sample of these tissues under a microscope and you will see a few cells with a lot of 'non-living' tissue in between. This is one of the reasons a cut on the skin will close up in days or weeks, while a broken femur may take months to heal. More cells replicate at a faster rate, and also regrow the intercellular matrix at a faster rate.
So, biochemical methods to extend life currently focus on living cells. If, say, we help out telomeres, well, there are not telomeres in the intercellular material. We may end up with healthy skin, liver, and brain, but also arthritic joints, weak bones that spontaneously fracture, ligaments that rupture and tear. We may slow aging, but it may not slow equally in different tissues. Yes, other measures can be done to replace joints, etc. But we may end up like the horrific medical care trying to keep really old ladies pretty in Brazil (1985) film.
The above is wanton speculation on my part. Comments?

Mortality is the chance of renewal

[Anonymous Coward]

Mortality is what keep us from living under Genghis Khan, Hitler or Pol Pot forever.

It also allows new ideas to slowly take over, imagine all the fundamentalists from all corner of belief being still around. There would be no point in extended prison sentences, only death penalties. Either everyone would be immortal and the world would be crowded and conflicting, or the rich, corrupt and violent would rule and enslave the Earth more than now.

Death grants us as a species to opportunity to renew and evolve.

Re:Mortality is the chance of renewal

[Scarletdown]

Imagine what a living hell immortality would be in the aeons leading up to the heat death of the universe, or the Big Rip, or whatever... and beyond.

Re:Mortality is the chance of renewal

[turbidostato]

"Mortality is what keep us from living under Genghis Khan, Hitler or Pol Pot forever."

There two "kinds" of mortality: natural and violent. Even if we can avoid natural causes, nobody here is arguing to have a cure for a head chopped off so, bye, bye Hitler and Genghis Khan. Also given the violent traits of the lives of the ones like them, the longer they live, the most probably they find a wacky end (either violent or by letting them out of the healing procedures).

"Death grants us as a species to opportunity to renew and evolve."

Another argument could be that many of the problems we, as species and civilization, affront is because we die too soon and the ones that come after us repeat the same mistakes, since they are new for them. The most obvious may be war: how many (mainly male) teenagers either explicitly or implicitly see war as a romantic gest full of epic and worth of looking after (if only for the right causes) and then, how many veterans think the same (and even for those that still think that war is needed when it's needed, aren't the required standards set much, much higher?). It can be said that youngsters are naive and full of it and then, the elders that know better have lost the strength to be heard and/or make things happen they way they should. Maybe things would be different if that trend were reversed.

Another slashdot editor mistakes?

[AnthonywC]

Even the proton may decay and yet someone actually write a paper (or at least a headline) that suggest no limit on longevity? As our effective mortality rate is a perfect 100% which means there is absolutely zero factual evident to suggest otherwise. Also just from reading the summary, their findings seem to actually indicate the chance of dying does not worse after a certain age but that does not imply no limit on longevity.

Re:Another slashdot editor mistakes?

[gweihir]

They basically abused mathematics until they had the completely contra-factual statement they wanted. This just shows that some people make very bad mathematical models.

Re:Another slashdot editor mistakes?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're the one making mistakes. You seem to think that a particle with a half-life of 1 day has a limit on longevity. If so, then what is this limit in days, according to you?

*BSD is D E A D

[Anonymous Coward]

I went out to *BSD's grave on Decoration Day. The old forgotten cemetery is by the dark woods beyond the edge of town. There within olfactory distance of the municipal treatment plant you will find *BSD's final resting place.

*BSD's tombstone was shrouded by thick mosses and knots of noxious ivy. I gently pulled aside the tangled twists of thorns, and cleaned the decaying marker the best I could. My melancholy thoughts pondered that this indeed was *BSD's figurative charnel house of which so many have plaintively spoken.

Nothing is so pitiful as an untended grave, a loved one now forgotten. The short sad life of this doomed and fated OS makes us realize that there but for the grace of God go all of us.

I planted some wilting marigolds which I had found discarded behind Bud's Garden Center. By some miracle perhaps they will take root and bring a modicum of cheer to *BSD's God forsaken plot. My fervent hope is that the torpid colored boy who carelessly mows the cemetery doesn't slice them down, inadvertently mirroring *BSD's own doomed encounter with death's irresistible scythe.

Funny how things work out. Linux, that brilliant novam stellam, now runs the Internet and the world's fastest computers, while *BSD lies moldering within its forgotten crypt. Let the barren silence of *BSD's tomb be a mute reminder that hubris and braggadocio were no defense on that woeful day when the Angel of Death's bleak umbra was cast upon *BSD.

Re: *BSD is D E A D

[Anonymous Coward]

I applaud you.

Just once

[ArchieBunker]

I'd like to read something where Trump was not the topic and was not mentioned. Let it fucking go already.

Re:Just once

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate gives their life meaning. The same sort of people that used to (literally) bash gays, call black men boys, and tell women their brains were inferior can't do that anymore. Each time they move their hate to something else.

There's no reason to it. Donald Trump could bring about world peace, socialized healthcare, and give out his entire fortune to orphans. They still would despise him and deny he did anything positive at all.

Re:Just once

[gijoel]

. Donald Trump could bring about world peace, socialized healthcare, and give out his entire fortune to orphans. They still would despise him and deny he did anything positive at all.

Trump is never going to do any of those things.So far he's destabilized world peace, has made it harder for people to access health care in the US, and separated children from their parents. Hell if he did only one of those things you mention I'd nominate him for a Nobel.

Re:Just once

[Mats Svensson]

"Donald Trump could bring about world peace"
Yeah, I bet he could.
I think I saw that Twilight-zone episode.

He's just a big fat orange monkey paw.
Ask him for world peace, and good luck!

Re:Just once

[Daralantan]

I'm convinced that will never happen.

Re:Just once

[drinkypoo]

I'd like to read something where Trump was not the topic and was not mentioned. Let it fucking go already.

And yet you contributed to the mention of Trump by making your own, and giving attention to people mentioning Trump. I call shenanigans. You don't mind people mentioning Trump, because you get an opportunity to bitch about it.

Re:Just once

[Anonymous Coward]

You could say Obama did all that as well. He destabilized North Africa and the Middle East (more than they were) through invasions, drone attacks, and supporting the overthrow of governments. He signed Obamacare into law which also had the perverse reaction of making it harder for some people to access their doctors and forcing people off their current plans, and his admin was also separating children from parents at the border. All facts.

And Bush and Clinton too while we're at it. The reality is that the baby boomer generation make terrible presidents.

Re:Just once

[Anonymous Coward]

Donald Trump could bring about world peace, socialized healthcare, and give out his entire fortune to orphans. They still would despise him and deny he did anything positive at all.

Trump is never going to do any of those things.So far he's destabilized world peace, has made it harder for people to access health care in the US [thehill.com], and separated children from their parents. Hell if he did only one of those things you mention I'd nominate him for a Nobel.

Thank god youre here.

I suspect my liver begs to differ

[Snotnose]

The older I get the more fucked up things seem as I figure things out. The more fucked up things are the more I drink. Unless I can R&R my liver easily I can see my "best by" date.

Big thing today is the closing of the Toys-R-Us stores. Every talking head I heard said e-commerce killed them. Nobody mentioned how Mitt Romney, by way of Bain, did a leveraged buyout, sucked out all the cash, loaded it up with debt, then sold it to suckers.

I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was something like they had $500 million cash, $300 million debt. Bain bought them, stripped them of the assets, then sold them with something like $100 million cash and $5 billion in debt.

There is no way a company can survive that, Amazon/Walmart/Target had nothing to do with it.

Re: I suspect my liver begs to differ

[triffid_98]

Thanks for mentioning that. I was well aware of it but I doubt most people are. Also not to worry, while the USA is extremely not okay with stem cell research, Asian countries are totally down with that. You're going to have genically matched replacement parts in the next 20 years no matter how many Catholics that upsets. I mean, provided you can pay.

Re:I suspect my liver begs to differ

[Aighearach]

They said there is no hard limit, they didn't say there aren't ways to limit it through behavior.

I don't really care if you want to drink yourself to death like an idiot, even after finding out that it makes things more fucked up, rather than less. But do your internet posts have to be so stupid?

And by-the-way, the consortium that bought Toys-R-Us paid $6.6B for the stock. You seem a little confused on that point. They didn't sell it. The debt was debt that the consortium (now "Toys-R-Us") owed. They don't seem to have made any profit from the deal in the end, but since they borrowed the money they didn't lose much either. It was a failing business that was loaned money because it was taken over by new owners, who at least had some non-zero chance to turn it around. That deal itself added to the financial difficulties before it, but it still stayed afloat longer than it was going to without longterm financing, so it is hard to say that the consortium didn't do a decent job running it. Now, perhaps their longterm viability would have been better if they downsized instead of selling, but as a public company that would have been almost impossible to do; the investors would lose too much. As it was, the stock price went way way up between the day they announced they were looking for a buyer, and the price that the stockholders got when it sold!

Re: I suspect my liver begs to differ

[Aighearach]

You're an idiot, there is lots of stem cell research being done in the US, and very little of the more interesting stem cell research is still even being done with cells harvested from aborted embryos.

When you read the news, you missed the modifier "embryonic" in front of the word "stem cells." Also, that news was only about government-funded research; and the government doesn't fund most of the research in the US! Furthermore, even with embryonic stem cells, it is only certain "lines" of cells they can't use with public funding; they quickly developed new lines from donated umbilical tissues that don't have the restrictions.

Re:I suspect my liver begs to differ

[ebvwfbw]

Most of us move on to the big boy's toy store. Like Tractor Supply where you an get a Red Rider BB gun. Then when you grow up even more move onto the big stuff. Farming farms with tractors or running big corporations. Get into golf, go to places where you can shoot real big guns. Even tanks.
Kind of sucks after that. You get too old, get pushed out by young bucks, don't even want to do fireworks any more. Have to give up golf, then you die.
So never get to that point. Keep playing golf.

Fired at 50 + 75 years unemployed.

[eggstasy]

Man I am really looking forward to living until 125, that just means I have to ahem save up TWICE than I make over the course of a 30 year career, to have a shot at supporting myself in my old age? Or become an unsustainable burden on an already bankrupt social security. Breed like rabbits in order to be supported by my kids like in a third world country?
WTF would you even DO with that much time, in your frail body full of pain. Have those scientists ever seen people grow old, suffer needlessly for decades and die? :)
I've buried nearly all my relatives, thank you very much, I would be very happy if people didn't live so long.

Re: Fired at 50 + 75 years unemployed.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a scientist in the field I hear this a lot. You are absolutely correct that it's undesirable to live out an extended period of frailty and poor health. Because of this most work in the aging field has shifted to a paradigm of extending not only lifespan but healthspan. Basically the goal is that at 90, you should feel and function like a much younger person, say 60. Put another way, ideally we want to extend lifespan, but not that period at the end of life were we are sick and frail.

The good news is that we are getting very good at coming up with clever ways to make this happen. We can replace stem cells, kill off problematic cells, slow tissue declines, preserve strength and energy, slow cognitive declines, and generally make things fall apart slower. Some newer research has yielded what might even be considered rejuvenation, (Aka running the clock backwards) but it's still early days.

The bad news is that none of this is going to help anyone today. In all likelihood it's going to be several years before any of this gets approved for human use. Some of that is due to funding, some to do with outdated regulatory machinery that just doesn't know how to deal with this kind of technology. The FDA doesn't recognize aging as a disease, so if Pfizer came out tomorrow with a pill that could make you live 30 years longer and feel like you were 20, they couldn't get it approved. But most of the problem comes down to one very simple issue. Proving that a treatment extends lifespan in humans takes a long time. That said, in recent years there has been progress to deal with these issues including development of alternative approval stategies and methods for evaluating effecacy that are much faster.

Progress takes time, but it is coming. It won't be perfect, but it won't be the dystopian future you might imagine.

Re:Fired at 50 + 75 years unemployed.

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF would you even DO with that much time, in your frail body full of pain. Have those scientists ever seen people grow old, suffer needlessly for decades and die? :)

You should read about these villages in Italy where plenty of people get to be centenarians. And see videos about these people as well. They don't look like what you'd imagine for a 100 year old person and they definitely don't suffer needlessly. They are active until very late in their lives and get to 100 either still active, or at least in pretty good shape. And given that there are plenty of people in these villages that do get to this age, it's not just one statistical fluke...

Re:Fired at 50 + 75 years unemployed.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you live to 125, there's a good chance you'll be healthy and working longer too. Smokers often argue the same thing, but the truth is smokers often spend much longer being sick and dependant on the system before dying sooner.

While there may be no limit

[jfern]

The oldest person to ever live was 122 years and 164 days. The 3rd oldest person to live recently died at age 117 years and 260 days. If half die each year, then less than 4% of the people who beat the current number 3 person would beat the current number 1 person. It could be quite a while before the all time record is broken again.

Fraud or errors

[Kjella]

If you look at a conclusion that's medically ridiculous then rather than looking for a magic island of coin flips you should probably sanity check against other data. Here in Norway I looked it up and we have 66 people age 105 or older. Our currently oldest person is 108 years, 273 days at last update. If we were doing coin flips you'd expect 33 age 106, 16 age 107, 8 age 108, 4 age 109, 2 age 110, 1 age 111. The reality is we have 4 age 108, all the rest died at 105, 106 or 107 or in other words quite consistent with an exponential increase. Of course the odd exception does happen, last year our second oldest person ever died at 112 but she was probably one in a million.

The main reason I doubt people even with official papers is that as late as the 90s a classmate of mine was issued an incorrect passport, it was still being typed by hand and listed him as two years older than he actually was. Guess who got to buy beer and booze early? Now that wasn't the master data so the extra years "disappeared" at the next renewal but just because something is written and stamped as an official record doesn't make it correct. And being able to retire a few years early and claim senior citizen discounts on everything is a pretty big benefit, there's little doubt in my mind that this happens in systems that allow it. And things were a little different 100+ years ago...

Re:Fraud or errors

[Anonymous Coward]

>in other words quite consistent with an exponential decrease

This is exactly what they are saying by constant mortality (rate). Still, this does not mean it is bounded. What they show is that the mortality rate is bounded, and thus, there is always a small chance of survival. There is never 100% chance of dying during in year.

As a biologist, I find nothing medically ridiculous until proven otherwise. Aging is something that is not well understood excepted on /.

As far as I know aging perturb a lot of biological processes. It should not be surprising that aging may perturb aging late in the life... And stop the aging process, still not reverting it and consequently, you probability of dying is very high.

Re:Fraud or errors

[Kjella]

What they show is that the mortality rate is bounded, and thus, there is always a small chance of survival. There is never 100% chance of dying during in year.

They built a model based on extrapolating to infinity from a very tiny plateau in a very tiny data set which I showed was totally wrong using data from a different country and that doesn't pass the sniff test.

As a biologist, I find nothing medically ridiculous until proven otherwise. Aging is something that is not well understood excepted on /.

Ah, the people who failed math, statistics and logic in general. Let me try to dumb it down, if a 106yo would have the same mortality rate as a 105yo then all other things being equal it would mean that no part of the body is worse off than last year. A 106yo heart is as good as a 105yo heart, 106yo lungs are as good as 105yo lungs, 106yo kidneys as good as 105yo kidneys, 106yo bones as strong as 105yo bones. It would basically mean that there's no wear and tear, no weakening of the immune system, no accumulation of faulty cells, waste products or toxins - basically no bodily decay at all. It goes against everything we know about aging in <105yos, aging in other species or even basic product reliability - more and more parts wear out and risk breaking.

Fail

[gweihir]

"the research looks to statistics"... It seems these people do not know how to do statistics, like at all. They would just need to count the people 150 years old and older and they would immediately see a sample size of zero. That passes basically any sane test for the statement "there is a hard upper bound to ageing".

OI don't know why otherwise sane and smart people lose it completely when it comes to aging. Yes, you will grow older and yes, you will die it it will probably be long before reaching 110 years. So what? Deal with it. That is how things are set up this life. Using fake mathematics will not help, but will waste some of the time you have.

Side effects include suicidal thoughts

[Karmashock]

Quality of life.

"alive" means what in this context? Heart still beating? Is the mind still there? Is the life active? Are you in pain? Will you look like a shriveled yoda?

Full regeneration is what you're going to want... and for real immortality you're going to need neural backup and replication.

Imagine living to 125 in increasing pain and decreasing mobility.

Yay.

Side effects include suicidal thoughts.

Re:Side effects include suicidal thoughts

[iggymanz]

except the interviews with most of those of extreme age indicate an upbeat happy, accepting and relaxed state of mind. Maybe that's why they lived so long, the effects of stress and discontent and anger kill off the others.

Re:Side effects include suicidal thoughts

[Karmashock]

Did you get that peer reviewed?

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/...

Do you know what the suicide rate is amongst the old?

No offense... I think you're 100% wrong and don't think there is really good evidence for that position.

Re:Side effects include suicidal thoughts

[iggymanz]

The highest suicide rate is not found in the old, but of the middle aged. Caucasian males especially.

You link to a nonsense article, that man is not 145 years old. Only one human has ever reach 120 years, and that woman then died at 122. All other humans have died at 119 or less years.

And after reading many of the interviews of the world's oldest, I can tell you the majority are happy satisfied people; not bitter ones.

You are wrong.

Re:Side effects include suicidal thoughts

[Karmashock]

citing your left finger is not convincing me... there's a reason assisted suicide is something the old tend to go for not the young.

But frankly this is a pointless argument. You are married to a concept absent any basis and I really don't see why I'd waste time trying to convince you... no one is paying me to me to help you here. Not motivated.

Re:Side effects include suicidal thoughts

[iggymanz]

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/...

pointless because you ignore hard facts. pointless because you link nonsense article about absurd age of 145 years.

I have hard facts and data on my side.

You have willful ignorance

Re:Side effects include suicidal thoughts

[Karmashock]

Proving my point, you didn't read your own statistics.

Women in your chart have the highest suicide rate at around 65 and then taper off.

However, men in your chart have an increasing rate of suicide as they get older.

By all means, mod me down for letting the air out of your balloon. The lowest suicide rates are when people are young and the highest are when people are older. To suggest that there is a negative relationship between age and suicide contradicts the very pdf you cited and clearly didn't read or understand.

I say again, GOOD DAY, sir.
https://youtu.be/HaoySOGlZ_U?t...

Re:Side effects include suicidal thoughts

[sysrammer]

I took a look. Yah, he pretty much stepped on his dick with those stats. Presumably he didn't reply because he understands his mistake.

Ha ha, we all know it doesn't work that way.

OT: you put a link in a reply to me a cupla months ago to "Mad World".
The thought that I might have gone through this life without witnessing that performance brings a tear to my ear.
I thank you, sir.

The cynic in me...

[aepervius]

The cynic in me tells me that if a cure for age was rolled out, it would be first and foremost used by those rich , and thus dictators included, before it hits the general public. And that would be the last generation of human : earth could not sustain eternal people.

50/50 every year?

[CODiNE]

Sounds interesting but try to flip a coin and get the same side 10 times in a row. Whoops. You're dead.

It's not like Vegas where you can put it all on black, double your money and walk away.

This is So Dumb

[tomxor]

Statistics do not dictate how things work in the same way that the bernoulli equation doesn't dictate how gas flows... it just observes it and can predict it mathematically to some degree of accuracy. This kind of idiocy is like looking at moores law saying "it's exponential, chips improve to infinity" without attempting to look at the underlying mechanisms.

Re:This is So Dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. Usually I'm downvoted as a troll for pointing out that laws of physics are descriptive, not prescriptive.

Re:This is So Dumb

[tomxor]

Delivery is key ;P

Not quite...

[Anonymous Coward]

This paper and the paper it responds to are only quantifying the limits of 'normal' population aging. 'Normal' simply being defined as how most people currently age. Neither paper says anything useful about what can actually be achieved with interventions that significantly modify the aging process. It is relatively accurate if all you want to ask is how long can you expect to live at best if you eat healthy, take good care of yourself, exercise, and win the genetic lottery.

Two examples:
1) If these studies were performed before the advent of modern medicine, they would predict a maximum lifespan significantly shorter than present because overall mortality rates were significantly higher. Mortality rates have changed and will continue to change as technological develpmenta that meaningfully affect health and aging progress.

2) There are MANY labrotory models that have seen lifespan extensions well beyond population maximums for unaltered or untreated populations. Some common examples are ames dwarf mice and caloric restriction. More recently we have seen doublings or more of median lifespan in some organisms with drug treatment.

If your interested there is quite a good intro over at senescence.info and the associated 'DrugAge' and 'GeneAge' databases.

The problem is that

[Anonymous Coward]

there is no positive proof. If there was a few people 120+ then yes otherwise its doubtful.

Cool! 6 billion years old is feasible!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who would have thunk it! No limit! Add that so few people have lived to more than one hundred when there is no limit. Maybe its the wild lifestyle of 90+ year old that is the problem?

Study Suggests There's No Limit On Longevity

[Oligonicella]

Telemeres disagree.

Re:Study Suggests There's No Limit On Longevity

[iggymanz]

many other things about humans' bodies disagree too. Out of 108 billion humans who were ever born, exactly 1 reached 122 with all the advantages of modern civilization. I'm going to say it's impossible to live to 124, all evidence is on my side.

Re:I, too, plan to live forever

[Anonymous Coward]

So far so g

bad science

[iggymanz]

I'd say all evidence shows there is a hard limit on human life, and reaching 124 years is utterly impossible. Prove me wrong. You can't.

immuno cell variations

[HiThere]

IIRC there was an earlier study of someone who had reached the age of 125 and they were down to one variation in immunological stem cell. This would seem to imply that if you want to live much past that, you acquire bubble-boy syndrome.

OTOH, it's true that this was a study of just one individual of that age. And possibly it would be possible to build new immuno stem cells from rejuvenated skin cells. Etc. So they may be ways around it. But at first glance it looks as if there is an inherent lifespan limit unless you tinker with it.

Re:immuno cell variations

[bluegutang]

You recall wrong, because nobody has ever been recorded to live past 122. Source

Re:immuno cell variations

[HiThere]

Getting the age wrong doesn't mean everything else was wrong. Perhaps it was only 115. She was someone quite elderly who died a few years ago in, I think it was, North Carolina. I probably got the specific type of immune cell wrong, too, and that's also irrelevant to the general point.

healthy life expectancy

[mapkinase]

I am more interested in that. Does the article mentions Australian centigenarian traveling to Zurich to commit assisted suicide?

Woo! I get to live to 150 after all!

[Anonymous Coward]

What? I can dream. Fuck you.

It does not suggest that.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are going to use a statistical analysis then do it right. It is true that the chance of heads is always 50% on each flip of the coin. However, the possibility of it coming up heads ten times in a row is 1 in 1024 ( i.e., 1/2 taken to the tenth power). The possibility of living twenty years calculates to 1 in 1,048,576. That definitely does not imply "No Limit on Longevity".

Cancer

[NewYork]

If humans lived long enough, they would all eventually develop cancer. This is because of inherent limits in the DNA repair mechanisms.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/1...