Humans probably can't live longer than 150 years, new research finds:
Science is once again casting doubt on the idea that we could live to be nearly as old as the biblical Methuselah or Mel Brooks' famous 2,000-year-old man.
New research from Singapore-base biotech company Gero looks at how well the human body bounces back from disease, accidents or just about anything else that puts stress on its systems. This basic resilience declines as people age, with an 80-year-old requiring three times as long to recover from stresses as a 40-year-old on average.
[...] Extrapolate this decline further, and human body resilience is completely gone at some age between 120 and 150, according to new analysis performed by the researchers. In other words, at some point your body loses all ability to recover from pretty much any potential stressor. The study's conclusion that the body loses all ability to cope -- or at least to recover -- from stress before age 150 is line with the conclusions of similar studies, including one from last year that pegged the maximum possible human age at 138 years.
The full study [PDF] is published and available to the public in the open journal Nature Communications.
I think that quality of life is much more important than number of years. Would you like to live longer?
Journal References:
1.) Dmitriy I. Podolskiy, Andrei Avanesov, Alexander Tyshkovskiy, et al. The landscape of longevity across phylogeny [$], bioRxiv (DOI: 10.1101/2020.03.17.995993)
2.) Aleksandr Zenin, Yakov Tsepilov, Sodbo Sharapov, et al. Identification of 12 genetic loci associated with human healthspan [open], Communications Biology (DOI: 10.1038/s42003-019-0290-0)
3.) Timothy V. Pyrkov, Ilya S. Sokolov, Peter O. Fedichev. Deep longitudinal phenotyping of wearable sensor data reveals independent markers of longevity, stress, and resilience [$], medRxiv (DOI: 10.1101/2020.12.24.20248672)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2021, @04:52PM (6 children)
The obvious solution is to replenish it in some way.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday May 29 2021, @04:58PM (3 children)
There's also that telomere shortening problem.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2021, @05:22PM (1 child)
The telomeres are supposed to shorten, why would you want to stop it? You only get about 60 divisions from the fertilized egg before too many mutations have accumulated to be safe.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25459141/ [nih.gov]
Are people really trying to stop telomere shortening?
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday May 29 2021, @05:54PM
In theory one could use a custom retrovirus to repair the DNA throughout your body. There's also research being done on reactivating senescence, to kill the cells that are too badly deviated.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fakefuck39 on Saturday May 29 2021, @09:17PM
That only happens during cell division. If you take care of your body better, you don't need as much cell division after you've fully grown, and hence can live longer.
You can also do things like freeze your umbilical chord and some blood, and use that vast trope of unaged stem cells to make new repair materials for your failing parts.
>This basic resilience declines as people age
Yes, but this is a ridiculous argument for the maximum age. Our teeth didn't stick around long till we made fluoride toothpaste and floss (and sugar to counteract that). Our feet didn't have shoes. We didn't have face lotion. Do you need as much resilience when you got antibiotics to help you with it?
This is completely bs research. These people made up an arbitrary amount of stress and damage the body needs to recover from, and determined you die when you can't handle it. Well cool and all, however that does not determine the maximum age a person can live, or predict it in any freaking way.
We minimize stress on the body, we minimize damage to the body, we use external tools and chemicals to handle that stress and damage instead of the body. We introduce stem frozen young cells into the body when the body is old. This article is meaningless.
>at some point your body loses all ability to recover from pretty much any potential stressor
yes, but that point is not defined by age. It's defined by the amount of stress the body has been exposed to and has had to recover from. that point also assumes we can't introduce younger tissue into the body.
https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/health-topics/zx1634 [healthlinkbc.ca]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2021, @11:37PM (1 child)
That's probably why the Jews are kings of organ trafficking. And to think all this time I thought it was only for the Sheckels.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:25AM
How that does explain that most of the old folks now seem to be little ol' japanese ladies?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by acid andy on Saturday May 29 2021, @05:01PM (5 children)
The research itself sounds like it could be valuable but TFA seems to have spun the findings to state the obvious. No shit that humans probably can't live longer than 150 years unassisted. We already know natural aging puts a strong limit on human lifespan. The interesting question is how can we alter the processes that cause natural aging.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 2, Funny) by fustakrakich on Saturday May 29 2021, @07:23PM (2 children)
To live longer than 150 years, look both ways when crossing the street
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday May 29 2021, @07:46PM
For 150 years, I'd recommend looking in fourteen directions (left, right, in front, behind, above, below, and the diagonals). You know, just in case.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday May 30 2021, @01:20PM
That probably should've been twelve diagonal directions (four corners of a cube plus NW, NE, SW, SE) but I'm sensing this joke has run its course and then some--I best get me coat...
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday May 30 2021, @04:12AM (1 child)
In principle, seems only logical that any animal could be immortal. In a sense, animals already are, on the species level, not the individual level, able to produce infinitely many generations.
It's an awful lot of effort to produce and raise offspring. In a lot of animals, parents are really nailed down by the needs of offspring. Gets to the point where everything you do is for the kids. Maintaining a body would seem a lot less work. Yet we age anyway. Aging can't arise from lack of resources, as one of the more curious findings is that caloric restriction (that is not so severe as to cause malnutrition) prolongs life. If aging is caused by genetic damage, from ionizing radiation and accumulated error, why doesn't that also mess up reproduction?
So I think aging is, shockingly, an evolutionary advantage. Why a species that replaces all its members every generation should have an advantage over a species that doesn't, is the question. Perhaps it's that the mortal species is more flexible, better able to adapt to change. Stories are legion of the old fogey who lives in the past, still using terribly obsolete ways, all their knowledge and thinking hopelessly dated. Almost the same idea is that producing children serves as life's way of doing a reboot. Or perhaps mortality allows more risk taking, makes the loss of an individual life not particularly devastating.
Or it could be that despite appearances, maintenance is actually very expensive, so expensive that is really is less effort to produce and raise offspring. The stuff you have to do to keep a 1950s car in working order is a lot of things you'd normally never have to think about. Partly that's because newer cars are plain better, but it is also that cars have many parts that will last 20 years, no problem, but not 50 years. Plastic, vinyl, rubber, and such like flexible softer materials can turn brittle and hard, and split open or crumble the next time it is put under load. Kinda disconcerting to be driving along, and have the rubber bushings in the stabilizer bar, which have turned rock hard over so many years, suddenly disintegrate and make your steering wonky, the car unable to keep the front wheels aligned at all. Yeah, I had that happen to me. Fortunately wasn't going very fast, only 30 mph, when it happened. The car was still drivable, barely, and I was only a few blocks from home, so I turned around and went home, very slowly, with the front tries screeching every few seconds as they wobbled way out of alignment and then back in. Have also had a crack in an engine mount cause that to fail, so that the engine sank a little until it was resting on the steering linkage. Made it kinda hard to turn the steering wheel....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 31 2021, @07:30AM
To me it's quite obvious that that is the case. With every new generation natural selection can do its thing, making the new generation better adapted to the current environment than the previous. For that to work the old generation has to die at some point, otherwise the population explodes. If you want evolution you need death.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Saturday May 29 2021, @05:10PM (4 children)
If the maximum possible age is around 138 years old that is still quite some time away from the current average that are usually in the late 70s or early to mid 80s. We are actually then currently dying in our middle age. So there is quite a range we have to push it out if we are then now currently dropping at about the half way mark.
When looking at those maximum age people the longest once on record have dropped around the 120 years mark. Current oldest one is closing in on 119 (Kane Tanaka). She has had cancers twice and seems to mostly get around by wheelchair and living in a nursing home. Apparently she spends her days drinking Coke and playing Othello. So perhaps it's not so much that you survive the longest but how you actually live. Still it could have been worse.
Sure I would like to become 150 (or 138) years old. But it sort of depends on the condition I am in. I want to get there if things are fine. I don't want to spend like 60ish extra years, from the current average, in agonizing pain. Then I might as well just drop early.
Also it seems to be super unfair as most of the really old humans are women.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:40AM (3 children)
My mom is 91 and can pass for 55. (No grey hair, either.) Her secret? Good genes, and replacement therapy for estrogen and more critically, thyroid.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Funny) by acid andy on Sunday May 30 2021, @01:22PM (2 children)
Is she by any chance related to William Shatner?
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Reziac on Sunday May 30 2021, @01:34PM (1 child)
LOL... nope, and she looks a lot better for her age. And it's all her own hair. ;)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday May 30 2021, @06:16PM
Two words. Mi. Aow! ;D
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mhajicek on Saturday May 29 2021, @06:00PM (10 children)
Of course I would want to live longer. Lots longer. At 45 I feel that I'm just getting the hang of this life thing. It seems to me that most important decisions in the world are made by people with insufficient experience to make the best choices, and hard learned lessons are forgotten after a generation or two. Longer lifespans could help to alleviate that a bit.
I'm hoping for life extension to keep me around long enough for viable uploading technology to be developed.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Saturday May 29 2021, @06:18PM
Plus I really want to see what the future holds. There will be wonders greater than atomic powered robot cars on another planet and mRNA vaccines.
Dropping dead and leaving my wife alone has _no_ appeal.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snospar on Saturday May 29 2021, @07:01PM
I totally agree with this. I'm a bit older, but not much, and I think I have a good handle on life and how I want it to progress. There's still lots of things I want to do and new things to try so anything that keeps me going a bit longer gives me more time to do just that. One thing that irks me is that it's very easy to spend/waste time doing the same old same old, staying with the safe and familiar rather than trying the new things that are on my "to do" list. I guess part of that is the risk aversion that comes with age; I need to force myself back into the 20 something mindset that can say "Fuck it, today I'm going to try X" and we'll pick up the pieces later.
Definitely going to do it. Right after my nap.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 30 2021, @01:11AM (3 children)
Don't worry, at 45 the parts are just starting to wear out. Tell us how you feel after another 30 years of steadily deteriorating sight, hearing, joints, physical stamina, mental acuity, etc. The curse of life is that just as you start to get the hang of it, your abilities start deteriorating, and they don't stop until you die.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:30AM
I'm not looking forward to it. One knee is already fucked after an accident a few years ago. The other knee will probably go eventually due to the extra strain. I tore the ligatures in one of my arms now several times and it's taking longer each time to heal, if it ever will again. My hearing and sight is starting to go but at least I can now claim I just didn't hear you and it will be true.
If I make it to 150 it will probably have to be like a head in a jar Futurama style.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:41AM (1 child)
I've got a head start on that. One hip got messed up around 16, and I have a number of persistent health problems. They don't make life any less worth living.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday May 30 2021, @11:21PM
Physical challenges don't seem to be nearly as depressing as lack of sensory input: eyes the ears even smell and taste and especially touch when those go that's when people really start going downhill fast.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @01:48PM (1 child)
Considering the average age of our congress critters and presidents... are you really sure about that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:06PM
How else is Trump going to return to us as the undisputed glorious Emperor of Mankind?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 31 2021, @07:21AM (1 child)
By the time you're 80 years old you'll have quite a lot more experience without needing to further extend your life span. I'm nearly 60 now, and one of the things I notice with having more and more life experience is that more and more of the experience isn't new anymore, a lot of it is just a variation on things already experienced, and the thrill of really being surprised by something gradually happens less and less. That could be the reason that often enough elderly people, while being quite content with their present lives, at the same time have no problem with the idea that their lives will be ending relatively soon. Once you reach the point that you feel you've already experienced the things you want to experience in life, then what value exactly does continuing to live for several more decades add to your life?
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday May 31 2021, @02:32PM
You could apply that experience toward helping others.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Saturday May 29 2021, @06:37PM (4 children)
Main Page SoylentNews™ Articles Posted on Saturday, 29 May 2021 Can't Show Comment Counts Larger than 0, New Research Finds.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2021, @06:55PM (1 child)
The telomeres completely disappeared.
(Score: 3, Funny) by BK on Saturday May 29 2021, @07:30PM
Our servers could use a engineered virus to maybe fix those telomeres…
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday May 29 2021, @07:02PM (1 child)
And you thought Pipedot was dead!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @07:44AM
I just posted on Pipedot...and got a reply a couple of days later!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MIRV888 on Saturday May 29 2021, @06:44PM
I have been saying 'I wish I had 100 more years.' for some time now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2021, @10:04PM
the "you" or "me" starts (or stops) with the skin boundary.
but we kinda know (thank you yoghurt industry) that "me" or "you" is also alot of stuf that didn't come out of the original mom but was acquired (or invaded).
so methinks, this other stuff, after a few years "on the outside" is like a second "me" or "you".
the body adapts (or is shanghaied) to this.
how this adaption influences ageing:
either the " other me" evolves and/or our immune system has limited capabilities (like a library has limited space for books).
maybe if we could keep an environment with other "me" or "you" consistant over a long time, the original "me" or "you" would live longer. ofc the "original intruders" themselfs have to evolve and adapt constantly. if the pressure can be reduced, it will also (not) propagate to the original "me" or "you".
in short, we cannot survive without bugs. if we can keep " our bugs" healthy, like keeping breathing air and drinking water clean, we can live longer too?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday May 29 2021, @10:58PM
Isn't the whole point of longevity research and development to stretch the current limits, think outside the box, and shatter old paradigms?
Nice that they have drawn a line in the sand, next group will surely be attempting to cross it.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Sunday May 30 2021, @07:38AM
It's more likely 120. Looking at the current outliers [wikipedia.org] in age distribution, it would seem that the maximum human age is about 117 years for women and 114 for men. Looking at the outliers of those outliers, we can stretch it to 122 years, assuming that the single 122 case [wikipedia.org] is valid, for which some doubts [wikipedia.org] have been expressed.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by oumuamua on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:21PM
Will essentially allow all people to be immortal because after 15 years have passed, the next anti-aging breakthrough will extend life another 15 years, repeat. The breakthrough will probably come from nature:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/how-ginkgo-biloba-achieves-near-immortality [sciencemag.org]
https://www.science.org.au/curious/earth-environment/animals-can-live-forever [science.org.au]
Would be so karmic if humanity causes the key species that unlocks immortality to go extinct before we unlock its secrets.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by slap on Sunday May 30 2021, @05:16PM (1 child)
You want anti aging - just keep your weight to a good level, exercise, and eat properly.
When I started planning on retiring just over 8 years ago I decided that if I wanted to enjoy my retirement time I needed to be in good physical condition. Now I'm in better shape than most people 20 years younger than me. There are no guarantees in life but if you are well prepared you will be ready to take advantage of opportunities that come your way.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday June 08 2021, @09:03AM
This is very good advice. If you're not careful, it creeps up on you and you find yourself starting to struggle with all kinds of things.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday June 08 2021, @09:06AM
Living things have evolved to reproduce and then to die at some point in the future. This implies that people are regularly and frequently replaced with a fresh new batch. Young minds and old minds are very different. What are the ethical implications for significantly altering the balance towards the old?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].