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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: 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