This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
Human life span limited to 115 years, research suggests
Research published in Nature has indicated that human life spans may be limited to a maximum of about 115 years.
The study drew the conclusion after analysing decades of data on human longevity.
The news comes as the life expectancy of humans has continued to increase, thanks to vaccines, safer childbirth and better general healthcare.
Data showed the increase in life expectancy has slowed in centenarians, with the maximum age of death plateauing over last 20 years.
In an interview with the BBC, Prof Jan Vijg, one of the researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said: "In people over 105 we make very little progress, that tells you we are most likely approaching the limit to human life.
"For the first time in history we've been able to see this, it looks like the maximum life span - this ceiling, this barrier - is about 115.
"It's almost impossible you'll get beyond it, you need 10,000 world's like ours to end up with one individual in a given year who will live until 125 - so a very small chance."
However, professor Linda Partridge, the director of the UCL Institute of Healthy Ageing, countered that while the paper has successfully described what is currently happening it does not describe what will happen.
She said: "It was certainly very different to what the current birth cohort will go through, but it could yet be rather negative as a lot of children have grown up obese and that could bring lifespan down quite a lot.”
Meanwhile, Vijg added: "To get maximum life spans of 120, 125 or 130 maybe, we need to do something very fundamental here. We need to change the whole genetic make-up of the human species, you would have to develop thousands or tens of thousands of different drugs.
"The ageing process is so complicated that it will not be possible to substantially change this limit to human life."
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