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zfpbspro-9748 |
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xevyo |
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Inconvenient Truths About |
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Inconvenient Truths About Human Longevity |
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xevyo |
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This review article, “Inconvenient Truths About Hu This review article, “Inconvenient Truths About Human Longevity” by S. Jay Olshansky and Bruce A. Carnes, published in the Journals of Gerontology: Medical Sciences (2019), critically examines the ongoing scientific and public debate about the limits of human longevity, the feasibility of radical life extension, and the future priorities of medicine and public health regarding aging. It argues that while advances in public health and medicine have substantially increased life expectancy over the past two centuries, biological constraints impose practical limits on human longevity, and predictions of near-future radical life extension are unsupported by empirical evidence.
Key Insights and Arguments
Historical Gains in Longevity:
Initial life expectancy gains were driven by public health improvements reducing early-age mortality (infant and child deaths).
Recent gains are largely due to reductions in mortality at middle and older ages, achieved through medical technology.
The dramatic rise in life expectancy during the 20th century cannot be linearly extrapolated into the future due to shifting mortality dynamics.
Debate on Limits to Longevity:
Two opposing views dominate the debate:
Unlimited longevity potential based on mathematical extrapolations of declining death rates.
Biologically based limits to lifespan, currently being approached.
Proponents of unlimited longevity often rely on purely mathematical models that ignore biological realities, leading to unrealistic predictions akin to Zeno’s Paradox (infinite division without reaching zero).
Critique of Mathematical Extrapolations:
Analogies such as world record running times illustrate the fallacy of linear extrapolation: records improved steadily until plateauing, indicating biological limits on human performance.
Similarly, mortality improvements have decelerated and are unlikely to continue improving at historic rates indefinitely.
Three Independent Lines of Evidence Supporting Longevity Limits:
Entropy in the Life Table: As life expectancy rises, it becomes mathematically harder to increase further because most deaths occur within a narrow old age window with high mortality rates.
Comparative Mortality Studies: Scaling mortality schedules of humans against other mammals (mice, dogs) suggests a natural lifespan limit around 85 years for humans.
Evolutionary Biology: Biological “warranty periods” related to reproduction and survival support a median lifespan limit in the mid to upper 80s.
Empirical Data on Life Expectancy Trends:
Life expectancy gains in developed nations have decelerated or plateaued near 85 years, consistent with theoretical limits.
Table below summarizes U.S. life expectancy improvements by decade:
Decade Life Expectancy at Birth (years) Annual Average Improvement (years)
1990 75.40 —
2000 76.84 0.142
2010 78.81 0.197
2016 78.91 0.017
The data show that the predicted 0.2 years per annum improvement has not been consistently met, with recent years showing a sharp slowdown.
Problems with Radical Life Extension Claims:
Predictions of cohort life expectancy at birth reaching or exceeding 100 years for babies born since 2000 are unsupported by observed mortality trends.
Claims of “actuarial escape velocity” (mortality rates falling faster than aging progresses) lack empirical or biological evidence.
These exaggerated forecasts divert resources and funding away from realistic aging research.
Biological Mechanisms and Aging:
Aging is an unintended consequence of accumulated damage and imperfect repair mechanisms driven by genetic programs optimized for reproduction, not longevity.
Humans cannot biologically exceed certain limits because of genetic and physiological constraints.
Unlike lifespan or physical performance (e.g., running speed), aging is a complex biological process that limits survival and function.
The Future Focus: Health Span over Life Span
Rather than pursuing life extension as the primary goal, public health and medicine should prioritize extending the health span—the period of life spent in good health.
This approach aims to compress morbidity, reducing the time individuals spend suffering from age-related diseases and disabilities.
Advances in aging biology (geroscience) hold promise for improving health span even if life expectancy gains are modest.
Risks of Disease-Focused Treatment Alone:
Treating individual aging-related diseases separately may increase survival but also leads to greater prevalence and severity of chronic illnesses in very
Smart Summary
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