Scientists May Have Determined The Maximum Age A Human Can Live To

People have written countless songs, books, poems, and more on the idea of living forever. Since the beginning of human existence, people have wished for a long, happy life. The question is, what is the maximum age a human being can actually live to if no illnesses or diseases cut their life short? A group of scientists decided to try and figure it out, and this is what they found. 

Researchers Determined The Maximum Age Humans Can Live To

As you age, you probably notice changes in your body. In particular, one of those changes is in your recovery time. Whether it’s from a hard workout, a sleepless night, or a long, stressful day, you likely notice it takes a greater toll on you physically than it did 10, 20, or 30 years ago. This has to do with the body’s ability to recover, which declines as we age. Determining the maximum age that a human being can live to so long as they are healthy the entire time depends on when the body simply can no longer recover.

Scientists from Singapore-based biotech company Gero and the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York, determined that the maximum age a human being can live to, free of disease and illness, is between 120 and 150 years old. (1)

How They Determined The Maximum Age

The research team used a dynamic organism state indicator (DOSI) to determine how resilient the human body is. DOSI takes into account age, illness, and other lifestyle factors. All of these factors combined helped the team estimate how long a body could be alive before it just simply can no longer recover from any type of strain. (1)

“Calculation of resilience based on physical activity data streams has been implemented in GeroSense iPhone app and made available for the research community via web-based API,” explained Tim Pyrkov, the first author of the study and head of the mHealth project at Gero. (2)

According to their data, a 40-year-old can completely recover in about two weeks. An 80-year-old, however, takes, on average, six weeks. If this trend continues as humans get older, then somewhere around 120 and 150 years, the human body will completely lose its ability to recover. (1)

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Why Is This Research Important?

Understanding the maximum age to which a human being can live helps us better understand the aging process in general. This can help to improve on existing and create new anti-aging interventions in the future. This means providing ways to predict and prevent disease to better help people maintain their health later. Ultimately, it means helping people live a more full, happy life no matter what decade they are in. (2)

“This work, in my opinion, is a conceptual breakthrough because it determines and separates the roles of fundamental factors in human longevity — the aging, defined as progressive loss of resilience, and age-related diseases, as “executors of death” following the loss of resilience. It explains why even most effective prevention and treatment of age-related diseases could only improve the average but not the maximal lifespan unless true antiaging therapies have been developed,” says prof. Andrei Gudkov, Ph.D., Sr. Vice President and Chair of Department of Cell Stress Biology at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. (3)

The researchers hope that their work will help to improve how humans age. They want to inspire new technologies and health interventions to help people not just live longer lives, but better ones. (3)

“The investigation shows that recovery rate is an important signature of aging that can guide the development of drugs to slow the process and extend healthspan,” said David Sinclair, Harvard Medical School professor of genetics. (3)

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

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Sources

1. “Longitudinal analysis of blood markers reveals progressive loss of resilience and predicts human lifespan limit.” Nature. Timothy V. Pyrkov, et al. May 25, 2021.
2. “Scientists Have Found a Way to Break the Limit of Human Longevity.” SciTech Daily. Gero. May 25, 2021.
3. “Associations between aging and the loss of the ability to recover from stress.” Medical Express. Gero. May 25, 2021