- Life expectancy gains have plateaued due to biological limits
- Focus should shift to extending healthspan rather than just lifespan
- Modern medicine yields smaller longevity improvements despite rapid advances
Rapid increases in life expectancy is now “documented to be over”, new research has demonstrated.
Over the course of the 20th century, average life expectancy of the global population has significantly increased, with some countries seeing a 50% rise as a result of medical advances.
However, over the last 30 years, life expectancy has stopped rising, meaning rates are levelling out, the study has found.
Research led by the University of Illinois Chicago has found that life expectancy rates are no longer increasing because humans are approaching a biologically based limit to life.
Since 1990, life expectancy on average in the world’s longest-living populations has increased roughly six and a half years, data has revealed.
- Global life expectancy has risen thanks to better management of major health conditions
- Type 2 diabetes: diagnosis at age 30 could cut life expectancy by 14 years
- Research identifies type and duration of exercise that boosts life expectancy
Senior author Professor S. Jay Olshansky said: “The biggest boosts to longevity have already occurred through successful efforts to combat disease. That leaves the damaging effects of aging as the main obstacle to further extension.
“Most people alive today at older ages are living on time that was manufactured by medicine. But these medical Band-Aids are producing fewer years of life even though they’re occurring at an accelerated pace, implying that the period of rapid increases in life expectancy is now documented to be over.”
He added: “That also means extending life expectancy even more by reducing disease could be harmful, if those additional years aren’t healthy years. We should now shift our focus to efforts that slow aging and extend health span.”
The number of years an individual is healthy, not just alive, is a relatively new metric known as healthspan.
As more people become exposed to the immutable effects of aging, life expectancy gains will continue to slow down, according to the study.
The research team examined the lifespans of people from the longest-living countries, as well as Hong Kong.
Out of the examined countries, only one nation saw a decrease in life expectancy, the findings have shown.
- Diabetes-associated brain ageing prevented by healthy lifestyle
- Increasing fruit intake can prevent poor mental health later in life
- Climbing stairs linked to living a longer life
Professor Olshansky said: “Our result overturns the conventional wisdom that the natural longevity endowment for our species is somewhere on the horizon ahead of us – a life expectancy beyond where we are today.
“Instead, it’s behind us – somewhere in the 30- to 60-year range. We’ve now proven that modern medicine is yielding incrementally smaller improvements in longevity even though medical advances are occurring at breakneck speed.”
He continued: “While more people may reach 100 years and beyond in this century, those cases will remain outliers that won’t move average life expectancy significantly higher.
“This is a glass ceiling, not a brick wall. There’s plenty of room for improvement: for reducing risk factors, working to eliminate disparities and encouraging people to adopt healthier lifestyles – all of which can enable people to live longer and healthier.”
He concluded: “We can push through this glass health and longevity ceiling with geroscience and efforts to slow the effects of aging.”
Read the full study in the journal Nature Aging.
