How much older can we get? Researchers find clear answer

Do you dream of eternal life? Probably not. But living a long time, living as long as possible, maybe even 100 years old – that’s a nice idea that is quite realistic thanks to advances in medicine and public health. Thanks to advances in medicine, life expectancy at birth increased by around 30 years over the course of the 20th century.

But will this trend continue in the 21st century? Will we someday be 120, maybe even 130 years old? Considering the world’s oldest living person, 116-year-old Japanese woman Tomiko Itooka, this doesn’t seem out of the question. American scientists, including Harvard researchers, have now taken a closer look at the question of how much longer we can live. Their findings were published in the specialist magazine “Nature Aging”.

The trend towards life expectancy continues

To do this, they analyzed the vital statistics of the eight countries with the longest-living populations – including Australia, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland – as well as the USA and Hong Kong between 1990 and 2019. On this basis, they examined current ones Trends in survival rates and life expectancy.

In their study, the researchers ultimately came to the conclusion that the increase in life expectancy has slowed since 1990. In addition, more than 15 percent of women and more than five percent of men are unlikely to live to 100 years old. Unless the process of biological aging is important, “a radical increase in human life expectancy this century is unlikely,” write researchers led by S. Jay Olshansky.

“Radical extension of life expectancy” was seen in two countries

The scientists defined a radical increase in life expectancy as 0.3 years per year and thus three years per decade. These only appeared in people South Korea and Hong Kong . Hong Kong’s lag at least between 1990 and 2000 is due to economic prosperity and tobacco control. The researchers do not identify any other causes – including for South Korea.

In all other countries, the increase in life expectancy slowed to less than 0.2 years per year. In general, they rose more slowly in all countries in the 2010s – including South Korea and Hong Kong – than in the 1990s. On average, life expectancy at birth increased by 6.5 years in the ten countries between 1990 and 2019.

The average chance that babies born this year will live to 100 is 5.1 percent for women and 1.8 percent for men. In Hong Kong, the likelihood of joining the 100-year-old club was highest, with a probability of 12.8 percent among women and 4.4 percent among men.

How to extend your life by 20 years

Although the finite nature of life can be a bit depressing, 100 years is of course still a proud age. Up to a certain point, we can do something ourselves to become a human dinosaur – or at least to extend our lifespan by a few years.

In a study, researchers at Harvard Medical School identified eight influenceable lifestyle factors identified that allow men and women to live more than 20 years longer – even if they only start a healthy lifestyle in midlife.

These include:

• regular physical activity
• no opioid addiction
• no smoking
• good stress management (no depression or anxiety disorders)
• healthy, predominantly plant-based diet
• no excessive alcohol consumption (“binge drinking” queried, corresponds to more than five glasses on one drinking occasion)
• good sleep quality
• positive social relationships

The background is that certain lifestyle factors play a role in the development of chronic diseases that increase the risk of mortality. According to this, 80 percent of coronary heart disease and 50 percent of cancer mortality can be attributed to non-adherence to a healthy lifestyle.

In the study, the scientists evaluated data from more than 700,000 men and women from the “Veterans Affairs Million Veteran Program” over a period of eight years. They surveyed the eight lifestyle factors. 33,375 of the test subjects died during the follow-up period.

Ultimately, the researchers came to the conclusion:

• Health-conscious men live an average of 24 years longer .
  Men who exhibit all eight healthy lifestyle factors by age 40 live an average of 24 years longer compared to men who have none of these habits. This means that the health-conscious person will be 63 years old and the health-conscious person will be 87 years old.
• Health-conscious women live an average of 21 years longer .
  Women who practice all eight healthy lifestyle factors by age 40 live an average of 21 years longer compared to women who do not have any of these habits. This means that the health-conscious person will only be 67 years old, while the health-conscious person will be 87 years old.