Limit To Human Life Expectancy?

Is There A Limit to Human Life Expectancy?
by William Faloon, Life Extension Foundation Magazine, September 2002

"The journal Science is perhaps the most respected publication in the world. An article in the May 10, 2002 issue of Science discusses gains in life expectancy and states, “There’s no limit in sight.”

[...]

Will we ever be immortal?

The authors of the Science article predict that “modest annual increments in life expectancy will never lead to immortality.”

We at Life Extension appreciate that mainstream scientists are addressing the immortality issue. History has often shown that, before a major breakthrough occurs, experts go out of their way to deny that it will ever happen. One major breakthrough in genetic engineering could lead to control of the aging process. This could then open up a cascade of new approaches to keeping human beings in a youthful state over the long-term."

[excerpt from article]

This article is encouraging. That one of the most respected scientific journals in the world (Science) would take the prospect of immortality seriously enough to call it into question (without ridicule) is also a good sign for those who have their hearts set on the Quest from a futuristic perspective.

Actually, the article, while very interesting is rather dismissive about the idea of immortality.

The whole area of gerontology and demographics is a very interesstig one- but be careful not to take it for something relevant for anti-aging. (Happens to me all the time because of keywords like "longevity" etc.)

Here are some good links that came with the original article:

• Life expectancy. A wide range of Web sites (in
  addition to the supporting online material accompanying this policy forum) provide basic data on worldwide life expectancy. Among them: The Berkeley Mortality Database, developed by J. R. Wilmoth, offers life tables, birth and death rate data, and historical life expectancy figures for France, the U.S., Sweden, and Japan, drawn from census data and vital statistics. The National Center for Health Statistics of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publishes historical life expectancy data for the United States. Statistics Canada maintains current and historical information about life expectancy at birth by gender and province. The World Population Data Sheet of the Population Reference Bureau presents global data on current life expectancy by country and gender. The Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS) of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization offers a capsule summary [PDF] of the concept of life expectancy and the principal sources for worldwide data. An article posted by the Population Reference Bureau titled "How much better can it get?" briefly outlines the debate between researchers who argue for and against fundamental biological limits on human life expectancy.
  
  
• Life expectancy in Japan. Data on Japanese life expectancy can be found in the database pages of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, which offer detailed life tables for Japan, along with information on historical trends in the five leading causes of death and other information. Japanese government predicitions of the country's future population, along with the life expectancy assumptions that those predictions embody, can be downloaded at the Web site of the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.
  
  
• Differences between female and male life expectancy. In The World's Women 2000: Trends and Statistics, the United Nations Statistics Division provides a worldwide summary table of life expectancy and infant mortality for females and males. Historical data on life expectancy by age for males and females in the U.S., covering the period from 1850 to 1999, can be found on the InfoPlease site. "Around the globe, women outlive men," an article from the August/September
  2001 issue of Population Today, offers a color-coded global map of differences between male and female longevity and some notes on the reasons for the difference; another article from the Population Reference Bureau discusses the causes of the gender gap in U.S. mortality.
  
  
• Mortality and mortality improvements. The National Academy Press publication Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population includes a chapter on mortality that explores the causes of historical increases in mortality and of the differences in mortality increase between different societies. World Population Beyond Six Billion, a report presented by the Population Reference Bureau, discusses in some detail the long-term changes in population patterns since before 1900 and the nature and causes of historical mortality declines.
  
  
• Implications of an aging population. Institutions focused on the demography of aging include (among many others) the National Institute on Aging, the Administration on Aging of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the University of Pennsylvania's Population Aging Research Center, and the Michigan
  Center on the Demography of Aging. Several publications of the National Academy Press, including Preparing for an Aging World (2001) and Demography of Aging (1994), deal with the aging of the worldwide population from demographic and policy perspectives. A 10 March 2001 article in Science News titled "Making sense of centenarians" describes the increase in 100-plus-year-old members of the population, and the lifestyle, health, and genetic factors that may be contributing to that increase. Aging in the Americas into the XXI Century, a wall chart offered in PDF form from the National Institute on Aging and the U.S. Census Bureau, provides graphic information on the changing age structure in North, Central, and South America and the implications of those changes. The Population Reference Bureau has posted a variety of reports and articles on the older population, including Elderly Americans, a study that overviews the demographic characteristics and profound social, health, and economic impacts of the rapidly aging
  population in the U.S.
  
  
• Previous discussion in Science. The issue of whether there are limits to life expectancy has a long pedigree of discussion in Science. In the 2 November 1990 issue, S. J. Olshansky, B. A. Carnes, and C. Cassel published "In search of Methuselah: Estimating the upper limits to human longevity," which argued that fundamental limits to life expectancy are likely (AAAS members can gain access to the full text of that article through the JSTOR link on the membership portal AAASmember.org).
  J. R. Wilmoth, in "The future of human longevity: A demographer's perspective" in the 17 April 1998 issue, held that extrapolation of the long-term, stable declines in mortality suggested a continued rise in life expectancy, an assertion disputed in subsequent letters by L. Gavrilov and N. Gavrilova and by S. J. Olshansky et al. "Prospects for Human Longevity," a Policy Forum by S. J. Olshansky, B. A. Carnes, and A. Désesquelles published in the 23 February 2001 issue, once again argued for fundamental biological limits to human life span; that article was discussed in a letter exchange with R. Lee.
  
  
• Life expectancy forecasts. The World Population Prospects Population Database of the United Nations Population Information Network lets users query the U.N.'s international forecasts for a variety of population indicators, including life expectancy and percent of population in various age cohorts, through 2050. A document presenting the results of the 1996 population projection, provided by the Austria-based International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, includes a discussion of the assumptions about mortality that factor into such estimates. World Population Futures, presented by the Population Reference Bureau, provides a thorough and useful overview of how future population is forecast and, in particular, of the uncertainties involved in projections of future mortality and life expectancy.

Wow, thank you Calian... impressive linkage... did you have to insert each link for the link name?

And thanks Sophianic for the article.


The parallel between to prospect of immortality and aviation is compelling...

MODERN AVIATION: LESS THAN 100 YEARS OLD

At 10:30 A.M. on Dec. 17, 1903, Orville Wright achieved the first piloted, sustained, powered heavier-than-air flight. His brother, Wilbur, stood by and timed the flight with a stopwatch. The first flight lasted twelve seconds and the aircraft flew 120 feet. The location was near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Three more flights were made that day; the longest was nearly a minute and covered more than half a mile.

Even after the Wright Brothers’ flights, experts continued to state that it is impossible for a heavier-than-air vehicle to achieve sustained flight. But further breakthroughs in aviation design and engineering led rapidly to regular air travel and then to rockets and space flight.

Similarly, once the barrier to manipulating genes involved in aging has been broken, there will be a rapid increase in human life expectancy. The “universal” disease of “aging” may soon become a relic of the past, just as infectious diseases such as cholera, diphtheria, polio and smallpox have been largely wiped out.

Actually, the article, while very interesting is rather dismissive about the idea of immortality.

I assume you're talking about the Science article. I was addressing the LEF article, which holds a very favorable attitude towards the prospect of immortality.

The whole area of gerontology and demographics is a very interesstig one - but be careful not to take it for something relevant for anti-aging.

Be rest assured, I do not confuse the demographics of aging with anti-aging. Life expectancy is a statistical creature; life extension and longevity are not.

Here are some good links that came with the original article:

Most impressive. I'm sure there are a few gems in there somewhere.

--An article along the same lines... From Yahoo: Link

Americans Living Longer Than Ever, Report Finds
Thu Sep 12,11:47 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans are living longer than ever before, but they are overweight and physically lazy and spend far more on health care than any other country in the world, the U.S. government said on Thursday.



The infant mortality dropped to a record low in 2000 and life expectancy hit a record high, the report by the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( news - web sites) found.

"In 2000, Americans enjoyed the longest life expectancy in U.S. history -- almost 77 years, based on preliminary figures," said the report, published on the Internet at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs. "The life expectancy of men was 74 and for women almost 80."

The infant mortality rate -- deaths before a child's first birthday -- dropped to a record low of 6.9 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2000, down from 7.1 in 1999.

The report looked at statistics from 2000, the last year of the 20th century. Americans made marked gains in health in the second half of the century, the agency said.

Many thanks to caliban for making this point:

"....extrapolation of the long-term, stable declines in mortality suggested a continued rise in life expectancy, an assertion disputed in subsequent letters by L. Gavrilov and N. Gavrilova ..."

Yes, here is the full text of our letter published in Science:

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The Future of Long Life

In his Research commentary "The future of human longevity: A demographer's perspective" (Science's Compass, 17 Apr., p. 395), John R. Wilmoth states that human longevity could be predicted by the simple extrapolation of mortality trends: "[t]he appeal of extrapolation lies in long-term stability of the historical mortality decline." This decline is supported by his fascinating graph depicting remarkably regular decreases in U.S. mortality rates over the last 97 years.

Unfortunately, the data on age-specific mortality rates published by the Social Security Administration (1) are complex and are not consistent with the declared long-term stability of the historical mortality decline. For example, the U.S. death rates for ages 30 to 34 and 35 to 39 have been increasing since 1985 both for males and females (1). The impression of long-term stability of mortality decline comes from the use of the aggregated death rate calculated by Wilmoth for the mixture of people of different ages (standardized to the U.S. population in mid-1990). The virtual stability of the historical decline of this highly aggregated mortality index is not very informative and might even be misleading (as is the fallacy of one stable mean body temperature for all patients in hospitals).

The future of human longevity is a complex and as yet unresolved multidisciplinary scientific problem. More research is needed on the driving forces of the age-specific mortality rates and their possible biological limits (2), not just extrapolation.

Leonid A. Gavrilov
Natalia S. Gavrilova
Center on Aging,
University of Chicago,
Chicago, IL 60637, USA

References
1. Social Security Administration, Social Security Area Population Projections: 1997 (Actuarial Study no.112, Office of the Chief Actuary, Social Security Administration, Washington, DC, 1997).
2. L. A. Gavrilov and N. S. Gavrilova, The Biology of Life Span: A Quantitative Approach, V. P. Skulachev, Ed. (Harwood, New York, 1991).

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Hope it helps,