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Want to live forever? Theoretically, you could, study says
The outer limit of the human lifespan has long been hotly debated, with recent studies making the case we could live up to 150 years, or arguing that there is no maximum theoretical age for humans.
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Hiromu Inada 87, record holder of the oldest person to complete an Ironman World Championship, works out on his bike at his training facility in Chiba, near Tokyo, Japan August 26, 2020. Picture taken August 26, 2020. (Reuters/Jack Tarrant)
H
umans can probably live to at least 130, and possibly well beyond, though the chances of reaching such super old age remain vanishingly small, according to new research.
The outer limit of the human lifespan has long been hotly debated, with recent studies making the case we could live up to 150 years, or arguing that there is no maximum theoretical age for humans.
The new research, published Wednesday in the Royal Society Open Science journal, wades into the debate by analysing new data on supercentenarians -- people aged 110 or more -- and semi-supercentenarians, aged 105 or more.
While the risk of death generally increases throughout our lifetime, the researchers' analysis shows that risk eventually plateaus and remains constant at approximately 50-50.
"Beyond age 110 one can think of living another year as being almost like flipping a fair coin," said Anthony Davison, a professor of statistics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), who led the research.
"If it comes up heads, then you live to your next birthday, and if not, then you will die at some point within the next year," he told AFP.
Based on the data available so far, it seems likely that humans can live until at least 130, but extrapolating from the findings "would imply that there is no limit to the human lifespan," the research concludes.
