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Man can't live forever
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
At the Einstein College of Medicine, a team of scientists came to the conclusion that humans cannot live forever by nature – there is a limit to life.
Experts have studied the average life expectancy of people since the 19th century and found that the development of healthcare, improved nutrition, quality of life, etc. have contributed to the extension of life. According to scientists, in 1900, Americans lived about 47 years, while those born this year can live to almost 80 years.
Also, over the last 40 years, the life span has continued to increase, but experts are sure that the human body is designed for a certain number of years. According to demographers and biologists, human life expectancy may increase in the future, but according to experts from Einstein College, the limit was reached back in the 90s.
The scientists came to such conclusions after studying data from the human death database, which contains data from different countries (in total, the database contains data from more than 40 countries).
Since 1900, older people have been dying less frequently and every year more and more people have lived to be 70 years old and older, which indicates an increase in average life expectancy. Also, experts have studied the survival rate among long-livers (over 100 years old) and found that regardless of the year of birth, after 100 years, mortality increases sharply. During their work, scientists drew attention to one interesting fact - in Great Britain, the USA, France, Japan, where the maximum number of long-livers (over 110 years old) lived, the average life expectancy increased in the 70-90s, but since 1995 the increase in the age of older people has stopped, and this indicates that human life has its limits.
Having studied the data of the International Database, the team of researchers calculated that on average the human body is designed for 115 years, although scientists do not rule out that a person can live longer. In their opinion, the maximum the human body can withstand is 125 years, but the probability of this is less than 1 in 10 thousand.
Over the past decades, the level of medical care has improved significantly, scientists have found new effective ways to combat infectious and chronic diseases. All this, undoubtedly, contributed to the increase in average life expectancy. According to the researchers who conducted the analysis, new discoveries can help to increase human life and make the body overcome the calculated threshold, but for this to happen, scientists will have to do something really significant. Researchers suggest that human life expectancy is determined by certain genes and now various studies are aimed at finding a way to increase life expectancy. However, according to the leader of the new study, Ian Vij, too many resources are spent on finding a way to prolong people's lives, while all efforts should be directed at improving the quality of life and health in old age in order to make the life of elderly people as full as possible.
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