MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Seminar

Implausibility of Radical Life Extension in Humans - S. Jay Olshansky, University of Illinois

Host: Venki Ramakrishnan

Radical life extension occurred for humans during the last century when life expectancy at birth increased by about 30 years. It has been argued this will be a one-time phenomenon followed by decelerating improvements in longevity. Some demographers suggest radical life extension has been occurring since 1990 and continues today, life expectancy at birth and older ages will rise at an accelerated pace in the future, and most babies born today will survive to age 100. Based on the last three decades of observed mortality in the longest-lived populations, the annual improvement in life expectancy at birth that operationally defines radical life extension (about a 3-year increase per decade) was never reached except briefly in South Korea. The rise in life expectancy decelerated rapidly from 2010-2019 against a tailwind of medical advances that should have had the opposite effect. The percentage reduction in total mortality required to raise life expectancy at birth by one year increased uniformly across time in all countries. Lifespan inequality declined consistently – which means the distribution of death is compressing instead of shifting or expanding, and life table entropy increased and converged – implying that future increases in life expectancy will be even more difficult to accomplish than today. All metrics of human mortality change since 1990 indicate clearly that radical life extension did not occur, and it is not occurring now, implying that the era of rapid increases in life expectancy due to the first longevity revolution has come to an end. Radical life extension now appears to be implausible in this century and no more than 10-15 percent of babies born in 2019 are likely to survive to age 100. While humanity’s battle for a long life has largely been accomplished and should be considered a success story for public health and medicine, medical interventions should now focus on extending healthy life rather than increasing length of life. However, a second longevity revolution of a fundamentally different kind is approaching in the form of modern efforts to slow biological aging (Geroscience) – offering humanity a second chance at altering the course of human survival. In this presentation I’ll explain why there are limits to human longevity, what those limits are, and why humanity may be able to break through the longevity glass ceiling that is now visible.

**External visitors should report to LMB Reception at 15:45**

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