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2 months ago
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We'd probably all love to live to the age of 100.
But the chances of doing so are still very slim as increases in life expectancy are slowing down, experts say.
Researchers have found that we appear to be approaching the limits of human longevity, despite huge leaps in life expectancy throughout the 19th and first half of the 20th century thanks to advances in medicine.
Some forecasts from the 1990s even suggested that most children born today would reach their centenary.
However, analysis has revealed that children born in recent years still only have a 5.3 per cent chance of celebrating their 100th birthday if they are female and an even lower 1.8 per cent chance if they are male.
We'd probably all love to live to the age of 100. But the chances of doing so are still very slim as increases in life expectancy are slowing down, experts say
Analysis has revealed that children born in recent years still only have a 5.3 per cent chance of celebrating their 100th birthday if they are female and an even lower 1.8 per cent chance if they are male
A team from the University of Illinois at Chicago examined mortality data from regions across the world including Hong Kong, Australia, France and Spain.
They revealed that the average global life expectancy rose from 48 in 1900 to 67 in 1950, and again to 76 by the turn of the millennium.
However by 2021 it had only risen to 77.
If 'radical life extension' had continued, then this figure would be expected to currently sit at around 83, the team said.
Separate figures, provided by the Office for National Statistics, show that life expectancy has grown enormously in the UK since 1841, when the first figures are available.
At that time, a child born would only expect to live to 40.2 years of age if they were male and 42.3 years if they were female.
The average global life expectancy rose from 48 in 1900 to 67 in 1950, and again to 76 by the turn of the millennium. However by 2021 it had only risen to 77
This rose quickly to 66.1 years for men and 70.6 years for women by 1950, and 75.6 years for men and 80.4 years for women by the year 2000.
However, new figures show that a child born in 2022 can expect to live to 78.9 if they are male and 82.8 if they are female - representing a clear deceleration.
Analysis of the new data also revealed that those living in Hong Kong have the best chance of celebrating their centenary (stock image)
Analysis of the new data also revealed that those living in Hong Kong have the best chance of celebrating their centenary – for children born in 2019, 12.8 per cent of women and 4.4 per cent of men will reach the milestone.
The team said there is no evidence to suggest that 'radical life extension' has or will occur in the 21st century, and they argue that the focus should now be on extending the number of years lived in good health.
Professor Stuart Olshansky, lead author of the study, said: 'Most people alive today at older ages are living on time that was manufactured by medicine.
'But these medical Band-Aids are producing fewer years of life even though they're occurring at an accelerated pace, implying that the period of rapid increases in life expectancy is now documented to be over.
'We should now shift our focus to efforts that slow aging and extend healthspan.
'Healthspan is a relatively new metric that measures the number of years a person is healthy, not just alive.'
In 1990, Professor Olshansky published a paper that argued humans were approaching a ceiling for life expectancy of around 85 years of age, and that the most significant gains had already been made.
'Our result overturns the conventional wisdom that the natural longevity endowment for our species is somewhere on the horizon ahead of us — a life expectancy beyond where we are today,' he added.
The findings were published in the journal Nature Aging.
