How Long Will You Live?
The potential to age well into your 100's is now thought to be more achievable than ever before, according to a new study. Those who can make it past the 70s, 80s and 90s, the most "perilous" years, can potentially make it to age 110, based on new data collected at the University of California.
"Our data tell us that there is no fixed limit to the human life span yet in sight," said senior author Kenneth Wachter, a professor of demography and statistics at UC Berkeley. "Very few of us are going to reach those kinds of ages, but the fact that mortality rates are not getting worse forever and ever tells us there may well be more progress to be made improving survival past the ages of 80 to 90. This is a valuable, encouraging discovery."
Specifically, the study showed that people at age 110 had the same continued chances of survival as those between the ages of 105 and 109 - a 50/50 chance of dying within the year and an expected further life span of 1.5 years.
This plateau runs counter to the way death risk relentlessly rises as we age from age 40 onward, Wachter said.
"If mortality rates kept rising at the rates they rise from age 40 to age 90, then there would be a strong barrier to progress at extreme ages -- great diminishing returns to behavioral change or to new medical advances," Wachter said. "The fact these rates ultimately level out gives hope there's
more leeway for those advances."
The oldest known human on record is Jeanne Calment of France, who died in 1997 at age 122.
Excerpts from WEBMD. LEARN MORE AT WEBMD - the nation's most trusted health and wellness resource.
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