Dreams of Living to Age 150 may become reality, RESEARCH

A new study says that older research that caps age limits at around 115 years old is outdated. Researchers at McGill University in Montreal found no evidence that maximum lifespan has stopped increasing.

That conclusion, published in the journal Nature,

is based on the analysis of annual lifespan data reaching back to 1968. The focus was on the longest-living people — called super-centenarians (people who reach the age of 110) — in the U.S., the UK, France and Japan.

“We just don’t know what the age limit might be. In fact, by extending trend lines, we can show that maximum and average lifespans, could continue to increase far into the foreseeable future,” said the study’s coauthor Siegfried Hekimi.

Longevity changes with time. In 1920, the average U.S. life expectancy was 54 years. The estimate jumped to 75 years in 1990. Maximum lifespan seems to follow the same increasing trend.

Hekimi said that it’s impossible to predict what future lifespans in humans might look like, considering advances in technology, medicine and living conditions.

But before you start hoarding too many birthday candles, a study released in October by scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine said it may not be possible to extend life beyond the ages that have already been recorded, with 115 years likely to be humans’ maximum average lifespan.

These researchers found that in any given year, the odds that at least one person in the world will live past their 125th birthday, are less than 1 in 10,000. Some have come close though: Emma Morano, of Italy, passed away last April at age 117. And Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment lived for 122 years and 168 days until she died in 1997.

“It’s hard to guess,” Hekimi said. “Three hundred years ago, many people lived only short lives. If we would have told them that one day most humans might live up to 100, they would have said we were crazy.”