No limit to maximal lifespan in humans: how to beat a 122-year-old record (2022)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8636159/

by birriel • 3 years ago

65 39 3 years ago

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

cwales95• 3 years ago

I had never considered that older might die purely because doctors may not see the need to dig in and diagnose them purely because they’re “old” and would “likely die soon anyway”. The older you get, the less medical intervention. With how much poorer we’re all getting it’ll probably only get worse.

1letterunixname2• 3 years ago

And for-profit insurance companies (in the US) use QALY to decide what to treat and whom rather than leaving it to the discretion of patient's doctors to decide what care is necessary.

My mother and late grandmother both independently voiced that they experienced medical ageism and disrespectful, dismissive treatment by doctors, hospitals, and care providers.

parineum2• 3 years ago

I don't see any reason to believe that for-profit insurance is playing any role at all in that since countries with socialized medicine aren't regularly seeing 120 year olds.

bsder2• 3 years ago

While certainly a problem, I doubt this is the sole cause.

If mortality age is a normal distribution, you would see someone 125+ years old every now and then even just naturally. And you don't.

By contrast, standard deviation for height is somewher between 2 and 3 inches. If 70 inches is roughly median, 5 standard deviations is not unheard of. That's roughly 85 inches. 7' 2" is not exactly rare in the NBA and there are players a notch even above that--7' 5" is getting pretty rare.

Standard deviation for mortality distribution is about 8 years. If median is 75 years old, 115 shouldn't be that unusual and 123 should pop up occasionally. Yet, 115 is a staggeringly rare age to live to, and 123 is simply unheard of.

ramblenode• 3 years ago

If mortality age is a normal distribution, you would see someone 125+ years old every now and then even just naturally. And you don't.

Why would all-cause mortality be normally distributed? The causes of death at the low end and high end tend to be different, so I don't see why we would expect them to occur at similar rates.

argiopetech• 3 years ago

To continue your line of logic, it may be more informative to think from the causal side.

Life is effectively a mixture model combining two Poisson point process of things that can kill you (roughly, causes of infant mortality and causes of adult mortality)[0]. We've thankfully been able to shift the mixture weight pretty hard away from infant mortality with modern medicine and improved living conditions globally, but we're still linearly chipping away at an exponential problem (because events in Poisson point processes occur with exponential frequency - the most likely time for an event to occur is always, "now", even if the mean is every 79 years).

Even were we to completely eliminate all causes of death except things that can kill a healthy person in under a minute, we'd probably just end up with a prettier (probably a few decades shifted, possibly amplified[1]) Poisson distribution. It probably wouldn't be hugely different than what we have now, either - all the top causes of death have a "quick" option, and it doesn't take much cumulative probability of death to massively increase the probability your life will end before a certain age.

The article may be right that there is no cap to maximal age, but the likelihood of achieving ages greater than those seen may require significant time, even with the current population level, even if we started intervening generically. I would guess it will always be rare that people live to extreme age, even if that age manages to shift up another decade (shifting the average age of death into the high 90s).

[0] The resulting Poisson distribution of deaths is damped and left-skewed because deaths are not independent (saying which is to eliminate significant real-world detail), which is technically a requirement of Poisson point processes.

[1] Life saving measures are also not independent, which could be a significant factor if we could really recover from anything that required more than a minute to die.

anonzzzies• 3 years ago

This used to be a problem with my grandparents; the doctor always said ‘sure it hurts, but you are 80’ and send them away with an ibuprofen (and cancer but no biggy, they were indeed 80). That seems to have changed; my parents are treated the same as 20 year olds and they are 80.

occamsrazorwit• 3 years ago

TL;DR: It's taking the standard premise that there's no such thing as dying from old age, and applying it to examining treatment for elderly patients. The current conception of a human lifespan is within the context of a world where medical interventions are preferentially given to the young instead of the old. Thus, a doctor might not recommend a course of treatment for a 100-year-old (who may be much younger, biologically) because of an incorrect belief about human lifespan, the 100-year-old dies soon as a result, and the cycle continues.

SmoothBrain12• 3 years ago

Thank you

lucubratory• 3 years ago

There are a lot of stats here that point to their conclusion very strongly, and my own experience in healthcare has mirrored that, even though I never thought of it that way at the time. I would need to see much, much more research on this rapamycin drug to be convinced about that part, but the arguments about current medical care are sound.

This has given me a lot to think about.

ziofill• 3 years ago

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Blagosklonny%20MV%5BAu...

This guy mostly publishes solo. It’s a bit unusual.

majkinetor• 3 years ago

Here is video with him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-if3zjYSfY&t=28s

DoreenMichele• 3 years ago

This makes perfect sense to me. I have a genetic disorder and there is a phrase -- "the normal progression of CF" -- which essentially means "Quit bitching about wanting your doctor to actually help you get better. You have a sentence of death. Just politely die on time instead of pointing out that if we don't ever try to get you better, it should be no surprise when we don't."

Recently in the news for lifesaving drugs that cost $330k annually for the rest of your life and also make you hella fat. But let's focus on the positive: You might be allowed to live now.

waihtis• 3 years ago

Such a horrible state of things. This is one area where I'm hopeful about using AI for healthcare - AI, by programming, wouldn't be able to be apathetic which seems to be a defining characteristic of many healthcare professionals.

Now we only need to program the spirit of the AI to focus on healthspan instead of disease management..

david_draco• 3 years ago

The author gives evidence that many old people refuse further treatment that would extend their lives, shortening their potential life span. Then they conclude "These centenarians should seek thorough medical care, ... This, however, will require the revolution of policies, ethical standards and legal issues to ensure maximum longevity." So people should be forced to live as long as possible? My grandma wanted to die because she could not take the physical pain, plus was lonely after grandpa died 10 years earlier. But she was not allowed. Requiring people to live longer than they wish is cruel.

taskforcegemini• 3 years ago

don't worry, it will only be for those who can afford it. the rest will be given help with suicide, if not just encouragement for it. At some point there could be "vampires" ruling/owning everything and everyone.

late25• 3 years ago

At what age do you feel assisted suicide should be allowed?

morbicer2• 3 years ago

stevesimmons• 3 years ago

In the Netherlands, a friend's mother was recently able to end her life at age 95, via euthanasia assisted by her regular doctor.

Her husband had died some years before, and she had just been diagnosed with the early signs of dementia. She decided she had had a good life already, and that now was the right time to go, while she was still in control of her life.

The process and safeguards have been formalised and are uncontroversial in the main. Some doctors opt not to be part of this for their patients. That's their right. Usually a colleague steps in to guide the patient through the process.

In our friend's case, her children supported her in this decision. Her friends were also aware she was planning to end her life. Her funeral was a celebration of her life, not shock at her death.

mbank• 3 years ago

Increasing max/avg/median lifespan without major improvements in battling dementia it is a rather dystopian vision. And even if we are not talking full blown Alzheimers, declining mental capabilities is a big issue: My own grandmother turns 102 this year and even though we as a family feel really blessed, I would say the last 5 years have been a slow but constant decline in mental capabilities. It went hand in hand with decline in eyesight and hearing. So: not hearing much anymore, not able to read or really watch TV and all your friends and relatives have passed for years. I really don't know if I would whish her getting 120...

Llamamoe• 3 years ago

This. The rates of chronic fatigue, mental illness, dementia are all massively increasing, with increasing evidence linking them to persistent infections and gut dysbiosis, and nobody cares to fix it.

Seeing everyone scrambling to drag life out without doing anything about its quality is just absurd.

jjtheblunt• 3 years ago

There's a topic called "blue zones" which examines regions where people live healthy dementia free for far longer than surrounding communities. it's not clear how much research is active, but it is an investigated topic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_zone

tim3332• 3 years ago

Even the 122 year record is likely fake - https://yurideigin.medium.com/jaccuse-why-122-year-longevity...

Human bodies seem to pack up with age regardless of how much you spend on healthcare.

I suspect major change may come more from a merging with AI scenario rather than better healthcare.

Workaccount2• 3 years ago

I'd recommend the New Yorker article:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/17/was-jeanne-cal...

Despite all the good reasoning about it being impossible to live that long, what does it for me is that people in her town, where she was well known, would have had to have not noticed Jeanne die and her daughter take her place. Including her doctor.

Not saying she definitely isn't a fraud, but the evidence against her is more hypothetical and the evidence for her is more solid.

tim3332• 3 years ago

Well, you can argue both ways. For me I think it's fake basically due to the photos. The mum and daughter look similar but not identical and to my eyes the later pictures are the daughter. Re the locals not noticing, if you thought someone looked a bit funny would you just think that's a bit odd or publically accuse them or fraud? Personally I'd do the thinking it odd and ignoring it thing.

chalcolithic• 3 years ago

I feel that humans have "best before 40" label on them. All the later age numbers are pretty random, but 40 years is hardwired (although not directly, just as a sum of problems that are not weeded out by the selection pressure)

countWSS• 3 years ago

There is a maximum for "healthy lifespan", maximal lifespan is just keeping people on life support and artificial chemical regimen.

No limit to maximal lifespan in humans: how to beat a 122-year-old record (2022)

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