Record set by Jeanne Calment, aged 122, must be broken from 1960 onwards. Portugal involved in this study.
Science still hasn’t figured out what the maximum time a human can live in the land.
If we look into the past, we only know that the oldest person lived for 122 yearsbut since 1997, Jeanne Calment’s record has never been broken.
However, everything can change in 2060, with the generation born before 1950according to a pair of North American researchers.
If the prediction that life expectancy will change significantly in 2060 comes true, this will be a milestone in human history, even though the age limit for the body belonging to the Homo sapiens species is not yet known.
Going back to history, it’s unusual to think of humans living over 100 years. For example, in the Hebrews of the late Bronze Age (1200 BC), the life span was 80 years.
A thousand years later, the ancient Romans understood that a person could live a maximum of 100 or 110 years. Today, we know that the known limit is 122.
What will be the longest-lived generation of humans?
Published in scientific journal Plos Onethe study on the last record break in life expectancy was led by researchers David McCarthy, from the University of Georgia, and Po-Lin Wang, from the University of Southern Florida, both located in the United States.
During the research, the pair analyzed historical and current mortality data in 19 developed countries such as Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Portugal and USA.
According to the authors, “the records of longevity have slowly increased in the last years”.
The curious thing is that the movement is most notable in those born between the 1900s and 1950s.
The researchers explain that these individuals “are experiencing a postponement of unprecedented mortality, but they are still too young to break records of longevity”.
On the other hand, the pair of scientists believe that, if the record in human life expectancy is broken in 2060, it will be done by some of these individuals. That’s because, at this point, the survivors will be really old by our standards.
The authors even state: “If there is a limit maximum for human life expectancy, we are not getting close yet from him”.
Now, it’s a matter of waiting to see if the predictions will come true, but there are countless caveats in this promising future.
Breaking new records for human life expectancy is complex
For scientists, those born before 1950 will only have “the potential to break existing longevity records if policy choices continue to support the health and well-being of older people and the political, environmental and economic environment remains stable”.
These goals must remain, even if the world faces new pandemics or the effects of climate change.
After all, experience with Covid-19 revealed that the humanity is much more sensitive as it likes to imagine.
