According to research in the British medical journal, The Lancet, it is expected that over half of the babies born in the ‘rich’ nations since the year 2000 will live to be over 100. “The linear increase in record life expectancy for more than 165 years does not suggest a looming limit to human lifespan. If life expectancy were approaching a limit, some deceleration of progress would probably occur. Continued progress in the longest living populations suggests that we are not close to a limit, and further rise in life expectancy seems likely,” wrote Kaare Christensen, of the Danish Aging Research Center at the University of Southern Denmark, and colleagues.
The analysis shows that increases in life expectancy over the past 80 years or so have been and remain linear – in other words they are not slowing down yet. Their data suggests that death rates in over 30 developed countries are still falling. In 1950, the likelihood of survival from age 80 to 90 was 15 percent to 16 percent for women and 12 percent for men, compared with 37 percent and 25 percent, respectively, in 2002.
This is great news individually – though not quite so good the older you are – but of course it varies dramatically in individuals and it also suggests that the expected difficulties that society will face with an ever aging population will probably be even worse than expected.