While immortality remains out of reach, advancements in science and medicine suggest the average human lifespan might significantly increase in the not-so-distant future.
Robert Bolt’s script for the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons poignantly reminds us: “Death comes for us all; even at our birth, death does but stand aside a little.” It’s a universal truth, as inevitable as taxes, according to the well-known saying.
Although maintaining a balanced diet, avoiding smoking, and leading an active lifestyle can potentially lengthen life expectancy, death remains an unavoidable conclusion. Nevertheless, medical progress and economic development have dramatically extended human lifespans compared to those of our ancestors.
For instance, the UK’s Office for National Statistics reports that from 2020 to 2022, life expectancy at birth was 78.6 years for males and 82.6 years for females. In comparison, life expectancy in the United States is slightly lower, at approximately 74.8 years for males and 80.2 years for females.
Despite these averages, remarkable exceptions exist, such as Jeanne Calment, a Frenchwoman who reached 122 years before her passing in 1997. She remains the oldest verified human, sparking curiosity about the theoretical limits of human longevity.
Pushing the Boundaries of Human Lifespan
A 2022 study by researchers from Singapore’s biotech firm Gero and New York’s Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center explored human resilience and the body’s ability to recover from damage. Leveraging AI, they analyzed medical data from hundreds of thousands of participants to estimate the human body’s maximum lifespan.
Taking age, illness, and lifestyle into account, the study concluded that the body’s capacity to fully recover diminishes between 120 and 150 years, suggesting survival beyond this range is unlikely.
Meanwhile, other research hints the record for the world’s oldest person could be broken by 2100, but it’s improbable that the majority of people will surpass Calment’s extraordinary age.
Slowing Down Ageing
Efforts to slow ageing at the cellular level are ongoing, with experimental drugs aiming to extend human life to as much as 200 years. However, the concept of routinely reaching such milestones remains far from reality.
There’s also the distant hope that space exploration could lead to life on planets where “years” are much shorter. For instance, one such planet orbits its sun every 2.7 Earth days, making a person technically live thousands of “years.” Still, by Earth’s standards, this wouldn’t be true longevity—it would be a clever trick of perspective.
The Future of Human Longevity
If reaching 150 years becomes achievable, it would mark a significant milestone in human history. By then, humanity might even develop technologies that allow life to continue indefinitely—perhaps in robotic form.
For now, while life expectancy continues to increase steadily, the dream of eternal life remains a tantalizing possibility for future generations.