Human life expectancies have gone up over the years. But, according to new research, our average maximum age ceiling hit a plateau decades ago.
It’s no secret that humans have gotten really good at living longer. We know to eat right, to exercise, to take our vitamins, and to get our nightly eight hours. (And that doesn’t even account for the striding advancements modern medicine has made.) But no matter how smart way go about our quest for immortality, there’s only so far we can go.
According to a new study published in Nature—led by John Einmahl of Tilburg University and Laurens de Haan of the Erasmus University Rotterdam—the human “age ceiling” is approximately 114.1 years for men and 115.7 years for women. (The discrepancy between the genders could be explained by the fact that testosterone has been linked to shorter lifespans.)
“On average, people live longer, but the very oldest among us have not gotten older over the last 30 years,” Einmahl told the AFP. The scientists analyzed the data of 75,000 deceased persons between 1986 and 2015—but found that the average maximum age didn’t budge. “There is certainly some kind of a wall here,” he said.
As of this writing, Einmahl and de Haan’s research has yet to be peer-reviewed, but its findings appear to be bolstered by a similar study from last year: Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that the average maximum age is 115.
Now, remember that these are averages. On April 15, 2017, an Italian woman named Emma Morano, who was born in the twilight of the 19th century, died at the ripe old age of 117. Morano was officially the oldest person in the world—and the fifth recorded oldest person in human history.
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