In This Century Fewer Than 15 Percent Of Women And 5 Percent Of Men Will Live To Be 100 Years Old - Scientists

Scientists have revealed that in many countries, fewer than 15 percent of women and 5 percent of men will live to see 100 years old by the end of the 21st century, which will conclude on December 31, 2100.

Over the last 100 years, life expectancy has doubled thanks to healthier lifestyles and advancements in medicine but scientists believe that the pace of this increase has greatly diminished over the past 30 years.

Professor Jay Olshansky, the lead author of the study from the University of Illinois Chicago, explained that many older adults today are living longer due to medical interventions but suggested that the period of rapid growth in life expectancy may be ending.

The study suggests that expecting 15 percent of women and 5 percent of men to make it to the age of 100 will be very optimistic .

In essence most of today’s newborns would not surpass 100 years but would last within 30 to 60 years.

The research, published in Nature Ageing, analysed data from regions with the highest life expectancies, such as Hong Kong, Japan, and Sweden, comparing them to the United States from 1990 to 2019. The findings show a global slowdown in life expectancy, especially in the United States.

Read the report below...

Over the course of the twentieth century, human life expectancy at birth rose in high-income nations by approximately 30 years, largely driven by advances in public health and medicine. Mortality reduction was observed initially at an early age and continued into middle and older ages. However, it was unclear whether this phenomenon and the resulting accelerated rise in life expectancy would continue into the twenty-first century. Here using demographic survivorship metrics from national vital statistics in the eight countries with the longest-lived populations (Australia, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland) and in Hong Kong and the United States from 1990 to 2019, we explored recent trends in death rates and life expectancy. We found that, since 1990, improvements overall in life expectancy have decelerated. Our analysis also revealed that resistance to improvements in life expectancy increased while lifespan inequality declined and mortality compression occurred. 

Our analysis suggests that survival to age 100 years is unlikely to exceed 15% for females and 5% for males, altogether suggesting that, unless the processes of biological aging can be markedly slowed, radical human life extension is implausible in this century.

Accurately predicting future life expectancy trends holds important implications for societal, health and economic policies. 

In the United States, longstanding policy discussions have been held to address the potential consequences of how modulating biological aging could affect population demographics and related social institutions4,5,6. Accelerated population aging is already upon us; the absolute number of people reaching older ages continues to grow rapidly; and the practical implications of such an intervention continue to deepen.

In 1990, it was hypothesized that humanity was approaching an upper limit to life expectancy (the limited lifespan hypothesis) in long-lived populations, as early gains from improved public health and medical care had largely been accomplished, leaving biological aging as the primary risk factor for disease and death; the rate of improvement in life expectancy was projected to decelerate in the twenty-first century; and e(0) for national populations would not likely exceed approximately 85 years (88 for females and 82 for males) unless an intervention in biological aging was discovered, tested for safety and efficacy and broadly distributed. 

These conclusions were later supported by observed mortality dynamics in the United States, France and Japan from 1990 to 2000.