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Hoping To Reach 100? You're Not Going To Like These New Life Expectancy Projections
Let's keep it 100 — your chances of becoming a centenarian are slim.
Medical breakthroughs, public health achievements and better diets led to steep increases in global life expectancy in the 1800s and 1900s. But startling new research finds this momentum has slowed and the biggest boosts to longevity may be in the rearview mirror.
"Most people alive today at older ages are living on time that was manufactured by medicine," said lead study author S. Jay Olshansky, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois Chicago.
"But these medical Band-Aids are producing fewer years of life even though they're occurring at an accelerated pace, implying that the period of rapid increases in life expectancy is now documented to be over," Olshansky added.
"Modern medicine is yielding incrementally smaller improvements in longevity even though medical advances are occurring at breakneck speed," study author S. Jay Olshansky said. Auremar – stock.Adobe.ComThe analysis, conducted with researchers from the University of Hawaii, Harvard and UCLA, includes data from eight countries with the longest-living populations (Australia, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland), Hong Kong and the US from 1990 to 2019.
Life expectancy at birth in the longest-living populations only increased an average of six and a half years since 1990, according to a new study. Master1305 – stock.Adobe.ComLife expectancy at birth in these countries only increased an average of six and a half years since 1990, according to the study.
"Our result overturns the conventional wisdom that the natural longevity endowment for our species is somewhere on the horizon ahead of us — a life expectancy beyond where we are today," Olshansky said. "Instead, it's behind us — somewhere in the 30- to 60-year range. We've now proven that modern medicine is yielding incrementally smaller improvements in longevity even though medical advances are occurring at breakneck speed."
Olshansky published a paper in Science in 1990 that argued it was "highly unlikely" that life expectancy at birth would exceed 85 because the most significant gains had already happened. The new study findings, charted above, support that theory. Strategic Marketing and Communications / UICIn the US, life expectancy was 77.5 years in 2022 — a slight bump from 75.4 years in 1990 and a dip from 78.8 years in 2019.
This new study doesn't include data from the COVID-19 pandemic, which Olshansky said would have "significantly" stifled life expectancy gains recorded from 1990 to 2019.
More than 7 million deaths worldwide have been blamed on the virus.
"We did not want to include the effects of COVID on the estimates because this is a temporary influence on survival, and it would have made the percentage changes across time heavily influenced by a one-time event," Olshansky explained to The Post.
Olshansky said we should focus on slowing aging and extending health span, the number of years a person is healthy, not just alive. Pixel-Shot – stock.Adobe.ComOlshansky published a paper in Science in 1990 that argued it was "highly unlikely" that life expectancy at birth would exceed 85 because the most significant gains had already happened.
In the new findings, published Monday in Nature Aging, Olshansky said we should focus on slowing aging and extending health span, the number of years a person is healthy, not just alive.
"This is a glass ceiling, not a brick wall," he said. "There's plenty of room for improvement: for reducing risk factors, working to eliminate disparities and encouraging people to adopt healthier lifestyles — all of which can enable people to live longer and healthier."
Dr. Maria Torroella Carney, a professor of medicine and chief of geriatrics and palliative care medicine at Northwell Health, also believes the focus should be on improving and maximizing health at cellular and physiological levels from a young age.
"Our organ systems (liver, kidney, lungs, heart, nerve function) peak in function around age 30 and decline over time," Carney, who co-wrote "The Aging Revolution" and was not involved with the latest research, told The Post. "We are just now learning about the cellular and physiological changes that contribute to this decline, such as inflammation, injuries, poor diets and lifestyles that may accelerate aging."
Elizabeth Francis turned 115 in July and said "speaking your mind" can help you live a long life. ABC NewsIn the US, the oldest living person is Elizabeth Francis, a Houston resident who turned 115 in July.
The Pew Research Center reported that the number of Americans who reach 100 years old and beyond is expected to jump from an estimated 101,000 people in 2024 — 0.03% of the population — to around 422,000 in 2054, about 0.1% of the population.
Olshansky said those centenarian cases will remain outliers that won't significantly increase average life expectancy.
"It would be optimistic if 15% of females and 5% of males in any human birth cohort could live to age 100 in most countries in this century," his report read.
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Olshansky shared some tips with The Post on how to age better:
A Liver Cancer Survivor Shares Her Story To Spread Awareness About The Disease
SAND SPRINGS, Okla. — Cancer survivor Karen Hoyt shares how she was diagnosed with Hepatitis C and eventually liver cancer, describing her battle with the disease to help raise awareness for those going through a similar struggle.
"I was riding my bicycle along the Arkansas River just before school started. As an educator, I was ready for school to start and 2 days later, I landed at the hospital at St. John's Medical Center and they told me that I had end stage liver disease."
48 hours after she received her diagnosis, Hoyt said her eyes and skin turned yellow.
The rapid and unexpected change was difficult for her to accept.
"I was really confused and I argued with the doctors. I actually ran out of the hospital. They said my liver was highly inflamed and that I had cirrhosis."
Hoyt received treatment for her new diagnosis and went to the doctor every 6 months to monitor the disease.
Within a year, doctors found a tumor, which turned out to be end stage liver cancer.
Hoyt said, "When they're rolling you into a surgery room and you don't know how long you are going to be there and you don't know if you are going to come back out, then you really begin to think about what's important. And when I looked back over my life, what was important was my relationships."
After undergoing several procedures to shrink the tumor, Hoyt got a liver transplant in 2015.
Today, Hoyt uses her story to raise awareness by sharing it on her blog, in her book and through working with national organizations like The Global Liver Institute.
Hoyt said she does this "to teach people how to tell their story of liver disease, so they can find that there's a beginning and the setting of their story might not be a great one, but that they can rise and they can overcome and that every story can have a good ending if we get treatment and the screening that's available to us."
If you're interested in learning more about Hoyt's story, you can visit her blog, read her bio and learn more about her cookbook Liver Loving Diet.
For those who are either waiting for or have received an organ transplant, Transplant Recipients International Organization Oklahoma provides resources and community.
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