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Humans Can’t Live Longer Than 125 Years Old, Study Says

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Humans can’t get any older than 125 years anymore, a new study says, as the population has reached its natural biological limit.

The study, led by geneticist Jan Vijg at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, says that while life expectancy rates have shot up compared to 100 years ago, the probabilities of anyone reaching the age of 125 is highly improbable. Life expectancy rates won’t continue going up, either, CNN reports.

The research team analyzed aging trends in the United States, France, Japan and the United Kingdom. In a university release, Vijg says that “there is no reason to think that the ongoing increase in maximum lifespan will end soon,” but data indicates said maximum was attained in the 1990s.

Japan has the longest-living people in the world, with most 60-year-olds reaching 86 years.

Scientists attribute this to healthy diets, active lifestyles and strong family support systems.

If anyone were to live beyond 125 years, it would require scientific and medical interventions, the study adds. The oldest person to have lived in current times was Jeanne Calment of France, who reached the age of 122 until her demise in1997.

Experts aren’t so quick to agree, however. Professor Dame Linda Partridge of the UCL Institute of Healthy Aging says that the study may have solid conclusions, but raises many questions, too. She points out that the conditions faced by people living 100 years ago were completely different to the quality of life now, making the projection of lifespans in the modern world difficult to ascertain accurately.

Other scientists say that serious advances in medical science may extend people’s lives in the future. But everyone agrees on one thing: there is a limit, and humans cannot be expected to live forever. “It’s not biologically feasible to live to 3,000 years. There’s constraints on how fast we run, speeds at which we can see. So without any further interventions, bodies can only last a certain amount of time,” Partridge says.

The study was published in the journal Nature.

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