Will a human ever celebrate a 150th birthday? You bet, says Stephen Austad, a biology of ageing researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Austad is so sure that life expectancy is poised for another rapid rise, he put money down in 2000 that the first person to reach 150 was already alive.
It’s a fantastical idea, counters Jay Olshansky, a longevity researcher at the University of Illinois Chicago, who took Austad’s bet and foresees a payout for his descendants in 2150.
So far, the numbers seem to fall in Olshansky’s favour. During the twentieth century, medical advances added 30 years to human life expectancy. Since then, the rise has slowed significantly — as Olshansky was sure it would.
“In 1990, colleagues and I forecast that the rise in life expectancy will slow, as more people live long enough to be exposed to the immutable force of ageing,” Olshansky says1. When Olshansky revisited this analysis in 2024, he and his co-authors confirmed that life expectancy in the developed world was flatlining2.
The human body has been pushed about as far as it can go by conventional medicine, Olshansky says. “As long as ageing remains unmodified, you can’t push out the envelope of survival much beyond where we are today.” The only path to further radical human lifespan extension, he concluded, is to slow the ageing process itself.
Austad agrees. “I think we’re very close to being able to do it,” he adds, noting numerous approaches that have shown promise in animals and, increasingly, in people.
Perhaps surprisingly, given their wager, Olshansky also sees great potential in this work. “I’m very optimistic that we will be able to slow down the biological process of ageing,” he says. “I think it will happen in our lifetime.” On how much this might impact lifespan, Olshansky and Austad differ, although both agree that such considerations are a distraction. Ultimately, the point is not how long we live, but how well we live.
Read the full story: Could humans live to 150? Why some researchers think we’re on the cusp of a major longevity breakthrough (Nature)