Good news for centenarians: risk of death reduces at 105

LIVING until the age of 100 may seem like a worthy goal, but a study suggests that centenarians should really be aiming to survive past 105, for that’s when their risk of death stops rising and even begins to decline.

Research has found that death rates, which increase exponentially with age, begin to decelerate after 80 years of age and then approach a plateau after 105, before starting to dip slightly. It means that people who make it past 105 appear to have slightly less chance of dying than someone slightly younger.

An international team of researchers from Italy, Germany, Denmark and the US studied the survival rates of nearly 4,000 people over 105 between 2009 and 2015.

The new research found that counter-intuitively, as people get very old their chance of dying starts to tail off and may even start to reverse, which may indicate that human longevity is increasing overall.

For people who are above 105, the risk levels off at a 60 per cent annual risk of death – roughly a two in three chance – but does not get any worse and may even fall back to below 50 per cent for some people.

Elisabetta Barbi, of Sapienza University of Rome, the report’s lead author, said: “The increasing number of exceptionally long-lived people and the fact that their mortality beyond 105 is seen to be declining across cohorts strongly suggests that longevity is contributing to increase over time and that a limit, if any, has not yet been reached.

“Our results contribute to a recently rekindled debate about the existence of a fixed maximum lifespan for humans, underwriting doubt that any limit is as yet in view.”

In Britain, the lowest chance of death occurs between the ages of four and 15, when men have a one in 8,333 chance of dying annually, and women one in 10,417, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Between 35 and 44 that risk has risen for men to one in 663 and women to one in 1,106, and by the age of 75 it is one in 15 for men and one in 21 for women.

Since the 19th century, average life expectancy has risen almost continuously, with a baby born today expected to live until 81, compared to just 50 in 1900.

But recent research by Albert Einstein College of Medicine suggested that imperfections in the copying of genes will always mean there is a finite limit to human life, and claimed 125 is the upper limit of human lifespan.

The longest human lifespan to date is that of Jeanne Calment of France (1875–1997), who lived to the age of 122 years, 164 days. Latest figures from the ONS show there were 14,910 people aged 100 and over living in Britain in 2016, or two for every 10,000 people, a rise from 14,520 in 2015 and 7,750 in 2002. Over the past 30 years numbers have more than quadrupled from 3,642 centenarians in 1986.

Most are women, with five female centenarians for every male centenarian in 2016.

The ONS found that the oldest people are getting older. Between 2002 and 2016 the proportion of the older over-90s rose in comparison with younger groups.

There were 571,245 people aged 90 and over living in the UK in 2016, the highest number ever in that age category.

The new research was published in the journal Science.