Readers reply: how long could a person possibly live?
If someone managed to, hypothetically, avoid pollution, never be involved in an accident and followed all health advice to the letter, how long would they live for? Jane Shaw Please send new questions tonq@theguardian.com.
Readers reply
Beyond the factors mentioned I think it could also depend to a large extent on circumstances and willpower. Say, for example, that (to take a random imaginary instance) you were extremely rich and determined to thwart your hopeless son’s aspiration to become king, the answer might even be indefinitely. There is no Owl
One thing I’ve noticed about very long-lived people is that they remain part of a tightly knit community, and they also remain interested in life. The solutions to a long life, apart from the luck of the genetic draw, may well have more to do with the emotional bonds of community than with pollution. The other point to note is long life and what? There’s no point living to 120 if you’re all crumbly when you get there. So then it’s long life, and good health, and mental alertness, and physical fitness that we’re looking for … which is quite an ask. Lastly, of course, the saddest part of living a long life is everyone you know and love dying. I’ve seen people just give up when a spouse or sibling has died. And to offset that, of course a closely knit community. But in the end, how long would you want to live anyway, by yourself, with no one to giggle at your stupid 90s memes? Molly-bee The question assumes that the ageing process is environmentally regulated. While things such as smoking and driving like a loon have obvious disadvantages, ageing is a biological process. The rate at which your telomeres fray, the accumulation of random errors in individual cells’ DNA, and the depletion of stem cells to replace old cell lines play a part in determining your lifespan. Longevity often runs in families, which suggests that inherited factors are involved. I doubt that living the life of a nun is worth the extra few years it may bring anyway. lets be clear about this The theoretical maximum lifespan for humans is about 150 years. This is related to an evaluation of human resilience – the ability to withstand and recover from disease to maintain a normal physiological equilibrium. A useful parameter for quantifying resilience is the dynamic organism state indicator.
Apropos of nothing, it is comical to see the interest in longevity from billionaires. Their detachment from the rest of us seems to inevitably lead to a ludicrous messiah complex. It reveals how completely out of touch these people are and how little they offer.
This is not to say scientific interest in ageing is without merit. It is an integral part in many approaches to preventing the onset of age-related diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and neuro-degenerative disease. But to achieve an immortal Zuckerberg would hardly be the end goal.
Quality, not quantity, is a maxim that can be broadly applied. My view is that it includes the time we spend on Earth. We grow, we age, and we die to make room for the new. That’s it. Self-betterment, close relationships and community are what makes it
worthwhile. All the rest is vanity. In my view. Hak_a_dalan
Don’t forget the genes (longevity is affected by inheritance) or gender (oldest are generally female). Recorded maximum age seems to be 110-120 years or so, but according to Google, the record is Jeanne Calment (1875–1997) of France, who lived to the age of 122 years and 164 days. I would not bet on much over 110 myself even with good luck and a healthy lifestyle. Hilary Gee
Much depends on genetic predisposition to disease, perhaps even more so than environmental factors. Live your life in the present, don’t worry about when you’re going to die, life is to be lived, enjoy every moment, try not to abuse your body too much while doing it. WTobiasJr
I’m not questioning your sentiment in the matter, and your advice seems sound enough, but what is your epidemiological evidence? Some individuals inherit biological problems which may affect their lifespan, but that doesn’t apply to whole populations. Sickle cell anaemia in west Africa is a well-known exception.
Research in Britain dating from the 1970/80s made it quite clear that death rates were related to social class. Recent ONS figures, here reported by the Kings Fund show, that “people living in more affluent areas live significantly longer than people living in deprived areas.In 2017–19, males in the least-deprived 10% of areas in England could expect to live to 83.5 years, almost a decade longer than males in the 10% most-deprived areas (74.1 years).”It’s important that these numbers are pre-pandemic as that has had an effect, but not in terms of making things more equal. The grim reaper has your postcode. Fallowfield
If you live like that, avoiding all inflammatory markers such as, well, basically all the fun things in life, you won’t live to be 100, but you’ll feel as if you have. PaulVanSalle
My grandmother lived to 107, marbles intact and physically OK until the last year or so. She took up line dancing in her 90s, was usually out if I called in to her care home and was a member of every group in her village for decades. Stay connected, keep learning, be active. Those things. BusyLizzie2
My grandmother on my dad’s side lived to 103. She was antisocial, even towards her own family at times, lived in a care home for the last few years of her life, didn’t mix with the residents, had no interests and no friends. She did have all her marbles, was just about mobile but had a stroke about a week before she died where she was bedridden and totally lost the power of speech. It’s always been a mystery as to how she kept going for so long when she really didn’t appear to enjoy life that much. solentview
Bloody-mindedness. Same as with my German gran. nina1414
I have the ambition to reach the age of 131, rather less than 50 years from now. Simple statistics show that very few, if any, people die after that age. It will probably take me until then to achieve all things I ever wanted to do. Something to look forward to. Sounds good to me. After that, I wouldn’t mind dying in bed, not necessarily shot by a jealous husband. Raimoh105
People tend to forget that living to a great age just means they’re likely to be old and decrepit for longer. between cloud shadows
The recent research (published on Science) showed that a small reduction of food intake (14%) could significantly improve immune response and reduce chances of inflammation as well as losing weight. This was based on a two-year random study of healthy adults. The implication seems it could prolong healthy span of life in humans (as well as in mice already proven). Hillside
“Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.” Susan Ertz. Having an uncle who lived to be 100 and a mother who just celebrated her 95th, having a close family who live with you or nearby really helps living to an old age. And being generally healthy. JohnInAthlone
Communities in Chernobyl were forced to evacuate in 1986 … but some refused to leave. It turned out that those who were removed suffered terribly and couldn’t settle down, and in many, if not most cases, were outlived by those who insisted on staying put in their communities in the Chernobyl area. Having a sense of meaning and a sense of belonging seems to be the important factor in this. wetsuitboots
Troy: “Who wants to live to be 89?”Barnaby: “Someone who’s 88.” Inoubliable
Jeanne Calment lived to 122 and we can assume that’s about the natural limit, give or take a year, without some kind of external therapy to halt or reverse senescence – which may not be far off. Modern medicine probably won’t extend that extreme but just bring the rest of us closer to it, and in better health to the very end rather than in an extended decrepitude.
It’s hard to know the ideal “recipe” for longevity though; it’s probably person-specific and it may be the degree of exposure of one factor (eg alcohol, pollutants, virii) to one person is negative, but to another their body pushes against and makes them more robust in the long run. Have You Fed The Fish
Thus far the answer is 120-something, and only a tiny fraction of a percentage of people will achieve that. There’s little or no evolutionary selection for extreme old age. People who live a really long time past the age of reproduction are effectively rolling the dice and getting double six again and again. As the question implies you can load the dice in your favour by following medical advice, but some time before your 125th birthday some irreplaceable part of your body will stop working, and then so will you.
In the future things may be different, because we will probably become much better at maintaining and repairing our bodies and brains. This will increase the percentage of people who make it past 120, and perhaps allow some to live decades longer. Those who do so will have to work at it – a lifelong regimen of diet, exercise and medication. I don’t know if I want to work that hard. There is reasonable evidence that calorie restriction extends mammalian lifespans. One hundred and forty years, all of it quite hungry? That sounds like a really long time. SemiFunctional
Sardinia has plenty of centenarians – and they drink a drop of wine each day, just a drop. By the way, if we ultimately aim at “eternal life’,” we should remember that Tithonus, in Greek mythology, was sentenced to this as a punishment. Bloreheath
How long would anybody live? On average, not a lot longer than they do now. What shortens life significantly is low income. To which we can add a few particularly hazardous habits, such as smoking, or hazardous occupations. If you’re living in a developed country with a better than average income, not smoking, and a few potentially fatal diseases can be controlled, your life expectancy is not far off the hypothetical maximum as far as current medical practice sees it. Most of the aims of current health policy are about addressing “premature” deaths, essentially treating identifiable causes that shorten life. It’s not about extending life for all, that is not seen as a practical aim.
The question in the headline is about possible lifespan (which doesn’t appear to be what was asked), that’s luck. There are combinations of genes, lifestyle, environment, but mostly chance, that allow some individuals to live to near 120 years. The trick is the combination is so rare it’s not obvious what makes those factors any different from conditions that are merely “good”. The extremely long lived are outliers; any normal distribution will throw up a few individuals at the extremes of the curve. The shortest lived are lost among the “accidents” and a disease toll that takes a percentage at all ages.
The longest lived, however, and whatever circumstances those few need, are clearly becoming seen more frequently. At time of writing, the third- and fourth-longest lived individuals ever are still alive. Perhaps more remarkable is that of the 100 authenticated longest lived women, and the 100 longest lived men ever, only one died before 1985 and more than 80% of them were still living into the year 2000 and beyond. leadballoon