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Credit: https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/03/what-happens-if-we-live-to-be-150/
You have a maximum age of 150 years
June 18, 2021
- An international team of researchers has developed a new way to track the biological aging process.
- The new tracking process has shown that humans have the ability to, hypothetically speaking, live to a maximum of 150 years old.
- After this, they lose any form of resilience they once had and see a drastic increase in their mortality rate.
Aging is a natural process and an essential part of our lives. But as we age, our regular body functions gradually begin to slow down. Ideally, there are nine markers that constitute aging. But the most common out of all these nine is that our cells weaken and moderately lose their ability to generate new and healthy cells for damage repair. The hallmark of this is a massive decline in physical function and an onset of chronic disease.
When studying aging, researchers usually distinguish between chronological age—that is, the number of years that a person has been on this earth—and biological age—which represents how old you are from a cellular standpoint (how far are your cells from losing function?).
It’s important to note that these two are not always the same for any individual, and biological age can vary greatly in a population due to several underlying factors. Indeed, biological age is influenced by factors like sleeping habits, genetics, diet, and exercise. And this is why researchers are more interested in measuring it compared to the latter.
So, what are some of the most recent and compelling findings on biological aging?
Well, according to a study published in the journal, Nature Communications, a new method has been developed that utilizes data retrieved from a regular blood test, and uses a single statistic to discover an individual’s biological age; not to mention how it fluctuates with time in that individual.
The research team—which originated from Gero, a Singapore-based biotech company—conducted its study using longitudinal human blood count data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, as well as UK Biobank. They then came up with a single variable used to determine biological age which they aptly named: the dynamic organism state indicator—or DOSI.
Essentially, DOSI is from certain biomarkers present in the blood, and it documents the resilience that an individual has with time. One of the most notable factors of resilience is the ability to create new cells and repair damaged ones.
The study discovered that the healthiest people were very resilient to stress; while those that suffered from chronic diseases exhibited a higher risk of mortality and very low resilience.
The recovery time from injuries and diseases also was noted to increase with age—averaging about two weeks for a healthy, 40-year-old adult, and six weeks for an 80-year-old adult. These findings were derived from different blood test parameters and then compared with physical activity levels that were recorded through the use of wearable devices.
Obtaining all this data, the scientists were able to discover that people completely lost their resilience by the age of 120 to 150 years; even if they were completely healthy and had not suffered any major disease.
As the authors concluded in their paper:
“This work indicates that the apparent human lifespan limit is not likely to be improved by therapies aimed against specific chronic diseases or frailty syndrome. Thus, no dramatic improvement of the maximum lifespan and hence strong life extension is possible by preventing or curing diseases without interception of the aging process, the root cause of the underlying loss of resilience.”
Kylie Quinn—leader of the Aging and Immunotherapies Group at RMIT University in Melbourne—notes that while, to some extent, this information is feasible—it cannot be considered an accurate method when applied across an entire population. And that’s because several variables can drastically change in a person’s day-to-day life.
For example, if someone got an infection, it could alter their blood count. Hence, a one-time sample may not be accurate enough to determine how they are fairing. We might need to take several samples of the individual if we actually plan to use them as a viable health tool.
But the question is; how does this method compare to other methods of biological aging?
According to Lindsay Wu—an independent researcher at the University of New South Wales—it could be one of the many previous attempts to create a clock for biological aging that didn’t pan out too well. In fact, the previous methods were also sensitive to fluctuations in metabolism and blood markers.
On the other hand, the most popular biological aging measurement system is known as the “epigenetic clock” which is based upon nine biomarkers of aging—and it seems to produce a fairly accurate prediction of lifespan based on one’s lifestyle choices.
That being said, Wu agrees with the study—to a certain degree—that the supposed maximum human life span of 150 years correlates to the observation that human beings see an exponential rise in their mortality rate after they reach a certain age.
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