Always higher, faster, stronger… and older! Technological developments, particularly in the field of health, have given us the feeling that the human body is constantly improving. Many are those who, today, believe in a possible – almost – eternal life. A publication published this Thursday in the scientific journal Natureand relayed by The worldcould well have the effect of a violent cold shower: it concludes that the longevity record has already been reached, and that human longevity would be on the downward slope.
Will the record of Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment remain unmatched forever? According to researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York (United States), no one could succeed in blowing out 122 candles. Scientists don’t cut corners to sum up their findings: “Demographers and biologists argued that there was no reason to think that maximum life expectancy would stop rising. But our study shows that this maximum age has already been reached and that this peak was reached in the 1990s,” explains Jan Vijg.
To reach this conclusion, which will sadden many, the scientists have gone through the demographic data of many countries, and they are particularly interested in the “super-centenarians”, yet more and more numerous in our aging societies. But this increase in the number of centenarians should not make us believe in unlimited longevity: the age of death after 100 years would thus tend to stagnate since 1997… Year of the death of Jeanne Calment!
The work of Juliana Antero-Jacquemin, published in 2014, had already suggested that a ceiling of longevity did indeed exist, and would be around 115 years, recalls The world. And for American researchers, the probability of one day exceeding 125 years would today be less than one in 10,000!
Hugo Aguilaniu, director of research at the CNRS and at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Lyon, will perhaps bring some comfort to those who already saw themselves as a “super-centenarian”. “The authors explain that lifespan is not determined by genetic selection, which is true, notes the scientist in the columns of the World. But they argue that the maximum age is reached based on external factors, wear and tear, like for a car. This theory cannot be applied to a living being as it is to an inert one. The current dean of humanity, the Italian Emma Morano, has blown her 116 years: will she be able to make science lie?