No one knows how long they’re going to live for, but scientists believe they’ve figured out the upper limits to how old humans can actually get.
I can practically hear biohacker Bryan Johnson, whose unusual approaches to health have ‘reversed’ his biological age, coming up with his plan to prove them wrong…
The figures were presented by statisticians at Tilburg and Rotterdam’s Erasmus universities, who determined the ‘maximum’ age humans can live to through a study of 75,000 deceased people.
The researchers looked at the age at which the subjects died in the 30 years up to 2017, with the hope of figuring out how long a single individual could live if they looked after themselves, and didn’t die due to an illness or some other circumstance.
Looking at the data, the researchers were able to determine that a person’s maximum lifespan plateaus in their nineties.
However, since many of us likely know someone who has made it to their 100th birthday or beyond, it’s clear that life doesn’t necessarily end there.
Research has found people can live into their 100s (Getty Stock Image)
Instead, the researchers suggested that the maximum age a human is likely to live to is 115.
Women also fare slightly better than men when it comes to longevity, as the research revealed that the maximum lifespan for a female tops out at 115.7 years, while men were estimated to reach a maximum age of 114.1 years.
Professor John Einmahl, one of three scientists conducting the study, discussed the revelation in an interview with AFP, saying: “On average, people live longer, but the very oldest among us have not gotten older over the last thirty years.
“There is certainly some kind of a wall here. Of course the average life expectancy has increased. Nevertheless, the maximum ceiling itself hasn’t changed.”
The oldest living person is 116 (Getty Stock Image)
While the research found that it is unlikely a human will live beyond 115, Einmahl admitted there are instances of people bending the norm and living beyond these suggested maximum lifespans.
The oldest man ever verified by the Guinness World Records (GWR) was a Japanese man named Jiroemon Kimura, who lived to be 116 years old.
And early last year, French nun Sister André passed away at the grand old age of 118.
In September 2024, Guinness World Records awarded Japan resident Tomiko Itooka as the current oldest living person.
Born in May 1908, Itooka is now more than 116 years old, and she received her official GWR certificate on the Respect for the Aged Day; a Japanese public holiday created to honor the country’s elderly citizens.