How Long Humans can Live

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Recommended: Explain theories of ageing

In the field of gerontology, there is no other issue which is as contentious as the question of how long humans can live. One school maintains that human life can be extended for any number of years. While the opposing school says that there is definitely an age limit beyond which human life cannot be extended.

Aging is labeled as the accumulation of diverse harmful changes occurring in cells and tissues with advancement of age that are responsible for the increased risk of disease and death. (Harman 2003). Opposed to humans, most animals living in natural environs don’t age much due to various factors like disease, predation, drought or starvation. (Holliday 2006). In fact, it can be said that aging is a unique human phenomenon. (Hayflick 2000b). Advances in the fields of biomedicine and hygiene, have enabled us to know more about the aging process. The increase in life expectancy in the recent years can be seen in the boost in number of the old in developed countries.

We need to clearly distinguish the terms, life expectancy and life span. Life expectancy is the number of years a human can expect to live on an average. The maximum upper limit that a human can aspire to live is life span. Life span for humans has remained more or less unchanged over the past 100,000 years and it remains at roughly around 125 years. But life expectancy has increased tremendously over the past few decades thanks to advances in medicine and improvements in lifestyle.

One scientist who has become famous for expounding that science can reverse the aging process is gerontologist Aubrey de Gray. He is one among the leading lights that belongs to the school that argues that extension of human life is child’s play for Science. To understand...

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...an of those in developed countries. Studies have also proved that increased brain activity or cognitive faculties tend to elongate human lives. Some statistics also point out to the higher number of centenarians and super centenarians (those above age 110) living now.

References:

Harman D. (2003) The free radical theory of aging. Antioxid Redox Signal.5. P. 557–61.

Hayflick L. (2000b) The future of ageing. Nature. 408. p. 267–9.

Holliday R. (2006) Aging is no longer an unsolved problem in biology. Acad Sci. 1067. P. 1–9.

Tosato, Matteo., Zamboni, Valentina., Ferrini, Alessandro. and Cesari, Matteo. (2007) The aging process and potential interventions to extend life expectancy. PMC. [Online] Clin Interv Aging 2(3).p.401–412.Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2685272/. [Accessed: 4th March 2014].

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