Maximum life span (or, for humans, maximum reported age at death) is a measure of the maximum amount of time one or more members of a populationhave been observed to survive between birth and death. The term can also denote an estimate of the maximum amount of time that a member of a given species could survive between birth and death, provided circumstances that are optimal to that member's longevity.

Most living species have at least one upper limit on the number of times the cells of a member can divide. This is called the Hayflick limit, although number of cell divisions does not strictly control lifespan.

Definition[edit]

In animal studies, maximum span is often taken to be the mean life span of the most long-lived 10% of a given cohort. By another definition, however, maximum life span corresponds to the age at which the oldest known member of a species or experimental group has died. Calculation of the maximum life span in the latter sense depends upon initial sample size.^[1]

Maximum life span contrasts with mean life span (average life span, life expectancy), and longevity. Mean life span varies with susceptibility to disease, accident, suicide and homicide, whereas maximum life span is determined by "rate of aging".^[2] Longevity refers only to the characteristics of the especially long lived members of a population, such as infirmities as they age or compression of morbidity, and not the specific life span of an individual.

In humans[edit]

The longest-living person whose dates of birth and death were verified to the modern norms of Guinness World Records and the Gerontology Research Groupwas Jeanne Calment (1875-1997), a French woman who lived to 122. Reduction of infant mortality has accounted for most of the increased average life span longevity, but since the 1960s mortality rates among those over 80 years have decreased by about 1.5% per year. "The progress being made in lengthening lifespans and postponing senescence is entirely due to medical and public-health efforts, rising standards of living, better education, healthier nutrition and more salubrious lifestyles."^[3] Animal studies suggest that further lengthening of human lifespan could be achieved through "calorie restriction mimetic" drugs or by directly reducing food consumption. Although calorie restriction has not been proven to extend the maximum human life span, as of 2014, results in ongoing primate studies have demonstrated that the assumptions derived from rodents are valid in primates as well [Reference: Nature 1 April 2014].^[4]

No fixed theoretical limit to human longevity is apparent today.^[5]^[6] "A fundamental question in aging research is whether humans and other species possess an immutable life-span limit."^[7] "The assumption that the maximum human life span is fixed has been justified, [but] is invalid in a number of animal models and ... may become invalid for humans as well."^[8] Studies in the biodemography of human longevity indicate a late-life mortality deceleration law: that death rates level off at advanced ages to a late-life mortality plateau. That is, there is no fixed upper limit to human longevity, or fixed maximal human lifespan.^[9] This law was first quantified in 1939, when researchers found that the one-year probability of death at advanced age asymptotically approaches a limit of 44% for women and 54% for men.^[10]

Scientists have observed that a person's VO₂max value (a measure of the volume of oxygen flow to the cardiac muscle) decreases as a function of age. Therefore, the maximum lifespan of a person could be determined by calculating when the person's VO₂max value drops below the basal metabolic rate necessary to sustain life, which is approximately 3 ml per kg per minute.^[11]^{[page needed]} On the basis of this hypothesis, athletes with a VO₂max value between 50 and 60 at age 20 would be expected "to live for 100 to 125 years, provided they maintained their physical activity so that their rate of decline in VO₂max remained constant".^[12]

Average and commonly accepted maximum lifespans correspond to the extremums of the body mass (1, 2) and mass normalized to height (3, 4) of men (1, 3) and women (2, 4).^[13]

A theoretical study suggested the maximum human lifespan to be around 125 years using a modified stretched exponential function for human survival curves.^[14] The analysis of dynamics of the body mass in human population indicates extremums, which correspond to mean (70-75 years), the commonly accepted maximum (100–110 years) and maximum known (140–160 years) lifespan.^[13] In another study, researchers claimed that there exists a maximum lifespan for humans, and that the human maximal lifespan has been declining since the 1990s.^[15]^{[dubious – discuss]} This study is now disputed on the basis of simple coding errors and biased sampling.^[16] This study also supports a continuing increase in both theoretical and observed upper human lifespan, based on observed data from 200 national populations. However, a theoretical study also suggested that the maximum human life expectancy at birth is limited by the human life characteristic value δ, which is around 104 years.^[17]

The United Nations has undertaken an important Bayesian sensitivity analysis of global population burden based on life expectancy projection at birth in future decades. The 2017 95% prediction interval of 2090 average life expectancy rises as high as +6 (106, in Century Representation Form) by 2090, with dramatic, ongoing, layered consequences on world population and demography should that happen. The prediction interval is extremely wide, and the United Nations can not be certain. Organizations like the Methuselah Foundation are working toward an end to senescence and practically unlimited human lifespan. If successful, the demographic implications for human population will be greater in effective multiplier terms than any experienced in the last five centuries if maximum lifespan remains unlimited by law.

In other animals[edit]

Small animals such as birds and squirrels rarely live to their maximum life span, usually dying of accidents, disease or predation.

The maximum life span of most species is documented in the Anage repository.^[18]

Maximum life span is usually longer for species that are larger or have effective defenses against predation, such as bird flight,^[19] chemical defenses^[20] or living in social groups.^[21]

The differences in life span between species demonstrate the role of genetics in determining maximum life span ("rate of aging"). The records (in years) are these:

for common house mouse, 4^[22]
for Brown rat, 3.8^[23]
for dogs, 29 (See List of oldest dogs)^[24]
for cats, 38^[25]
for polar bears, 42^[26] (Debby)
for horses, 62^[27]
for Asian elephants, 86^[28]

The longest-lived vertebrates have been variously described as

Large parrots (Macaws and cockatoos can live up to 80–100 years in captivity)
Koi (A Japanese species of fish, allegedly living up to 200 years, though generally not exceeding 50 – A specimen named Hanako was reportedly 226 years old upon her death)^[29]^[30]
Tortoises (Galápagos tortoise) (190 years)^[31]
Tuataras (a New Zealand reptile species, 100–200+ years^[32])
Eels, the so-called Brantevik Eel (Swedish: Branteviksålen) is thought to have lived in a water well in southern Sweden since 1859, which makes it over 150 years old.^[33] It was reported that it had died in August 2014 at an age of 155.^[34]
Whales (Bowhead Whale) (Balaena mysticetus about 200 years) Although this idea was unproven for a time, recent research has indicated that bowhead whales recently killed still had harpoons in their bodies from about 1890,^[35] which, along with analysis of amino acids, has indicated a maximum life span, stated as "the 211 year-old bowhead could have been from 177 to 245 years old".^[36]^[37]^[38]
Greenland Sharks are currently the vertebrate species with the longest known lifespan.^[39] An examination of 28 specimens in one study published in 2016 determined by radiocarbon dating that the oldest of the animals that they sampled had lived for about 392 ± 120 years (a minimum of 272 years and a maximum of 512 years). The authors further concluded that the species reaches sexual maturity at about 150 years of age.^[39]

Invertebrate species which continue to grow as long as they live (e.g., certain clams, some coral species) can on occasion live hundreds of years:

A bivalve mollusc (Arctica islandica) (aka "Ming", lived 507±2 years.^[40]^[41])

Exceptions[edit]

Some jellyfish species, including Turritopsis dohrnii, Laodicea undulata,^[42] and Aurelia sp.1,^[43] are able to revert to the polyp stage even after reproducing (so called life cycle reversal), rather than dying as in other jellyfish. Consequently, these species are considered biologically immortal and have no maximum lifespan.^[44]
There may be no natural limit to the Hydra's life span, but it is not yet clear how to estimate the age of a specimen.
Flatworms, or Platyhelminthes, are known to be "almost immortal" as they have a great regeneration capacity, continuous growth and binary fission type cellular division.^[45]
Lobsters are sometimes said to be biologically immortal because they don't seem to slow down, weaken, or lose fertility with age. However, due to the energy needed for moulting, they cannot live indefinitely.^[46]
Tardigrades can live indefinitely in a state of suspended animation, a state which they enter when they are not hydrated. In this state, they can withstand an extremely large number of environmental pressures, including intense radioactivity and heat, and being sent into space. Despite this, they can only live in a hydrated state for a few months. ^[47]

In plants[edit]

Plants are referred to as annuals which live only one year, biennials which live two years, and perennials which live longer than that. The longest-lived perennials, woody-stemmed plants such as trees and bushes, often live for hundreds and even thousands of years (one may question whether or not they may die of old age). A giant sequoia, General Sherman is alive and well in its third millennium. A Great Basin Bristlecone Pine called Methuselah is 4,848 years old (as of 2017) and the Bristlecone Pine called Prometheus was a little older still, at least 4,844 years (and possibly as old as 5,000 years), when it was cut down in 1964. The oldest known plant (possibly oldest living thing) is a clonal Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides) tree colony in the Fishlake National Forest in Utah called Pando at about 80,000 years. Lichen, a symbiotic algae and fungal proto-plant, such as Rhizocarpon geographicum can live upwards of 10,000 years.

Increasing maximum life span[edit]

"Maximum life span" here means the mean life span of the most long-lived 10% of a given cohort. Caloric restriction has not yet been shown to break mammalian world records for longevity. Rats, mice, and hamsters experience maximum life-span extension from a diet that contains all of the nutrients but only 40–60% of the calories that the animals consume when they can eat as much as they want. Mean life span is increased 65% and maximum life span is increased 50%, when caloric restriction is begun just before puberty.^[48] For fruit flies the life extending benefits of calorie restriction are gained immediately at any age upon beginning calorie restriction and ended immediately at any age upon resuming full feeding.^[49]

A few transgenic strains of mice have been created that have maximum life spans greater than that of wild-type or laboratory mice. The Ames and Snell mice, which have mutations in pituitary transcription factors and hence are deficient in Gh, LH, TSH, and secondarily IGF1, have extensions in maximal lifespan of up to 65%. To date, both in absolute and relative terms, these Ames and Snell mice have the maximum lifespan of any mouse not on caloric restriction (see below on GhR). Mutations/knockout of other genes affecting the GH/IGF1 axis, such as Lit, Ghr and Irs1 have also shown extension in lifespan, but much more modest both in relative and absolute terms. The longest lived laboratory mouse ever was a Ghr knockout mouse, which lived to ≈1800 days in the lab of Andrzej Bartke at Southern Illinois University. The maximum for normal B6 mice under ideal conditions is 1200 days.

Most biomedical gerontologists believe that biomedical molecular engineering will eventually extend maximum lifespan and even bring about rejuvenation.^{[citation needed]}Anti-aging drugs are a potential tool for extending life.^[50]

Aubrey de Grey, a theoretical gerontologist, has proposed that aging can be reversed by Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence. De Grey has established The Methuselah Mouse Prize to award money to researchers who can extend the maximum life span of mice. So far, three Mouse Prizes have been awarded: one for breaking longevity records to Dr. Andrzej Bartke of Southern Illinois University (using GhR knockout mice); one for late-onset rejuvenation strategies to Dr. Stephen Spindler of the University of California (using caloric restriction initiated late in life); and one to Dr. Z. Dave Sharp for his work with the pharmaceutical rapamycin.^[51]

Correlation with DNA repair capacity[edit]

Accumulated DNA damage appears to be a limiting factor in the determination of maximum life span. The theory that DNA damage is the primary cause of aging, and thus a principal determinant of maximum life span, has attracted increased interest in recent years. This is based, in part, on evidence in human and mouse that inherited deficiencies in DNA repair genes often cause accelerated aging.^[52]^[53]^[54] There is also substantial evidence that DNA damage accumulates with age in mammalian tissues, such as those of the brain, muscle, liver and kidney (reviewed by Bernstein et al.^[55] and see DNA damage theory of aging and DNA damage (naturally occurring)). One expectation of the theory (that DNA damage is the primary cause of aging) is that among species with differing maximum life spans, the capacity to repair DNA damage should correlate with lifespan. The first experimental test of this idea was by Hart and Setlow^[56] who measured the capacity of cells from seven different mammalian species to carry out DNA repair. They found that nucleotide excision repair capability increased systematically with species longevity. This correlation was striking and stimulated a series of 11 additional experiments in different laboratories over succeeding years on the relationship of nucleotide excision repair and life span in mammalian species (reviewed by Bernstein and Bernstein^[57]). In general, the findings of these studies indicated a good correlation between nucleotide excision repair capacity and life span. The association between nucleotide excision repair capability and longevity is strengthened by the evidence that defects in nucleotide excision repair proteins in humans and rodents cause features of premature aging, as reviewed by Diderich.^[53]

Further support for the theory that DNA damage is the primary cause of aging comes from study of Poly ADP ribose polymerases (PARPs). PARPs are enzymes that are activated by DNA strand breaks and play a role in DNA base excision repair. Burkle et al. reviewed evidence that PARPs, and especially PARP-1, are involved in maintaining mammalian longevity.^[58] The life span of 13 mammalian species correlated with poly(ADP ribosyl)ation capability measured in mononuclear cells. Furthermore, lymphoblastoid cell lines from peripheral blood lymphocytes of humans over age 100 had a significantly higher poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation capability than control cell lines from younger individuals.

Research data[edit]

A comparison of the heart mitochondria in rats (7-year maximum life span) and pigeons (35-year maximum life span) showed that pigeon mitochondria leak fewer free-radicals than rat mitochondria, despite the fact that both animals have similar metabolic rate and cardiac output^[59]
For mammals there is a direct relationship between mitochondrial membrane fatty acid saturation and maximum life span^[60]
Studies of the liver lipids of mammals and a bird (pigeon) show an inverse relationship between maximum life span and number of double bonds^[61]
Selected species of birds and mammals show an inverse relationship between telomere rate of change (shortening) and maximum life span^[62]
Maximum life span correlates negatively with antioxidant enzyme levels and free-radicals production and positively with rate of DNA repair^[63]
Female mammals express more Mn−SOD and glutathione peroxidase antioxidant enzymes than males. This has been hypothesized as the reason they live longer^[64] However, mice entirely lacking in glutathione peroxidase 1 do not show a reduction in lifespan.
The maximum life span of transgenic mice has been extended about 20% by overexpression of human catalase targeted to mitochondria^[65]
A comparison of 7 non-primate mammals (mouse, hamster, rat, guinea-pig, rabbit, pig and cow) showed that the rate of mitochondrial superoxide and hydrogen peroxide production in heart and kidney were inversely correlated with maximum life span^[66]
A study of 8 non-primate mammals showed an inverse correlation between maximum life span and oxidative damage to mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) in heart & brain^[67]
A study of several species of mammals and a bird (pigeon) indicated a linear relationship between oxidative damage to protein and maximum life span^[68]
There is a direct correlation between DNA repair and maximum life span for mammalian species^[69]
Drosophila (fruit-flies) bred for 15 generations by only using eggs that were laid toward the end of reproductive life achieved maximum life spans 30% greater than that of controls^[70]
Overexpression of the enzyme which synthesizes glutathione in long-lived transgenic Drosophila (fruit-flies) extended maximum lifespan by nearly 50%^[71]
A mutation in the age−1 gene of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans increased mean life span 65% and maximum life span 110%.^[72] However, the degree of lifespan extension in relative terms by both the age-1 and daf-2 mutations is strongly dependent on ambient temperature, with ≈10% extension at 16 °C and 65% extension at 27 °C.
Fat-specific Insulin Receptor KnockOut (FIRKO) mice have reduced fat mass, normal calorie intake and an increased maximum life span of 18%.^[73]
The capacity of mammalian species to detoxify the carcinogenic chemical benzo(a)pyrene to a water-soluble form also correlates well with maximum life span.^[74]
Short-term induction of oxidative stress due to calorie restriction increases life span in Caenorhabditis elegans by promoting stress defense, specifically by inducing an enzyme called catalase. As shown by Michael Ristow and co-workers nutritive antioxidants completely abolish this extension of life span by inhibiting a process called mitohormesis.^[75]

There’s no limit to longevity, says study that revives human lifespan debate ( SOURCE;- INTERNATE )

Death rates in later life flatten out and suggest there may be no fixed limit on human longevity, countering some previous work. ( COURTECY;-Elie Dolgin )

Emma Morano, an Italian supercentenarian who died in 2017 at the age of 117, was the world's last surviving person born in the 19th century.Credit: Antonio Calanni/AP/REX/Shutterstock

There might be no natural limit to how long humans can live — at least not one yet in sight — contrary to the claims of some demographers and biologists.

That’s according to a statistical analysis published Thursday in Science1on the survival probabilities of nearly 4,000 ‘super-elderly’ people in Italy, all aged 105 and older.

A team led by Sapienza University demographer Elisabetta Barbi and University of Roma Tre statistician Francesco Lagona, both based in Rome, found that the risk of death — which, throughout most of life, seems to increase as people age — levels off after age 105, creating a ‘mortality plateau’. At that point, the researchers say, the odds of someone dying from one birthday to the next are roughly 50:50 (see ‘Longevity unlimited’).

“If there is a mortality plateau, then there is no limit to human longevity,” says Jean-Marie Robine, a demographer at the French Institute of Health and Medical Research in Montpellier, who was not involved in the study.

That would mean that someone like Chiyo Miyako, the Japanese great-great-great-grandmother who, at 117, is the world’s oldest known person, could live for years to come — or even forever, at least hypothetically.

Researchers have long debated whether humans have an upper age limit. The consensus holds that the risk of death steadily increases in adulthood, up to about age 80 or so. But there’s vehement disagreement about what happens as people enter their 90s and 100s.

Some scientists have examined demographic data and concluded that there is a fixed, natural ‘shelf-life’ for our species and that mortality rates keep increasing. Others have looked at the same data and concluded that the death risk flattens out in one’s ultra-golden years, and therefore that human lifespan does not have an upper threshold.

Age rage

In 2016, geneticist Jan Vijg and his colleagues at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City rekindled the debate when they analysed the reported ages at death for the world’s oldest individuals over a half-century. They estimated that human longevity hit a ceiling at about 115 years — 125 tops.

Vijg and his team argued2 that with few, if any, gains in maximum lifespan since the mid-1990s, human ageing had reached its natural limit. The longest known lifespan belongs to Jeanne Calment, a French super-centenarian who died in 1997 at age 122.

Experts challenged the statistical methods in the 2016 study, setting off a firestorm into which now step Barbi and Lagona. Working with colleagues at the Italian National Institute of Statistics, the researchers collected records on every Italian aged 105 years and older between 2009 and 2015 — gathering certificates of death, birth and survival in an effort to minimize the chances of ‘age exaggeration’, a common problem among the oldest old.

They also tracked individual survival trajectories from one year to the next, rather than lump people into age intervals as previous studies that combine data sets have done. And by focusing just on Italy, which has one of the highest rates of centenarians per capita in the world, they avoided the issue of variation in data collection among different jurisdictions.

As such, says Kenneth Howse, a health-policy researcher at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing in the United Kingdom, “these data provide the best evidence to date of extreme-age mortality plateaus in humans”.

Ken Wachter, a mathematical demographer at the University of California, Berkeley, and an author of the latest study, suspects that prior disputes over the patterns of late-life mortality have largely stemmed from bad records and statistics. “We have the advantage of better data,” he says. “If we can get data of this quality for other countries, I expect we’re going to see much the same pattern.”

Robine is not so sure. He says that unpublished data from France, Japan and Canada suggest that evidence for a mortality plateau is “not as clear cut”. A global analysis is still needed to determine whether the findings from Italy reflect a universal feature of human ageing, he says.

Off limits

The world is home to around 500,000 people aged 100 and up — a number that’s predicted to nearly double with each coming decade. Even if the risk of late-life mortality remains constant at 50:50, the swelling global membership in the 100-plus club should translate into a creep upwards in the oldest person alive by about one year per decade, says Joop de Beer, a longevity researcher at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute in The Hague.

Many researchers say they hope to better understand what’s behind the levelling off of mortality rates in later life. Siegfried Hekimi, a geneticist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, speculates that the body’s cells eventually reach a point where repair mechanisms can offset further damage to keep mortality rates level.

“Why this plateaus out and what it means about the process of ageing — I don’t think we have any idea,” Hekimi says.

For James Kirkland, a geriatrician at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, the strong evidence for a mortality plateau points to the possibility of forestalling death at any age. Some experts think that the very frail are beyond repair. But if the odds of dying don’t increase over time, he says, interventions that slow ageing are likely to make a difference, even in the extremely old.

Not everyone buys that argument — or the conclusions of the latest paper.

Brandon Milholland, a co-author of the 2016 Nature paper, says that the evidence for a mortality plateau is “marginal”, as the study included fewer than 100 people who lived to 110 or beyond. Leonid Gavrilov, a longevity researcher at the University of Chicago in Illinois, notes that even small inaccuracies in the Italian longevity records could lead to a spurious conclusion.

Others say the conclusions of the study are biologically implausible. “You run into basic limitations imposed by body design,” says Jay Olshansky, a bio-demographer at the University of Illinois at Chicago, noting that cells that do not replicate, such as neurons, will continue to wither and die as a person ages, placing upper boundaries on humans' natural lifespan.

This study is thus unlikely to be the last word on the age-limit dispute, says Haim Cohen, a molecular biologist at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat-Gan, Israel. “I’m sure that the debate is going to continue.”

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my free thinkings (blogs of Abdur Rouf)

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A New Study Says There’s No Limit To The Human Life Span ( COURTECY;- Maggie Ryan, )

Maximum life span ( COURTECY;-

Definition[edit]

In humans[edit]

In other animals[edit]

Exceptions[edit]

In plants[edit]

Increasing maximum life span[edit]

Correlation with DNA repair capacity[edit]

Research data[edit]

There’s no limit to longevity, says study that revives human lifespan debate ( SOURCE;- INTERNATE )

A New Study Says There’s No Limit To The Human Life Span ( COURTECY;-

Your body is immortal and you never even knew.

Good news for human life spans — at age 105, death rates suddenly stop going up ( COURTECY;-

Is There a Limit to the Human Life Span? ( COURTECY

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