Study: Today’s Kids Are Unlikely to Live Until 100 Years Old

Decades ago researchers postulated children would only live to age 85 and only 1% to 5% may survive until their 100th birthday. These predictions were made back in 1990 and published in a paper for the National Library of Medicine. 

Now 34 years later, author and Gerontologist Jay Olshansky says he and his coauthors were correct. In a study published this month in the journal Nature Aging, scientists found female children born in 2019 in places such as the U.S., Hong Kong and Australia have a 5.1% chance of reaching 100 years of age. There is only a 1.8% chance for males. 

“In 1990, we predicted increases in life expectancy would slow down, and the effects of medical interventions, which we call Band-Aids, would have less and less of an effect on life expectancy,” Olshansky told CNN. about his analysis. “We’re still gaining life expectancy, but it’s at an increasingly slower pace than in previous decades.”

The decline of your cells, tissues, organs and organs systems is inevitable. While progress can be made against major diseases, it’s not going to have the life-extending effect that people think it will. 

“The only way we can break through this glass ceiling of longevity is if we slow the biological process of aging,” he said.

There are arguments that humans will eventually be able to live up to 150 years, but that’s based on experiments done with animals. Researchers have been successful in slowing biological aging in fruit flies, worms, mice and primates. 

“The door is wide open for us to alter the basic biological process of aging,” he said. “However, some researchers have taken the results of these animal models and have assumed that if you can double or triple the lifespan of a mouse, you can double or triple the lifespan of a human.”

While scientists have been able to extend the lifespan of shorter-lived species, it is unclear how it translates to an elongated life expectancy for humans and how much longer humans will be able to live.

“The metric of success should not be lifespan extension,” he said. “It should be health span extension. This is something we can measure, and this is something we all desire. In fact, I would argue that health span is the most precious commodity on Earth and we are in the business of manufacturing as much of it as we can.”

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