Implausibility of radical life extension in humans in the twenty-first century
Open accessAbstract
Over the course of the twentieth century, human life expectancy at birth rose in high-income nations by approximately 30 years, largely driven by advances in public health and medicine. Mortality reduction was observed initially at an early age and continued into middle and older ages. However, it was unclear whether this phenomenon and the resulting accelerated rise in life expectancy would continue into the twenty-first century. Here using demographic survivorship metrics from national vital statistics in the eight countries with the longest-lived populations (Australia, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland) and in Hong Kong and the United States from 1990 to 2019, we explored recent trends in death rates and life expectancy. We found that, since 1990, improvements overall in life expectancy have decelerated. Our analysis also revealed that resistance to improvements in life expectancy increased while lifespan inequality declined and mortality compression occurred. Our analysis suggests that survival to age 100 years is unlikely to exceed 15% for females and 5% for males, altogether suggesting that, unless the processes of biological aging can be markedly slowed, radical human life extension is implausible in this century. In the twentieth century, human life expectancy rose dramatically. Based on the past three decades of observed mortality in the eight countries with the longest-lived populations and in Hong Kong and the United States, Olshansky et al. propose that, without medical breakthroughs that slow aging, radical lifespan extension is implausible in this century.
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Recent slowdowns in life expectancy improvements have been observed across many high-income countries.
“Recent slowdowns in life expectancy improvements have not been limited to the United States but have been observed across many high-income countries (2–4).”
From Insights into US life expectancy stagnation from birth cohort mortality dynamics (2026) · cites this paper as [3]
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Insights into US life expectancy stagnation from birth cohort mortality dynamics
Abrams, L., Bramajo, O., van Raalte, A., Myrskylä, M., & Mehta, N. K. (2026) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2519356123 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“It may be reflective of the population approaching natural biological limits of human longevity, as the most dramatic gains from medical advances and improved early - life conditions have already been realized, making a natural deceleration in mortality improvements inevitable (3, 41).”
- Authors
- Olshansky, S. J., Willcox, B. J., Demetrius, L., & Beltrán-Sánchez, H.
- Affiliations
- University of Illinois Chicago (US)
- University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Olshansky, S. Jay
- Venue
- Nature Aging
- Published
- 2024-10-07
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 1635-1642
- ISSN
- 2662-8465 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC11564081
- OpenAlex
- W4403184891
- Cited by
- 115
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 62 · 2025: 50 · 2024: 3
- FWCI
- 98.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature Aging (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute on Aging (R01AG027060, R01AG052030)
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2C-HD041022)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Demography › Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Aging › Genetics, Aging, and Longevity in Model Organisms
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Global Health Care Issues
- Keywords
- mortality trends, lifespan inequality, biological aging, radical life extension, longevity
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Aging, Australia, Female, France, Hong Kong, Humans, Japan, Life Expectancy, Longevity, Male, Middle Aged, Mortality, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United States, Republic of Korea
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