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Topics: Science, Health, World News, Guinness World Records
Ella Scott
Topics: Science, Health, World News, Guinness World Records
Experts believe they’ve found the ‘maximum age’ that a human can live up to, and it’s bound to please people with thanatophobia, the intense fear of death or dying.
According to statistics, the average American lives until they’re 78.39 years old. Meanwhile, over in the United Kingdom, life expectancy is a little higher at 81.24 years, and in Canada, it is 81.65 years.
If you’re someone who can’t help but morbidly count down the clock, then we have some good news: you could likely live well past these average expectancies, according to recent research efforts.
Tilburg and Rotterdam's Erasmus universities recently worked to find out how long a human body could live if it wasn’t cut short by illness or an accidental injury.
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And the answer might be a surprising one.
To do so, the scientists looked at 75,000 people who died in the Netherlands over a three-decade period, up to 2017.
Each individual's age at death was noted down so that the researchers could discover when a person's maximum lifespan plateaus.
After meticulously combing through all the records, they discovered the plateau usually took place when a human turned 90 - but that didn’t mean their life was at an end.
By taking into account how old the people in the study were when they died, the researchers determined that a person's maximum lifespan plateaus in their nineties - but that doesn't mean it's going to end.
The researchers soon suggested it is unlikely for a human to live beyond 115. They also discovered that biological women had a slightly longer lifespan than men.
While the maximum lifespan for a woman topped out at 115.7 years, men were estimated to reach a maximum age of 114.1 years.
Commenting on the findings, Professor John Einmahl, one of three scientists conducting the study, told AFP: "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."
Despite the researchers' solid findings, Professor Einmahl acknowledged that there are instances of people defying the norm and living beyond the suggested maximum lifespans.
You may already know that the oldest man ever verified by Guinness World Records was a Japanese supercentenarian named Jiroemon Kimura, who lived to be 116 years and 54 days old.
Right now, the oldest living woman in the world is Ethel Caterham, who is 116 years and 48 days old. She was born in 1909 and was the last surviving subject of King Edward VII.
The British native was born in Hampshire and lived in the UK until she was 18, when she swapped life in England for an au pair role in India.
In 2020, she survived COVID, and on her 116th birthday, she received a congratulatory message from João Marinho Neto of Brazil (born October 5, 1912), the world's oldest living man.