Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
We've Hit Our Lifespan Ceiling As Humans, Scientists Say
On Aug. 4, 1997, Jeanne Calment passed away in a nursing home in France. The Reaper comes for us all, of course, but he was in no hurry for Mrs. Calment. She died at age 122, setting a record for human longevity. Jan Vijg doubts we will see the likes of her again. True, people have been living to greater ages over the past few decades. But now, he says, we have reached the upper limit of human longevity. (Zimmer, 10/5)
Humans have squeezed almost as much they can out of their natural lifespans and are approaching the biological limit of how long they can extend their years. So suggests a paper published Wednesday in Nature that argues that the human lifespan appears to be fixed. By analyzing demographic data, the authors write that the number of years any one human can live has a natural cap and is restricted by all the biological time bombs that can take us down. Even if scientists are able to slow some aspects of aging, they say, there are plenty more that can kill us. (Joseph and Bronshtein, 10/5)
Life-extension zealots have championed many strategies aimed at prolonging our days here on Earth, and not all sound like much fun (I’m thinking specifically about caloric restriction). Super-centenarians — those rare humans who live beyond the age of 110 — by contrast seem to embrace much more appealing life-extension strategies: They routinely endorse regular naps, consumption of large quantities of chocolate, and a daily nip of strong drink, for instance. (Healy, 10/5)
"We cannot break through that ceiling," Vijg says. "The take-home message essentially is this whole ever-increasing life expectancy of humans cannot go on." (Stein, 10/5)
And, can a heart attack increase someone's lifespan? —
Going to the right hospital for heart attack care could add a year to your life, a new study suggests. Using Medicare records, researchers found that roughly 17 years after a heart attack, average life expectancy was 9 to 14 months longer for patients who had been treated at hospitals that do best on widely used quality measures than for those treated at low-rated ones. (Marchione, 10/5)
