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Recently, a study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences touched a widely debate interrogation, this highly debated question has to do with the fact of your increasing longevity level is “written” in our genes. The research makes clear that our life expectancy starts at birth; for example: a child born in the past four generations has a much greater probability of surviving during infancy and adolescence. Such chances are much reduced when a child was born in any of the 8 thousand generations that came before.
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (German Institute) were the authors of this study came from, in order to perform their study; they analyzed and compared people from Europe and Asia (from the industrialized countries) and people from the primitive societies (hunter-gatherer societies) through the entire globe. They came to substantial conclusions sufficient to compare the longevity at these different eras of the Human History, for example: a typical person from a hunter-gatherer society is less 100 times likely to survive to the age of 15 than a typical German person (who is more 100 times more likely to survive when compared to the previous person).
Let’s look at the person who lived in a hunter-gatherer society, if that person reached the 30 years-old, he would, more likely, die in the following year. When it comes to longevity, the world-champion was a Japanese woman with 72 years old. In fact, the researchers wrote at the table of the actual Human evolution table “72 is the new 30” which expresses the upper mentioned numbers about human longevity throughout the History.
The process of increasing longevity has been made since the XIX century (1800); at that time the average life expectancy of a Swede at as birth was 32 years. That is roughly beyond the 31 years that the normal hunter-gatherer human could expect to live.
The process didn’t stop in 1800, because in 1900, the average life expectance of a Swede reached the 52 years, and nowadays it has grown up to 82 years — this reflects a 150 percent lifespan increase in just two centuries, amazing isn’t it?
The research authors noted that the upper mentioned information embarrassed the efforts made in laboratories to extend the life of the various laboratory animals. Using methods such as genetic mutations in order to increase the lifespan in a vast number of species. The scientists managed to bring some good results to light. They doubled the longevity of the nematode worms. They increased the longevity of fruit flies 85 percent, and they also managed to increase the lifespan of mice to 50 percent. Apart from the genetic mutation, scientists also used caloric restriction experiments that were also capable of extending the lives of laboratory animals, but this is not a big deal, as all these efforts represent very little when it comes to human life expectancy, the efforts made would not change the human lifespan in the same way they changed the lab animals’ life expectancy.
According to the research, no specimen is best capable of dramatizing the current longevity matter than the chimpanzees. The life expectancy of a person living in a hunter-gatherer society is the was the same as a chimpanzee.
According to the authors of this study, they disregard the connection between such longevity increase and the genes. According to them, alterations in the genome are very slow to explain the rapidly-increasing longevity. The researchers stated that such process had been stimulated by environmental changes, improvements when it comes to nutrition and the vast and technologic medical improvements.
The authors of the study added that we humans had yet a lot to learn before approaching the limits of the human life expectancy and starting to understand what pushes us against that limits. This study was supervised by James W. Vaupel, one of the main persons that defends that human longevity doesn’t have a limit.
An evolutionary biologist named Jakob Bro-Jorgensen working at Great Britain’s University in Liverpool wasn’t involved in this research. But he stated that this study revealed the role industrialized societies play in human mortality as the generations has pass. Bro-Jorgensen also said that this rapid gain related to human survival is clearly connected to environmental influences and not to genetics. However, he alerted to the fact that such industrialized societies and such advances may be leading to a change in the natural course of human evolution.
Some experts in the matter of longevity have been criticizing the study because it disregards the role of obesity, and other health problems.
Jay Olshansky, is a public health professor working at the University of Illinois located in Chicago. He is also a leading researcher in the emerging field of bio demographics, he told that the absence, in this study, of important data — demonstrate, for example, that the life expectancy of white Americans, who did not complete high school decreased significantly since the 90s — suggests that the authors have a particular inclination to report only news that favors the predetermined idea that lifespan can only increase.
Source: Bangor Daily News
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