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New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

(lafollette.wisc.edu)
216 points XzetaU8 | 2 comments | 30 Aug 25 16:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.548s | source
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czhu12 ◴[30 Aug 25 17:43 UTC] No.45076548[source]▶
I don’t want to be that guy but isn’t this kind of an obvious result? The main claim is that life expectancy improvements in the past century are mostly due to decreases in childhood mortality.

During the Roman period, the average life expectancy was only 22-25 years old because so many babies were dying prematurely.

If you could make it past the age of 10, then you were expected to make it to about 50, which almost doubles life expectancy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empi...

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1. echelon ◴[30 Aug 25 17:59 UTC] No.45076716[source]▶
That's 100% on the mark. Infants aren't dying anymore.

Real longevity is hard science and we're still at the punch card phase of biology.

Wake me up when we can make headless, full body monoclonal donors for human head transplants. Antigen free / HLA neutral so immunosuppressants are a thing of the past. That'll cure every cancer except brain and blood, cure every other injury, and increase health span of everything but the brain.

The tough problems:

- religious ick and luddite ick

- artificial gestation

- deactivating the brain stem without impacting development

- keeping the body physiologically active and developmentally normative

- head transplants that preserve spinal cord function

- lots of other ancillary issues with changes to pulmonary and immune flux.

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2. Earw0rm ◴[31 Aug 25 09:20 UTC] No.45081757[source]▶
Won't happen for broadly the same kind of reasons interstellar travel won't happen.

Lab-grown organs is doable, but the brain and spinal column just aren't modular in that way.

In-place system renovation and targeted replacement is a more likely way to yield results.