RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The dynamic upper limit of human lifespan
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 124800
DO 10.1101/124800
A1 Saul Newman
A1 Easteal Simon
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/04/05/124800.abstract
AB We respond to claims by Dong et al. that human lifespan is limited below 125 years. Using the log-linear increase in mortality rates with age to predict the upper limits of human survival we find, in contrast to Dong et al., that the limit to human lifespan is historically flexible and increasing. This discrepancy can be explained by Dong et al.’s use of data with variable sample sizes, age-biased rounding errors, and log(0) instead of log(1) values in linear regressions. Addressing these issues eliminates the proposed 125-year upper limit to human lifespan.