• Question: How old can a Human ever be?

    Asked by dognut99 to Ed, Hayley, Jason, Nathan, Sophie on 12 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Edward Bovill

      Edward Bovill answered on 12 Mar 2013:

      The oldest living person is Jiroemon Kimura from Japan and he’s 115 years old. The oldest person who has ever lived was 122 years old when she passed away in France in 1875.

      There is a genetic reason that people cannot live forever. As you’ll have noticed, as we get older our bodies slowly start to break down. This is because our cells are constantly copying and replacing themselves as they die and get worn out. Unfortunately, cells can only copy themselves a set number of times before they die, which sets a maximum age that a human body can live for (this is different for every person and depends on your lifestyle).

      There are scientists who believe that in a few decades time there will be genetic treatments that will be able to ‘reset’ the cells and increase the number of times they can copy themselves. This would mean that you could regenerate someone in their 60s and make them appear as if they were 20 again. While this is still very much science fiction there are some scientists who believe that there are already children who have been born today who could, theoretically, live forever if these treatments are developed in time.

    • Photo: Jason King

      Jason King answered on 12 Mar 2013:

      How lifespan is controlled is really interesting, and a really important question – why do dogs only live for 10 years, mice a few years at best, and elephants as long as humans? Somethings have been shown to make animals live longer, like slightly starving them thoughout their lives, so it is potentially possible to make humans live a bit longer than we do right now. We don’t really know how long though. I read somewhere though that even if we could live forever, the average age of a human would probably be about 240 as we would eventually get hit by a bus or something.

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