Realistic expectations for changes to average human lifespan in the near future.

Abstract

A recent publication presented the results of a survey given to longevity experts that attended the 2022 Systems Aging Gordon Research Conference. Corroborating results from a prior survey and broader discussions in the field, the authors found that there was little consensus on fundamental topics, including what causes aging. While this disagreement is not particularly surprising, the spread of answers to the following prompt was unexpected: "The average lifespan in developed countries will be increased by >10 years in the next 20 years." On a five-point agreeability scale, a slight, significant majority of respondents indicated agreement with this projection. To get a sense of how ambitious this prediction is, a previous analysis concluded that preventing every single cancer death would only increase life expectancy at birth by around three years. Moreover, the majority of gains in life expectancy since 1900 are due to improvements in preventing and managing infectious and contagious diseases. Given all of this, the lengthy lag between discovery and translation, the time required to prepare for and launch longevity-oriented clinical trials, and the limited number of reproducible interventions that robustly extend lifespan in male and female mice, it is unlikely that 10+ year increases to average lifespan are just around the corner in developed countries. While aging is undoubtedly modifiable and further improvements in longevity are achievable, the field's optimism should not distract from what is realistically attainable and the amount of work and time required to successfully identify, test, and translate pro-longevity interventions.