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Life expectancy is still increasing in industrialized countries and has extended well beyond the biological limits announced just a few decades ago. Examining the record levels actually observed over time, Jacques Vallin and France Meslé present an overview of the successive stages of progress in human health and the factors behind this progress, and discuss the prospects for an ever longer length of life.
ABSTRACT
In an article published in Science in 2002, James Oeppen and James Vaupel, observing a constant linear progression (at a rate of 3 months per year) in maximum life expectancies since 1841, concluded that the trend was set to continue for many years to come. A critical re-assessment of the data and a more long-term historical perspective suggest, on the contrary, that the rates of increase in life expectancy have varied over time, as the factors driving improvements in human health have themselves evolved. In particular, the pace of progress during the most recent phase - that of the cardiovascular revolution - was slower than during the previous period, that of the fight against infectious diseases. As life expectancy increases, future progress will become heavily dependent on a massive decrease in mortality at more advanced ages. What happens in years to come will depend on future innovations, the form and timing of which are unknown today. A life expectancy of 100 years is certainly not unachievable, but no-one knows if and when it will occur.
Human life expectancy has risen spectacularly since the mid-eighteenth century. In France, for example, it has increased three-fold in 250 years, rising from an estimated 27 years for men and 28 years for women in 1750-1759 [1], to almost 78 years for men and 85 years for women today. This, as we know, is the consequence of immense progress in the economic, medical, cultural and social spheres. Will the trend continue in years to come?
The question is not new, and eminent demographers have regularly sought to predict the level at which the increase in longevity will be halted by the limits of human biology Just as regularly, the announced limits have been exceeded. In the late 1920s, Louis Dublin [2] analysed American life tables and concluded that female life expectancy would never...