WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Despite frequent developments in medicine, human life expectancy appears to be slowing down in recent decades, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Ageing.
To reach this conclusion, researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago analyzed the national vital statistics from Australia, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, as well as Hong Kong and the United States, covering the period from 1990 to 2019.
The team noted that while human life expectancy almost doubled in the 20th century due to improved diets and medical advancements, it has risen by only six and a half years since 1990.
'Most people alive today at older ages are living on time that was manufactured by medicine,' study co-author Jay Olshansky said.
'But these medical Band-Aids are producing fewer years of life even though they're occurring at an accelerated pace, implying that the period of rapid increases in life expectancy is now documented to be over.'
The findings suggest that the natural longevity limit for the human beings might have already been reached. The study also challenged projections made by insurance and wealth management businesses, which assume that most people will live to 100 in the near future, arguing that 'only a small percentage of the population will live that long in this century,'
'We've now proven that modern medicine is yielding incrementally smaller improvements in longevity even though medical advances are occurring at breakneck speed,' Dr Olshansky added.
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