Scientists previously believed that the maximum human lifespan was around 115 years, but recent challenges to the study’s methodology suggest there may be no limit. Life expectancy has increased over the years, but has recently leveled off and even decreased in the US. The oldest living person is currently a 117-year-old Jamaican woman, while the longest-lived individual in history was a French woman who died at 122.
In 2016, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City said humans likely would never have had a maximum lifespan of about 115 years. Scientists said that even as advances against infections and chronic diseases improve, increasing average life expectancy, there is still a limit to how long the human body can realistically stay healthy. Since then, however, a number of challenges have been hurled at the study’s methodology, including one from Canadian researchers who argue that there may be no limit to human lifespan.
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In 1900, the average life span in the United States was approximately 47 years. In 1970, life expectancy was approximately 71 years and has continued to increase slightly year over year. But the numbers have leveled off, and in 2015, life expectancy in America fell to 78.8 years.
By a margin of more than three years, the longest-lived individual in verifiable history was Jeanne Calment of France, who died at the age of 122 in 1997.
As of July 2017, the oldest living person is Violet Brown, a 117-year-old Jamaican female. The oldest man alive is Yisrael Kristal, 113, a Polish-born Israeli who is also the oldest Holocaust survivor in the world.
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