# Lots of People Living to 100; Few Living to 110

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lots-of-people-living-to-100-few-living-to-110/669815>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [September 27, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lots-of-people-living-to-100-few-living-to-110/669815 "2013-09-27T17:24:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lots-of-people-living-to-100-few-living-to-110/669815/1 "2013-09-27T17:24:06Z")

</div>

According to [this article](http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/why-are-there-so-few-people-over-115-years-of-age.aspx), more and more people are living to 100 but the number of people living to 110 is not increasing very much.

This suggests that no matter how healthy a person is, he has some mechanism(s) which inevitably breaks down, making it essentially impossible to live beyond the “Calment Limit.”

First, is the claim in the article correct, i.e. that more and more people are living to 100 but the number of people who live past 110 is not increasing that much?

Second, assuming this is correct, why? What inevitably goes wrong in the human body?

Last, is it correct as the article claims, that the only way to fix such an issue is through genetic engineering?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lots-of-people-living-to-100-few-living-to-110/669815/2 "2013-09-27T17:48:32Z")

</div>

WAG: When chromosomes replicate, eventually the process makes mistakes.

In general, the first parts to fail are the ends of the chromosomes - the [telomeres](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere). The process gets interrupted during replication, or something, and you lose a little bit of the telomeres over the years. Those ends seem to be empty space - nothing importanat is encoded there. That’s probably their purpose - like the leader on film reels. They take the damage to protect the insides.

Once they wear out completely, though, important chromosomal information ceases to get passed on to new cells. You’re a time bomb at that point.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lots-of-people-living-to-100-few-living-to-110/669815/3 "2013-09-27T18:33:39Z")

</div>

Damn. This puts a crimp in my plan to break the record. I decided recently that I want to live beyond the Calment Limit, but I’m not really interested in being genetically altered.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2013, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lots-of-people-living-to-100-few-living-to-110/669815/4 "2013-09-27T18:39:33Z")

</div>

Maybe ten years ago, it became generally known that a very well-known Viennese mathematician (Leopold Vietoris) and his wife were the oldest and second oldest Austrians. Then they died within a couple of months of each other at something like 108 and 106. So I suspect you are right. Of course Jeanne Calment never made to 123.