# What is the oldest that a person can live? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 28, 2004, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-that-a-person-can-live/242401 "2004-04-28T01:06:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-that-a-person-can-live/242401/21 "2004-04-30T03:58:50Z")
The second oldest person died at 120, not 119. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-that-a-person-can-live/242401/22 "2004-04-30T04:11:12Z")
> [@zev\_steinhardt](#): > > The other question to ask is “how much of the increase in life expectency is due to real life-extending medicine and how much of it is due to the reduction in infant mortality?” > > The life expectency at 1900 in the U.S. was about 49 years. Now it’s about 80. While I’m certain that we are (on average) living longer than we were in 1900, the question is how much. It’s not that the average person dropped dead at 49 years old in 1900; a lot of that number includes a fairly high (by today’s standards) infant mortality rate, which dragged down the average. If you factor out infant mortality and ask the question “Once a person reached adulthood (say in 1918), how could could s/he expect to live?” That’s really where you have to figure out the increases in life-expectency from. Once you reduce infant mortality, you can push up the life-expectency numbers without actually increasing the length of anyone’s life (aside from the infants involved, of course). > > Zev Steinhardt Actually, I think the insurance mortality tables start at age 1 year to try to eliminate the effect infant mortality on life expentency statistics. What has been called “infant mortality” here is really early child death as a result of things like measles, scarlett fever, and other childhood diseases that are now easily treated in the US and other advanced societies. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-that-a-person-can-live/242401/23 "2004-04-30T04:11:40Z")
> [@zev\_steinhardt](#): > > The other question to ask is “how much of the increase in life expectency is due to real life-extending medicine and how much of it is due to the reduction in infant mortality?” That’s a good point, but I’m not sure if it’s relevant to this thread. For instance, any time before 100 years ago, I would have died when I was 11. Due to my family history and lifestyle, I will likely die between 70 and 80. That does increase the average, but has nothing to do with the greatest length. I’m fairly convinced that the age of 110 to 120 has been attained in the past - very rarely - and that the reason more people are living to that age now is that appendicitis and polio and any number of now minor diseases are vanquished. Therefore the reduction in infant (childhood) mortality allows genetics and lifestyle to play a part in how long someone lives. I don’t see that it has anything to do with the longest someone can live. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-that-a-person-can-live/242401/24 "2004-04-30T04:13:34Z")
> [@David Simmons](#): > > Actually, I think the insurance mortality tables start at age 1 year to try to eliminate the effect infant mortality on life expentency [underline added]statistics. What has been called “infant mortality” here is really early child death as a result of things like measles, scarlett fever, and other childhood diseases that are now easily treated in the US and other advanced societies. Holy cow! Can we make the underlined part read “the effect of infant mortality on life expectancy”? ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-that-a-person-can-live/242401/25 "2004-04-30T04:23:58Z")
> [@David Simmons](#): > > Holy cow! Can we make the underlined part read “the effect of infant mortality on life expectancy”? We can if you describe what you mean by infant mortality. Crib death only? It doesn’t much matter what an infant dies of to lower the life expectancy. I seriously doubt that scientific studies that don’t have payouts of money weighing in the bargain exclude children under one year. I also seriously doubt that insurance companies liable to pay benefits for children who die under the age of one year don’t have statistics on that. In short, I doubt. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![iamme99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/57b2e6/32.png) [@iamme99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamme99)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2004, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-that-a-person-can-live/242401/26 "2004-04-30T09:51:47Z")
How about 150 and up? Maybe not all that good! You’ll have to work for a long time. No Social Security until you are say, 120? > [@](#): > > **Staying Alive** > _A century ago, most Americans lived to be about 50. Today people over 100 make up the fastest-growing segment of the population. As some researchers bet that children born today will live to be 150, others say there is no upward limit on longevity_ > > By Karen Wright > Photography by Mary Ellen Mark > DISCOVER Vol. 24 No. 11 | November 2003 | Biology & Medicine > > A few years back, biodemographer Jay Olshansky called his friend Steve Austad, a gerontologist, after reading an outrageous quote attributed to Austad about aging. Olshansky, at the University of Illinois, and Austad, at the University of Idaho, have long shared an interest in the human life span. But they differ on some points. Austad had been quoted as saying that someone alive today could survive to the unprecedented age of 150. > > “You don’t really mean that,” Olshansky told his friend. > > “Oh yes, I do,” Austad replied. In fact, he would bet on it. Before long he and Olshansky had agreed to put $150 each into an investment fund, to be distributed to the relatives of the winner in 2150. They agreed that, in order for Austad’s progeny to collect, the 150-year-old has to be in reasonably good health and that proof of the person’s age has to be impeccable. By adding $10 each every year, they figure that by 2150, the $300 fund will grow to be worth $500 million. > > Austad isn’t worried about his kin collecting: “We’ve made phenomenal progress in understanding aging in other animals in the last 10 years. I can’t believe we won’t make improvements in [human] antiaging treatments in the next hundred.” > > Most students of human longevity agree that exercise, antioxidants, low-fat diets, and prostate exams will join forces with a battery of new techniques to extend the lives of seniors and improve their quality of life. But that amiable projection raises a tough question: If medical science were to eliminate geriatric infirmity and disease entirely, how long would the human body last? Is there some built-in expiration date for each member of our species beyond which no one will ever survive? If so, what is it, and why does it exist? > > [Sating Alive - Full Article](http://www.discover.com/issues/nov-03/cover/) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-oldest-that-a-person-can-live/242401.md?page=1)