In 2016, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City asserted that humans would probably never have a maximum lifespan of more than about 115 years. The scientists argued that even as progress against infections and chronic diseases improves, boosting average life expectancy, there is still a limit to how long the human body can realistically stay in good health. Since then, however, a number of challenges to the study's methodology have been launched, including one from Canadian researchers who say that there may be no limit whatsoever to the human lifespan.
Live long and prosper:
- In 1900, the average lifespan in the United States was about 47 years. By 1970, life expectancy was about 71 years, and it continued increasing slightly year after year. But the numbers have leveled off, and in 2015, life expectancy in America actually went down -- 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 age 122 in 1997.
- As of July 2017, the oldest living person is Violet Brown, a 117-year-old Jamaican woman. The oldest living man is 113-year-old Yisrael Kristal, a Polish-born Israeli who is also the world's oldest Holocaust survivor.