Oct 8, 2016 3 min read

In 1900, the average life expectancy was about 50 years. That seems like a pretty early point to be summoned by the Grim Reaper, particularly in an era where we plan for retirements that could last 20 years or longer. But the gains in health care and sanitation over the last century have extended lives by decades. Consider that tuberculosis, the second-leading killer of Americans in 1900, doesn’t even register on the list of the things that hasten mortality today.

Our lifespans have lengthened at such a reliable pace scientists have wondered if it would inevitably continue – that, perhaps, someone born in 2000 could live to blow out 150 candles on their birthday cake in 2150.

An analysis released last week in the journal Nature poured a bucket of cold water on that notion. After studying how lifespans increased over decades, and how the cohort of those living to age 100 or beyond steadily increased during that time, they found that human lives tend to max out at age 115. By that point, the scientists who conducted the analysis believe, our DNA has become so damaged that death can no longer be warded off.

“It seems highly likely that we have reached our ceiling,” Jan Vijg, an aging expert at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, told The New York Times. “From now on, this is it. Humans will never get older than 115.”

There are bound to be rare exceptions, like Jeanne Calment, the Frenchwoman who died at age 122 in 1997 and still stands as the longest-lived person in human history (at least that can be verified). And some scientists disagree that 115 is the ceiling to human longevity – they hold fast to the notion it will keep inching upward, to the point where there might be a child out there right now who could live to be 1,000.

Maybe so. But even if most people lived to be “only” 115, that would unleash a whole set of difficulties for mankind to confront. Would we have the resources to feed and shelter everyone on the planet? That’s a crucial question as the climate changes, and that’s even with the lifespans we have now. And what would the quality of life be like for someone who lived to 115?

Would their last 15 or 20 years be spent in ill health, senility and misery?

For now, the advice of the researchers who conducted the study seems the most sound – don’t bank on living past 115, but do what you can to make sure the years leading up to it are healthy and vital. As Vijg explained, “There’s a good chance to improve health span – that’s the most important thing.”