Harvard Geniuses Are Trying To Figure Out How Humans Can Live Up To 150 Years

WaitButWhy blogger Tim Urban writes “the human body seems programmed to shut itself down somewhere around the century mark if it hasn’t already”.

And Urban is right! There are no verified cases of a person living to be older than 122, though the oldest living person is on their way at age 119.

Researchers concluded the “absolute limit” of the human lifespan to be between 100 and 150 – they came to this conclusion by analyzing 70,000 participants up to age 85 based on their ability to fight disease, risk of heart conditions and cognitive impairment.

But the question remains, will improvements in medicine, environment and technology drastically lengthen the average lifespan and make 150 a reality?

So researchers think that they may be able to find a way to reverse our DNA coding.  Researchers at Harvard’s Sinclair Lab write: “If DNA is the digital information on a compact disc, then aging is due to scratches. We are searching for the polish.”

Related: Humans Can At Most Live 150 years...

Brutal biology

The human body is made up of about 30 trillion cells. Cells are constantly dying and being replaced by replicants.

Within the cell body, there are chromosomes – these are DNA strands with the code written for humans within them.

At the end of a DNA strand is a microscopic bundle of non-crucial DNA, so that none of the important stuff gets snipped off when the cell divides.

A cell can divide itself about 50 times before it’s lost its ability to replicate.

As more and more cells become ineffective and die, the signs of aging start to show in gray hair, weaker bones and vision loss.

Some theorize this process can be stopped or reversed.

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