Life expectancy gains are slowing despite advances in healthcare

For centuries, life expectancy has risen steadily, thanks to improved diets, medical advancements, and better living conditions. Over the 19th and 20th centuries, people experienced remarkable gains in lifespan, nearly doubling their years on Earth.

However, recent research indicates that these trends are losing momentum. A study led by the University of Illinois Chicago suggests that the rapid increase in life expectancy that defined the 20th century is unlikely to continue at the same pace into the future.

The study, published in Nature Aging, shows that since 1990, life expectancy in the world’s longest-living populations has increased by an average of only six and a half years.

This contrasts sharply with earlier predictions that expected life expectancy to accelerate, with many people thought to live past 100. S. Jay Olshansky, the lead author and a professor at the UIC School of Public Health, points out that the biggest strides in extending life expectancy were made by combating diseases. Now, however, the primary hurdle is the natural process of aging.

Olshansky describes modern medicine as a source of "manufactured time." People are living longer because of medical interventions, but these methods are yielding diminishing returns in extending life expectancy. "These medical Band-Aids are producing fewer years of life even though they’re occurring at an accelerated pace, implying that the period of rapid increases in life expectancy is now documented to be over," he says.

Extending life expectancy further by fighting disease could become a double-edged sword if the added years are not healthy ones. This raises the importance of focusing on “healthspan,” a measure of how many of your years are spent healthy, as opposed to just being alive. “We should now shift our focus to efforts that slow aging and extend healthspan,” Olshansky argues.

In the early 1990s, predictions of "radical life extension" were common. Back then, many scientists believed that the gains seen during the previous century would continue to propel people toward much longer lives. But the new analysis, which included input from researchers at the University of Hawaii, Harvard, and UCLA, challenges that optimism. It highlights how the last three decades have produced a clearer picture of the limits to human longevity.

Olshansky had already hinted at these limits in 1990, when he published a paper arguing that human life expectancy was nearing a ceiling of about 85 years. The most significant gains in life expectancy had already been made by then, he wrote. While others forecasted rapid progress, Olshansky predicted that the rate of improvement would slow.

Now, the evidence supports his case. The recent study looked at data from countries with the highest life expectancies, including Hong Kong and the United States. In these regions, it found that the expected surge in life expectancy has not materialized. The United States, in fact, has experienced a slight decline. This points to a growing understanding of aging's detrimental effects as the new frontier in public health.

“Our result overturns the conventional wisdom that the natural longevity endowment for our species is somewhere on the horizon ahead of us — a life expectancy beyond where we are today,” Olshansky explains. “Instead, it’s behind us — somewhere in the 30- to 60-year range. We’ve now proven that modern medicine is yielding incrementally smaller improvements in longevity even though medical advances are occurring at breakneck speed.”

While the idea of reaching 100 years and beyond may seem achievable for some, Olshansky is quick to point out that these cases will remain rare. It is unrealistic to base future policies on the assumption that most people will live to such advanced ages.

Insurance companies, wealth management firms, and other industries are increasingly basing their models on the expectation of longer lives, but Olshansky warns against this trend. “This is profoundly bad advice because only a small percentage of the population will live that long in this century,” he says.

This doesn’t mean that progress in medicine has come to a halt. Instead, the study advocates for shifting focus from merely extending life to improving the quality of those additional years. Investments in geroscience—the study of the biology of aging—could be key to the next wave of advancements. By understanding the mechanisms of aging, researchers believe they could help people live longer, healthier lives.

“This is a glass ceiling, not a brick wall,” Olshansky reassures. There is still ample room for improvement in how long and how well people live. By reducing risk factors, eliminating health disparities, and encouraging healthier lifestyles, society can help people live better, even if the rapid rise in life expectancy has slowed.

Moreover, geroscience offers a promising avenue to push through the “glass ceiling” of aging. By slowing the biological processes that contribute to aging, future medical breakthroughs may not just extend lives but make them healthier as well.

Though the notion of radical life extension may be losing steam, this research points toward a future where more focus is placed on the quality of life in the years we already have. Olshansky’s study makes it clear: the goal now is not simply to live longer but to live better.

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