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Posted on Mar 29, 2006, 9 a.m.
By Bill Freeman
Modern medicine is redefining old age and may soon allow people to live regularly beyond the current upper limit of 120 years, experts said Wednesday.
Modern medicine is redefining old age and may soon allow people to live regularly beyond the current upper limit of 120 years, experts said Wednesday.
It used to be thought there was some built-in limit on life span, but a group of scientists meeting at Oxford University for a conference on life extension and enhancement consigned that idea to the trash can.
Paul Hodge, director of the Harvard Generations Policy Program, said governments around the world — struggling with pension crises, graying work forces and rising health-care costs — had to face up to the challenge now.
“Life expectancy is going to grow significantly, and current policies are going to be proven totally inadequate,” he predicted.
Just how far and fast life expectancy will increase is open to debate, but the direction and the accelerating trend is clear.
Richard Miller of the Michigan University Medical School said tests on mice and rats — genetically very similar to humans — showed life span could be extended by 40 percent, simply by limiting calorie consumption.
