homehome Home chatchat Notifications


Life expectancy could soon go over 90, new study finds

South Korea is expected to become the first country to achieve the milestone, and several others might follow shortly.

Mihai Andrei
February 24, 2017 @ 12:12 am

share Share

South Korea is expected to become the first country to achieve the milestone, and several others might follow shortly.

Image credits: Mstyslav Chernov

It’s not easy to account for everything that can impact life expectancy — wars, natural disasters, and many other things can have a massive effect — but in ‘normal’ conditions, global life expectancy has gone up drastically in the past 200 years. Now, a new study published in the Lancet analyzed how life expectancy evolved in 35 countries, including the US, UK, Serbia, Germany, Sweden, Japan, South Korea, and Chile, and projected it onto the future.

Most of these countries experienced a significant increase, with the remarkable exception of the United States. There, a combination of obesity, child mortality, homicides, and lack of equal access to healthcare cause significant problems. In fact, the US is the only country in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development without universal healthcare coverage.

“Not only does the US have high and rising health inequalities, but also life expectancy has stagnated or even declined in some population subgroups,” write the authors.

Still, authors note that life expectancy will rise in the US, just more slowly than in other countries.

Korea over 90

South Korea is the most spectacular example. Ranked 29th for women longevity in 1985, the country took strides thanks to a healthy nutrition, universal healthcare, and a drop in smoking. A dramatic overall economic rise was also key to the improvement.

Researchers developed several statistical models and under all of them, South Korea’s life expectancy is impressive. According to all these models, there is a 97% probability that women’s life expectancy at birth in 2030 in South Korea will be higher than 86.7 years and 57% probability that it will exceed 90 years.

Not all good

This is, of course, good news — but it also comes with a couple of warnings. The first is that the healthspan is not doing as good as the lifespan. In other words, people are living longer but they’re not really doing so in good health. The quality of life is also rising, but not nearly as fast as the total lifespan.

Secondly, this will be a huge test on our society. Life expectancy wasn’t expected to grow so much, and both our social and economic systems will be greatly challenged in future decades.

“As recently as the turn of the century, many researchers believed that life expectancy would never surpass 90 years,” said the lead author Prof Majid Ezzati, of Imperial College London. “Our predictions of increasing lifespans highlight our public health and healthcare successes.

“However, it is important that policies to support the growing older population are in place. In particular, we will need to both strengthen our health and social care systems and to establish alternative models of care, such as technology assisted home care.”

Journal Reference: Vasilis Kontis et al — Future life expectancy in 35 industrialised countries: projections with a Bayesian model ensemble. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)32381-9

share Share

This 5,500-year-old Kish tablet is the oldest written document

Beer, goats, and grains: here's what the oldest document reveals.

A Huge, Lazy Black Hole Is Redefining the Early Universe

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a massive, dormant black hole from just 800 million years after the Big Bang.

Did Columbus Bring Syphilis to Europe? Ancient DNA Suggests So

A new study pinpoints the origin of the STD to South America.

The Magnetic North Pole Has Shifted Again. Here’s Why It Matters

The magnetic North pole is now closer to Siberia than it is to Canada, and scientists aren't sure why.

For better or worse, machine learning is shaping biology research

Machine learning tools can increase the pace of biology research and open the door to new research questions, but the benefits don’t come without risks.

This Babylonian Student's 4,000-Year-Old Math Blunder Is Still Relatable Today

More than memorializing a math mistake, stone tablets show just how advanced the Babylonians were in their time.

Sixty Years Ago, We Nearly Wiped Out Bed Bugs. Then, They Started Changing

Driven to the brink of extinction, bed bugs adapted—and now pesticides are almost useless against them.

LG’s $60,000 Transparent TV Is So Luxe It’s Practically Invisible

This TV screen vanishes at the push of a button.

Couple Finds Giant Teeth in Backyard Belonging to 13,000-year-old Mastodon

A New York couple stumble upon an ancient mastodon fossil beneath their lawn.

Worms and Dogs Thrive in Chernobyl’s Radioactive Zone — and Scientists are Intrigued

In the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, worms show no genetic damage despite living in highly radioactive soil, and free-ranging dogs persist despite contamination.