The exact duration of human life is unknown, although there is presumably a maximum life span for the human race established in the genetic material. At first thought, this statement seems irrational. Surely no human being can live 1,000 years. Even though all may agree that the likelihood of an individual living 1,000 years is infinitesimal, there is no scientific proof that this statement is or is not true. The indeterminacy of the maximum limit of human life is made more comprehensible if one chooses a number that may appear to be a more reasonable limit.
Since there is no verified instance of a person having lived 150 years, this number may, for purposes of illustration, be arbitrarily accepted as the maximum limit of the span of human life. But if the possibility is admitted that an individual may live exactly 150 years, there is no valid reason for rejecting the possibility that some other individual may live 150 years and one minute. And if 150 years and one minute is accepted, why not 150 years and two minutes, and so on? Thus, based on existing knowledge of longevity, a precise figure for the span of human life cannot be given.
Studies on longevity
Much information concerning the inheritance of longevity has come from the study of genealogical records of nobility and landed gentry. The early genealogical studies were criticized on the grounds that the downward trend in the death rate (attributable generally to scientific advancements) introduced a spurious correlation in statistics derived from records extending over long periods of time. It was argued that in some instances records were included of persons who, at the time of the study, had not had the opportunity of living out their possible life span. The general finding of such investigations was that the expectation of life of sons of long-lived parents (i.e., those living to age 70 years or older) was greater than that of sons of shorter-lived parents (i.e., those having attained less than age 50 at the time of death).
An American biostatistician attempted to avoid the defects of genealogical studies by collecting records of the family histories of 365 nonagenarians (90-year-old persons) and of a comparison group of 143 individuals of varying ages, selected because all of their six immediate ancestors were dead. The study introduced the concept of “total immediate ancestral longevity,” or TIAL—the sum of the ages at death of the two parents and the four grandparents of a given person—as a measure of longevity. This number is unlikely to be greater than 600 or less than 90. The average TIAL of the nonagenarians and centenarians definitely exceeded that of the comparison group. This held true not only for the six immediate ancestors as a group but also for each category—father, mother, paternal and maternal grandparents. In the same study, investigators also computed the expectation of life for sons of fathers as classified in three groups by age at death: (1) under age 50, (2) from age 50 to age 79, and (3) age 80 or over. The expectation of life for the three groups at birth was 47.0, 50.5, and 57.2 years, respectively. The same relative ranking continued through the lifetime of the sons, their expectation of life at age 40 being 27.3, 28.9, and 32.0 years, respectively.
While certain doubts have been raised about the validity of these as well as earlier studies, taken at their face value, these data show clearly that long-lived persons had parents and grandparents who lived longer than the parents and grandparents of shorter lived persons.
Since longevity is important in life insurance underwriting, several studies have been made of the relationship between heredity and the life span by an analysis of life insurance records. Such analyses showed that policyholders both of whose parents were living when the policy was written live longer than those whose parents were dead when the policy was written. These results are in conformity with those obtained from genealogical records and family histories.
Each of the various types of studies of the inheritance of longevity—genealogical records, life insurance records, and family histories of the general population—has limitations that restrict the applicability of the findings. The principal studies indicate, nevertheless, that the children of long-lived parents are more likely to be long-lived than are the children of short-lived parents. Conversely, the immediate ancestors—parents and grandparents—of long-lived persons on the average are older at death than are the immediate ancestors of persons who die at a relatively young age. These studies support the conclusion, mentioned earlier, that longevity is determined in part by heredity.
