American scientists report (in the publication, Science) that the age to which human beings can live is showing no signs of limitation. There has been an increase of one year (of maximum age) per every decade over the past 140 years ... and if that trend continues then we can expect to see some people living to be 130 years of age in the very near future.    On a further positive note, that trend may be accelerated by rapid advancements in science and medicine.

The study analyzed the most complete population statistics in the world (from Sweden) and the results contradict what the scientific community has been telling us ... namely that, the human body is like a machine whose parts will wear out with time. People have been led to believe that the parts that make up the bodies that we inhabit are incapable of surviving past 120 years of age.

According to the head of the research team, Professor John Wilmoth (University of California at Berkeley), if we are approaching a biological limit to age then the rate of increase would be expected to decrease as we come closer to the maximum. However, just the opposite is happening! It turns out that the trends toward longer lifespans are actually accelerating.

We have shown that the maximum lifespan is changing," he said. "It is not a biological constant. There is no hint yet that the upward trend is slowing down. There is no scientific basis on which to estimate a fixed upper limit. Whether 115 or 120 years, it is a legend created by scientists who are quoting each other. Those numbers are out of thin air".

The study found that in 1860 (when records began) the oldest people were approximately 100 years of age. Up until 1960 an average of five months was added for every decade making the average age of oldest people 105. Currently, the average maximum age has been accelerating and is now moving at a rate of over 13 months per decade.

What all this means is, the average maximum age in the year 2020 will be about 121-years-old with the oldest living person approximately 14 years beyond that maximum (135-years-old). This is based on the assumption that Jeanne Calment was the oldest person in the world when she died in 1997 at 122.5-years of age. We use this French woman because she was the oldest person whose birth date can be confirmed. Of course, there are probably older people whose ages cannot be confirmed.

According to Professor Wilmoth, rising longevity can be attributed to an improvement of public health and sanitation, modern drugs and improved medical techniques.

All of this does not even begin to take into account the rapid advancements that may come with a better understanding of the human genome.