‘We do not know what the future is made of’

Dr Eric Verdin of The Buck Institute for Research on Aging on finding the longevity sweet spot between realism and optimism.

The longevity field was stirred in October 2024 by a provocative paper published in Nature Aging titled The Implausibility of Radical Life Extension in Humans in the 21st Century. Writen by S Jay Olshansky, Bradley J Willcox, Lloyd Demetrius and Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez, the paper explored demographic trends and mortality data to challenge one of the central ambitions of modern longevity science – extending human life far beyond current biological limits.

In the paper, the authors analyze life expectancy and mortality rates from the world’s longest-living populations, uncovering a marked deceleration in life expectancy gains since 1990. They argue that without revolutionary advancements in slowing biological aging, the likelihood of a significant leap in human lifespan – particularly the widespread survival to age 100 and beyond – is slim.

Longevity.Technology: This conclusion has sparked heated discussions within longevity circles, raising critical questions about the gap between what is achievable in healthspan and the more aspirational moonshots of radical life extension – will extension be iterative or are we approaching a hard stop?

We sat down with Dr Eric Verdin , President and CEO of The Buck Institute to find out his view on the paper and the ensuing debate, and why focusing on the longevity paycheck could be a smarter strategy than playing the longevity lottery.

Eric Verdin on reading between the headlines

What the paper was really addressing is the current state of growth in life expectancy. In the last 100, 150 years, we’ve been gaining life expectancy at two to three years per decade, and that’s by itself is a remarkable achievement, that’s brought us essentially to living to 80 on average in most of the Western world. The paper was asking the question: what can we anticipate to happen in the next 20, 30 years in terms of our growth of life expectancy? Is that rate of two to three years per decade going to continue? And what the data showed is that between 1990 and 2020, so before COVID, the rate has slowed down. It probably indicates that as we reach the maximum of what we can attain in terms of life expectancy based on what we know today, it’s getting harder and harder.

What was actually mentioned in the discussion and was lost in the in brouhaha of the disagreement is the fact that we do not know what the future is made of. And there are amazing things happening in the aging field so no one can actually predict which one of these interventions is going to allow us to break that barrier. The paper did not say that radical changes are not going to happen – no one knows. My prediction is that they’re probably going to be a little harder than some of our most optimist colleagues would hope, but they’re also are probably going to be more significant than many of our detractors are claiming.

Get exclusive insights from Dr Eric Verdin – watch the full video HERE.

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