People’s chances of living longer have been increasing dramatically for decades. But, that seems to have slowed recently, a new worldwide study has found.
The sharpest decline has come in countries that already had the shortest life expectancy, according to researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
They said the slowdown in life expectancy gains does not mean that humans have simply reached their maximum biological life span. Rather, the researchers argue that their findings could mean that recent medical advances have not sustained historic increases in average life expectancy.
“This is not about us hitting the ceiling,” researcher David Bishai said in a Hopkins news release. “The slowdown has been sharpest in countries that have the most life expectancy to gain.”
Bishai is a professor in the school’s Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health
