Telomeres and the natural lifespan limit in humans.

Steenstrup, Troels

Kark, Jeremy D

Verhulst, Simon

Thinggaard, Mikael

Hjelmborg, Jacob VB

Dalgård, Christine

Kyvik, Kirsten Ohm

Christiansen, Lene

Mangino, Massimo

Spector, Timothy D

Petersen, Inge

Kimura, Masayuki

Benetos, Athanase

Labat, Carlos

Sinnreich, Ronit

Hwang, Shih-Jen

Levy, Daniel

Hunt, Steven C

Fitzpatrick, Annette L

Chen, Wei

Berenson, Gerald S

Barbieri, Michelangela

Paolisso, Giuseppe

Gadalla, Shahinaz M

Savage, Sharon A

Christensen, Kaare

Yashin, Anatoliy I

Arbeev, Konstantin G

Aviv, Abraham

United States

2017-06-02T15:12:39Z

2017-06-02T15:12:39Z

2017-04

An ongoing debate in demography has focused on whether the human lifespan has a maximal natural limit. Taking a mechanistic perspective, and knowing that short telomeres are associated with diminished longevity, we examined whether telomere length dynamics during adult life could set a maximal natural lifespan limit. We define leukocyte telomere length of 5 kb as the 'telomeric brink', which denotes a high risk of imminent death. We show that a subset of adults may reach the telomeric brink within the current life expectancy and more so for a 100-year life expectancy. Thus, secular trends in life expectancy should confront a biological limit due to crossing the telomeric brink.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28394764

101216

1945-4589

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/14745

eng

Impact Journals, LLC

Aging (Albany NY)

10.18632/aging.101216

leukocytes

life-expectancy

longevity

maximal lifespan

sex

Telomeres and the natural lifespan limit in humans.

Journal article

Arbeev, Konstantin G|0000-0002-4195-7832

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28394764

1130

1142

4

Center for Population Health & Aging

Duke

Duke Population Research Institute

Sanford School of Public Policy

Staff

Published

9