Is There a Natural Limit to Life Span

FIGURE 6.23.6 Most of the improvements in medicine have benefited the young, leading to speculation that human life span has a natural limit. This figure shows how human survival rate has changed over the years. (Redrawn from Kent, D.M., Am. ScL, 96, 358, 2008.) 

There is a possibility that, as more fundamental information becomes known about aging processes, means will be found to modify aging and age-related morbidity. Antioxidants such as resve-ratrol have been observed to extend life span in a variety of laboratory animals. 

All living things will die. Designs must account for this fact. 

Death is necessary for the processes of natural selection and evolution. 

Death motivates the transmission of information and resources from one generation to the next. 

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