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Telomeres and the natural lifespan limit in humans

Troels Steenstrup, Jeremy D. Kark, Simon Verhulst, Mikael Thinggaard, Jacob Hjelmborg, Christine Dalgård, Kirsten Ohm Kyvik, Lene Christiansen, Massimo Mangino, Timothy D. Spector, Inge Petersen, Masayuki Kimura, Athanase Bénétos, Carlos Labat, Ronit Sinnreich

Aging · 2017 · ▲ 100 citations

Telomere attrition Human
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Abstract

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(definition) 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.

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Provenance

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OpenAlex
DOI
10.18632/aging.101216
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Fetched
2026-06-09 MST

Cite this

APA
Steenstrup, T., Kark, J.D., Verhulst, S., Thinggaard, M., Hjelmborg, J., Dalgård, C., Kyvik, K.O., Christiansen, L., Mangino, M., Spector, T.D., Petersen, I., Kimura, M., Bénétos, A., Labat, C., Sinnreich, R., Hwang, S., Levy, D., Hunt, S.C., Fitzpatrick, A.L., &amp; Chen, W. (2017). Telomeres and the natural lifespan limit in humans. <em>Aging</em>. https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.101216
Vancouver
Steenstrup T, Kark JD, Verhulst S, Thinggaard M, Hjelmborg J, Dalgård C, et al. Telomeres and the natural lifespan limit in humans. Aging. 2017. doi:10.18632/aging.101216.
BibTeX
@article{troels2017Telome, title = {Telomeres and the natural lifespan limit in humans}, author = {Troels Steenstrup and Jeremy D. Kark and Simon Verhulst and Mikael Thinggaard and Jacob Hjelmborg and Christine Dalgård and Kirsten Ohm Kyvik and Lene Christiansen and Massimo Mangino and Timothy D. Spector and Inge Petersen and Masayuki Kimura and Athanase Bénétos and Carlos Labat and Ronit Sinnreich and Shih-Jen Hwang and Daniel Levy and Steven C. Hunt and Annette L. Fitzpatrick and Wei Chen and Gerald S. Berenson and Michelangela Barbieri and Giuseppe Paolisso and Shahinaz M. Gadalla and Sharon A. Savage}, journal = {Aging}, year = {2017}, doi = {10.18632/aging.101216}, }

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