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Scientists May Have Found the Ultimate Limit of the Human Lifespan

Researchers say random DNA mutations may still limit human lifespan, even if reversible parts of aging are fixed.

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Longevity maxxing is having a moment. Biological age tests, NAD supplements, Bryan Johnson’s entire existence—the premise is that aging is a problem with a solution. A new study suggests the solution has a ceiling nobody’s talking about.

Researchers at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology ran a thought experiment with a deceptively direct premise: if every reversible aspect of aging could somehow be eliminated—every disease, every hormonal decline, every cellular dysfunction science might one day fix—what would actually kill us? Their answer, published in npj Aging, is random DNA mutations. The kind that accumulate in cells throughout a lifetime, mostly harmless, occasionally not, and ultimately unavoidable.

The team built a mathematical model to calculate how much damage these so-called somatic mutations would do to a population that had........

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