TY - JOUR T1 - Telomeres and the natural lifespan limit in humans. JF - Aging (Albany NY) Y1 - 2017 A1 - Steenstrup, Troels A1 - Kark, Jeremy D A1 - Verhulst, Simon A1 - Thinggaard, Mikael A1 - Hjelmborg, Jacob V B A1 - DalgÄrd, Christine A1 - Kyvik, Kirsten Ohm A1 - Christiansen, Lene A1 - Mangino, Massimo A1 - Spector, Timothy D A1 - Petersen, Inge A1 - Kimura, Masayuki A1 - Benetos, Athanase A1 - Labat, Carlos A1 - Sinnreich, Ronit A1 - Hwang, Shih-Jen A1 - Levy, Daniel A1 - Hunt, Steven C A1 - Fitzpatrick, Annette L A1 - Chen, Wei A1 - Berenson, Gerald S A1 - Barbieri, Michelangela A1 - Paolisso, Giuseppe A1 - Gadalla, Shahinaz M A1 - Savage, Sharon A A1 - Christensen, Kaare A1 - Yashin, Anatoliy I A1 - Arbeev, Konstantin G A1 - Aviv, Abraham AB -

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.

VL - 9 IS - 4 ER -