Progress in medicine and favorable social conditions will allow people to live for more than a hundred years in the near future, said the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) office in Moscow, Batyr Berdiklychev.
“We can say that so far people around the world have begun to live much longer. Modern methods of prevention, improved nutrition, more favorable living and working conditions, access to medical care have influenced the increase in average life expectancy“, he said, answering the question of whether medicine can defeat age and whether people will live to 100 years.
More and more people around the world can expect to live to their seventh decade and live longer. At the same time, “in every country in the world, not only the number of elderly people is growing, but also their share in the population“. As the head of the WHO office in the Russian Federation pointed out, this is also typical for the Russian Federation.
“I can say that between 2020 and 2050, the population over 80 years old is expected to triple and reach 426 million people in the world“, noted Berdiklychev. According to him, in the near future, thanks to advances in medicine, especially in the field of genetics, biotechnology and pharmacology, “human life expectancy will increase to the possible biological limits of the human body“.
“What are these limits? It is difficult to say, because science can surprise us. The age limit of one hundred years has already been exceeded by many people. "The question in these conditions is probably whether increasing life expectancy will improve the quality of life," he stressed. The head of the WHO office in Moscow explained that, in addition to medical factors, life expectancy is also influenced by the creation of favorable social and physical conditions, including "the ability of older people to safely visit public places, use transport and participate in the life of society."
„A good example of such an intersectoral approach is the Moscow program for active aging. „I would also like to mention that last year St. Petersburg was the first Russian city to join the World Health Organization's global network for age-friendly attitudes,“ added Berdiklychev. He explained that this network includes more than 1.7 thousand cities and communities from more than 60 countries and “they are all united by one goal - to create a better environment for older residents“.