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19.10.2018

French study: the human race has peaked

From a biological perspective, the human species has reached its peak. We are now at our strongest, our fastest, our largest and have reached the limits of our biological lifespan. We can no longer become stronger, faster and longer. Attempts to extend our maximum life span even further will fail. Sports scientists at the Universite Sorbonne Paris Cite report this in Frontiers in Physiolology.

Sports performance
The researchers analyzed data on the best sport performances of men and women from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. The figures below refer to the 800 meters, the shot put and the high jump.

According to the researchers, the figures clearly show that the achievements of both men and women have plateaued. In our humble opinion, the researchers ignore the use of doping in this respect. Since the seventies of the twentieth century it has gradually become more and more difficult to use doping without getting caught. If you'd polish away the effect of doping, then the plateau in these figures might disappear.

Life span
If the researchers look at the people who have reached record ages between 1900 and today, they see the same pattern. There is a group of people with longevity genes that can be 110-120 years old. It's not possible for humans to get any older than this, so it seems.

Olympic athletes, who have genes that are optimal for sport - and not for aging - do not reach this age. However, the life span of these athletes has increased - and plateaued.

Again, we dare to disagree. We wonder if this plateau is as insurmountable as the researchers think. Venture capitalists are pumping millions of dollars into the development of senolytics such as the TXNIP blockers. Even if only a few of those anti-aging substances prove successful, this plateau may evaporate in the blink of an eye.

Length
We are now physically at our peak as a species, the researchers suspect. Humankind has created an environment that enables us to to get the most out of our genes in the physical field.

This is demonstrated by the length humans are able to reach. Worldwide, men and women have become increasingly longer in the course of the twentieth century, but here too there is a plateau.

Again we, the ignorant compilers of this website, dare to disagree with the researchers' interpretation of the data. In many developed countries, in the last decades of the last century doctors have started to intervene when young people are getting too long. The researchers don't take this phenomenon into account.

Each line in the above figures represents a country. If you look closely, you can see that there is a decline in some countries. It concerns a few countries in Africa.

Conclusion
"Now that we know the limits of the human species, this can act as a clear goal for nations to ensure that human capacities reach their highest possible values for most of the population", says research leader Jean-Francois Toussaint in a press release. [sciencedaily.com December 6, 2017] "With escalating environmental constraints, this may cost increasingly more energy and investment in order to balance the rising ecosystem pressures. However, if successful, we then should observe an incremental rise in mean values of height, lifespan and most human biomarkers. The utmost challenge is now to maintain these indices at high levels."

"Observing decreasing tendencies may provide an early signal that something has changed, but not for the better. Human height has decreased in the last decade in some African countries; this suggests some societies are no longer able to provide sufficient nutrition for each of their children and maintain the health of their younger inhabitants."

"This will be one of the biggest challenges of this century as the added pressure from anthropogenic activities will be responsible for damaging effects on human health and the environment. The current declines in human capacities we can see today are a sign that environmental changes, including climate, are already contributing to the increasing constraints we now have to consider."

Source:
Front Physiol. 2017 Oct 24;8:812.

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