A team of Russian artificial intelligence researchers has published a mathematical model suggesting that the maximum median human lifespan would reach only 146 to 194 years even if medicine were able to eliminate every major cause of ageing except one: the accumulation of DNA mutations in cells. The study, published in the journal NPJ Ageing, simulated an ideal scenario in which factors such as chronic inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction and the build-up of aged cells were reversed, leaving only so-called somatic mutations as the driver of deterioration.

The researchers, based in Moscow, modelled how different organs deteriorate as these mutations accumulate over time. They found that the brain and heart are particularly vulnerable because many of their critical cells are irreplaceable and rarely divide after birth, whereas the liver constantly replaces worn-out cells. When the organ-specific simulations were combined, the model predicted a median lifespan of 146 to 194 years, roughly twice the current global average of 79 years. The study notes that this two-fold gap indicates that other ageing hallmarks likely contribute at least as much to limiting lifespan as somatic mutations do.

The authors caution that their findings depend strongly on assumptions about how organs interact and fail, and that the work is theoretical rather than an experimental demonstration. They describe the model as a first step towards dissecting ageing into quantifiable mechanistic components. The study explicitly does not claim that such a lifespan is achievable in practice; it instead seeks to establish that DNA mutations would remain the primary obstacle even if all reversible aspects of ageing were conquered.

The findings challenge more expansive claims within the longevity movement. The British bioinformatician Aubrey de Grey, a prominent advocate of radical life extension, has argued that the first person who will live to 1,000 years is already alive. The Russian model, by contrast, suggests a far lower ceiling, and the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung noted that the study confronts the more exuberant wings of the movement. The theoretical upper bound of 194 years, while far beyond current life expectancy, remains orders of magnitude below the open-ended lifespans envisioned by some anti-ageing proponents.

The paper is published and adds a quantitative framework to a debate often dominated by speculative claims. No further experimental validation is announced, and the researchers stress that incorporating other major ageing factors into the model could eventually lead to a comprehensive mechanistic theory of ageing.