What if scientists could eventually remove almost every major biological process that drives aging, but one problem remained: DNA mutations that accumulate in cells over a lifetime? A new mathematical study suggests that even in that highly theoretical situation, human longevity could still have a limit. Researchers estimate that if somatic mutations were the only major cause of aging left, the median human lifespan could range from 146 to 194 years, depending on how different organs were assumed to age together.The figure comes from a modelling study published in ‘npj Aging’ by researchers from Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology and the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute in Russia. The study does not suggest that people today can live to 194, or that a treatment capable of producing such lifespans currently exists. Instead, the researchers were asking a much narrower question: how long could humans theoretically live if other major aging mechanisms were eliminated and somatic mutations were left as the main source of age-related decline?
What are somatic mutations?
Somatic mutations are changes in DNA that occur in the body’s cells after conception. Unlike inherited mutations, they are not passed from parents to children through the germline. Cells acquire these changes during life through processes such as errors during DNA replication or damage that is not repaired correctly. Most mutations do not cause an obvious problem, but some can affect how cells function. Research published in Experimental & Molecular Medicine in 2026 notes that somatic mutations accumulate with age and contribute to genome mosaicism, functional decline and age-related disease.
Why did the researchers focus on mutations?
Aging is not caused by one process. It involves several biological changes, including genomic instability, cellular senescence, changes in mitochondria, altered communication between cells and tissues, and other processes. The researchers therefore created a mathematical framework that progressively removed these aging factors and asked what would happen if somatic mutations were the only remaining driver of aging. Their model treated the human body as a system in which different organs can eventually reach critical levels of damage. They used available data on mutation rates, cell division and organ function to estimate when those failures might occur.The researchers also assumed that there would be no organ or tissue transplantation and no intervention capable of reducing mutation accumulation. They fixed background mortality at the level associated with people around age 30.
The brain and heart emerged as the biggest bottlenecks
One of the most important findings was that not all organs would be affected in the same way. The researchers identified ‘neurons and cardiomyocytes, the muscle cells of the heart, as major bottlenecks.’ These cells are largely post-mitotic, meaning they divide very little or not at all. If one of these cells accumulates damaging mutations and is lost, it cannot simply be replaced in the way many cells in other tissues can. In the researchers’ model, mutation-driven aging of neurons produced a median lifespan of about 194 years, with a modelled maximum of 557 years. For heart muscle cells, the corresponding median was about 208 years, with a maximum of 868 years.
Some organs could keep replacing damaged cells
Photo: Canva
The liver was one example. Because liver cells can be replaced, the model suggested that mutation-related damage could be offset for extremely long periods through cellular turnover. The researchers found that proliferating tissues were far less restrictive to longevity than tissues containing large populations of non-dividing cells. This does not mean that a human liver could actually function for thousands of years. It means that within the mathematical assumptions of this particular model, mutation-driven decline in regenerative tissues occurred much later than in the brain or heart.
So where does 146 to 194 years come from?
The researchers then combined several organs into a model of the whole body. They did not know how closely the aging of different organs would be linked at such extreme ages, so they tested different possible relationships between them. Under the study’s bounds, the median lifespan ranged from 146 to 194 years. The modelled maximum lifespan was much more sensitive to those assumptions, ranging from approximately 210 to 557 years. These numbers should not be interpreted as predictions of future human records. They represent outcomes generated by mathematical models under conditions that do not exist in today’s medicine.
Why 194 years is not a prediction
The researchers themselves describe their results as an upper bound constrained by somatic mutations, rather than a forecast of achievable human longevity. The model removes or ignores many processes that contribute to normal aging and death. In real life, those processes interact with one another. The paper also does not include future technologies that might directly reduce mutation accumulation. Conversely, it does not assume that today’s medical technology can eliminate the other causes of aging. That distinction is important because the study’s 146–194-year estimate only applies to the artificial scenario created by the researchers.
The oldest verified human lived 122 years
For comparison, the longest fully authenticated human lifespan remains that of Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who lived 122 years and 164 days. According to Guinness World Records, Calment died in 1997 and remains the oldest person whose age has been fully authenticated. That means even the lower end of the study’s modelled median range 146 years is more than two decades beyond the longest verified human lifespan so far. For now, 122 years remains the verified human record. The new study simply asks how much further that boundary might theoretically move if science could remove almost everything else that makes the body age and leaves the answer somewhere between 146 and 194 years for the model’s median lifespan.
