Human longevity has improved so rapidly over the past century that 72 is the new 30, scientists have claimed.
Indeed, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, said that progress in lowering the odds of death at all ages has been so rapid since 1900 that life expectancy has risen faster in that time than it did in the previous 200 millennia, since modern man began to evolve from hominid species.
The study concluded that the pace of increase in life expectancy has been so profound that industrialised economies have been caught flat-footed, unprepared for the cost of providing retirement income to so many people for so long.