St Louis (Missouri), Feb. 21 (AFP): Life expectancy may balloon to 100 years old in rich nations thanks to scientific advances, but such progress could widen the gap between wealthy and poor nations, according to researchers.

Within the next 10 years, state-of-the-art, anti-ageing technologies could ? if they come into widespread use ? radically start altering global demographics, extending people’s lifespans by 20 years, according to Shripad Tuljapurkar, a Stanford University biologist.

Tuljapurkar, in a study presented here on Friday to the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said such technologies could see people in industrialised countries living to age 100.

Aubrey de Gray, a biologist at Cambridge University in England, backed up Tuljapurkar’s research. “There is a 50 per cent chance of creating therapies within 20 years to give middle-aged people an extra 25 years of life,” De Gray said. However, Tuljapurkar warned such advances could trigger critical social and socio-economic problems, creating a larger gap between the world’s rich and poor.

He also questions how the world and policymakers will cope with a “longer-lived” population.