The part of the sentence "decrease the life span" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it when you want to refer to the shortening or reduction in the amount of time something or someone exists. For example: "Junk food and a sedentary lifestyle can significantly decrease the life span of an individual."
Terminal Disclaimers (usually indicated on the front cover of the patent) tie a patent's expiration date to that of another patent and can decrease the life span of a patent.
Surprisingly, ercc-1 and xpf-1 mutations further extend, rather than decrease, the life span of long-lived daf-2 animals.
Consistent with this conclusion, expression of the dominant mutant transgenes during development tended to decrease the life span of the resultant male and female adults (Supplementary Figure 1A-D, Supplementary Table 1).
Decreased ∆Ψm, due to the uncoupling of electron flow from ATP synthesis by increased proton permeability of the inner mitochondrial membrane, can reduce ROS production at complex I by decreasing NAD(P H/NAD(P)+ and possibly by decreasing the life span of the semiquinone radical [39].
The overall pathological effect of Nef observed in the present study has cumulative effect on decreasing the life span of nematodes.
Chronic hypoxia decreased the life span of male Drosophila and this effect can be partially reversed by restriction of dietary amino acids.
Consistent with the anti-ageing potential of Spd, its intracellular reduction decreased the life span of mice.
Destruction of the actin structures with jasplakinolide decreased the life span of tor1Δ, sch9Δ, and ras2Δ mutants.
Under normal conditions, Spiroplasma's significantly decreases the life span of its host Drosophila (also shown in Ebbert, 1991).
As shown in Figure 2B, jasplakinolide treatment drastically decreased the life span of tor1Δ, sch9Δ, and ras2Δ mutants, but not the wild type cells.
In female rats, the exposure to both NL and DD regimens failed significantly influence the mean life span of all as well as the last of 10% survivors, however the exposure to the LL regimen significantly decreased the life span (Table 2).
