A New Study Says There’s No Limit To The Human Life Span

Your body is immortal and you never even knew.

In the early 1900s it was perfectly normal for people to kick the bucket at age 50. These days, the average life expectancy in the US is around 80 years old, and centenarians — people who are 100 years or older — are becoming more and more common.

Now, science suggests that humans could — theoretically — live forever. A June 28 study by a team of biologists at McGill University found there isn’t a detectable maximum life expectancy for humans. The report was compiled after researchers analyzed data about the oldest people from the US, UK, France and Japan, for each year since 1968. Scientists still aren’t sure what the age limit of a human might be, but data has shown that both maximum and average lifespans will continue to increase well into the future, says McGill biologist Siegfried Hekimi, who coauthored the study.

In fact, the number of centenarians is steadily increasing. In 2015, there were slightly more than 500,000 centenarians in the world. The United Nations predicts that by 2050 there could be over 3.5 million. Super centenarians like Jeanne Calment of France — who died in 1997 at age 122 — have baffled scientists, leading them to wonder how long humans can really live.

A study published last October in the journal “Nature” suggested that the human lifespan hit its ceiling, maxing out around 115 years old. But this new data — and these badass super-centenarians — have proven otherwise. The moral of the story? You should probably start saving for retirement. You may be around longer than you think.