Forget the fountain of youth, apparently, humans can live forever. Well, not technically forever, but as "far into the foreseeable future" as possible.
According to biologists at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, there's not a discernable limit to how long humans can actually live. So far, they've demonstrated that maximum and average lifespans could continue to increase far into the foreseeable future.
"We just don't know what the age limit might be," said one of the researchers, Siegfried Hekimi.
If you could live forever, would you? One country in particular is beginning to show trends of change that could point to longer lifespans...
Find out why we're living longer on the next page...
Hekimi and his colleague, Bryan G. Hughes set out to disprove a previous study that determined the maximum human lifespan to be about 115 years.
According to Hekimi, the researchers didn't actually demonstrate that the human body has an expiry date, or that internal mechanisms can be exhausted - in fact, no one has.
"Such biological processes exist, but it doesn't mean these biological processes function like a clock that goes ding ding ding," he told CBC. "There is nothing to say they run out at 115."
Historically, average lifespans have been inching up since the invention of modern medicine and the industrial revolution.
With better healthcare, more access to healthy foods and clean water, human populations in developed countries are living longer and longer. In America, the average life expectancy for a man in 1920 was about 53 years old, the average woman would live to see 54.
By the 1960s, both sexes were living up to 69 years old. In 2012, the life expectancy rose to a record high of 78.8 years
However, their neighbors to the north in Canada enjoy a life expectancy on average of 82 years old. In fact, the country is trending towards a significantly sized population of centenarians by 2051. The population of people living to 100 and older is the fastest growing age group in the country.
Hekimi explains that this is likely only the beginning. With better living conditions, it's logical that people will keep living longer and longer.
"People who are dying now at 117, their early life was not as easy as that. Wait until we have our entire life as easy as it is now," Hekimi said.
Do you think we have an expiration date? Or, can humans really live forever?
[h/t CBC]