Want to live forever? Theoretically, you could, study says

[superadmin]

TOKYO – Humans can probably live to at least 130, and possibly well beyond, though the chances of reaching such super old age remain vanishingly small, according to new research.

The outer limit of the human lifespan has long been hotly debated, with recent studies making the case we could live up to 150 years, or arguing that there is no maximum theoretical age for humans.

The new research, published Wednesday in the Royal Society Open Science journal, wades into the debate by analysing new data on supercentenarians – people aged 110 or more – and semi-supercentenarians, aged 105 or more.

While the risk of death generally increases throughout our lifetime, the researchers' analysis shows that risk eventually plateaus and remains constant at approximately 50-50.

"Beyond age 110 one can think of living another year as being almost like flipping a fair coin," said Anthony Davison, a professor of statistics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), who led the research.

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