In one new paper published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, Dutch scientists predict that, by 2070, our lifespan may increase to 125 years while beyond that, the sky may be the limit.

To prove a 125-year lifespan is possible, researchers from the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute team began their study by refuting the relationship between age & immortality posed by Benjamin Gompertz.

This 19th-century mathematician pored over mortality data and noticed that young people have a very low chance of dying. Yet, in middle age, the chance of dying increases and then rises again dramatically in old age.

This exponential increase in the rate of human mortality has long been accepted wisdom, yet the Dutch researchers decided to challenge it. Instead of basing their work on data derived from the general population, they used data from a group of people noted for their long lives Japanese women. Using mathematical models, they claim mortality goes down in old age and projected an astounding new human lifespan 125 years will be achieved by 2070.

In their paper, Vijg explained that their analysis was based not on some mathematical model that projected future data, but on "actual data" of real human lives. They examined not one but two different data sets, and what they observed was that, despite life expectancy being dramatically higher than it was 100 years ago, the probability of anyone living for more than 125 years was unlikely. "Initially, you see this increase every year and you see this oldest record holder until the 1990s, and then it stops," said Vijg. "Think about it, how strange it is." The number of healthy centenarians increased dramatically every year. That being the case, Vijg theorized "the supply is certainly there" to create more record-breakers, every year, yet there were none.