A recently published online scientific study about human longevity reveals the average maximum human life span at 115 years while 125 years is the absolute limit of human lifespan.

Using maximum-reported-age-at-death data, scientists from the by Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City also said the probability in a given year of seeing one person live to 125 anywhere in the world is less than 1 in 10,000.

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The study suggests it might not be possible to extend the human life span beyond the ages already attained by the oldest people on record. For the record, the confirmed oldest person was a Frenchwoman, Jeanne Calment who was 122 years-old when she died in 1997.

Life spans, however, have been increasing thanks to improvements in public health, diet, the environment and other areas since the 19th century. On average, for example, U.S. babies born today can expect to live nearly until age 79 compared with an average life expectancy of only 47 for Americans born in 1900.

Since the 1970s, the maximum duration of life -- the age to which the oldest people live -- has also risen. This upward arc for maximal lifespan has a ceiling -- and we've already touched it, said the study.

"Demographers as well as biologists have contended there is no reason to think that the ongoing increase in maximum lifespan will end soon," said senior author Jan Vijg, Ph.D., professor and chair of genetics, the Lola and Saul Kramer Chair in Molecular Genetics, and professor of ophthalmology & visual sciences at Einstein.

"But our data strongly suggest that it has already been attained and that this happened in the 1990s."

Dr. Vijg and his colleagues analyzed data from the Human Mortality Database, which compiles mortality and population data from more than 40 countries.

Since 1900, those countries generally show a decline in late-life mortality, meaning the fraction of each birth cohort (or people born in a particular year) that survive to old age (defined as 70 and up) increased with their calendar year of birth, pointing toward a continuing increase in average life expectancy.

But when researchers looked at survival improvements since 1900 for people aged 100 and above, they found gains in survival peaked at around 100 and then fell rapidly, regardless of the year people were born.

"This finding indicates diminishing gains in reducing late-life mortality and a possible limit to human lifespan," said Dr. Vijg.

"Further progress against infectious and chronic diseases may continue boosting average life expectancy, but not maximum lifespan," said Dr. Vijg.

"While it's conceivable that therapeutic breakthroughs might extend human longevity beyond the limits we've calculated, such advances would need to overwhelm the many genetic variants that appear to collectively determine the human lifespan. Perhaps resources now being spent to increase lifespan should instead go to lengthening healthspan--the duration of old age spent in good health."

Tagshuman longevity, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Jeanne Calment, human lifespan, 125 years-old