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While seeking the answer of the age-old question, researchers have found evidence in two categories of people who lived long lives of a "biological barrier" to living forever. 

They used the recorded deaths of 1,205 "supercentenarians" who died between 1899 and 2013 aged 110 or older and of 19,012 athletes who had competed in the Olympics from 1896 to 2012. 

The athletes are considered among the longest-living people. 

In the case of supercentenarians, the longevity increased until 1997, when the rate levelled out, the researchers found. Similar ceiling was found in the athlete group. 

These trends "provide no signs of a recent increased longevity pattern among the longest-lived," which is not good news for people with average life expectancies, the researchers wrote in the study. 

Had there been a non-stop upward trend, they would have expected to find evidence of more people living ever longer, the team added.

The findings of the study support theories of an "invisible barrier" to a non-stop increase in longevity. 

Researchers admitted that the number of people they studied was "relatively small" and the observation period restricted, suggesting that the trend observed could be merely a temporary anomaly. 

The study has been published in the Journal of Gerontology.