Who wants to live forever? Well unfortunately, this is something that is beyond the realms of science at the moment, but apparently we are getting ever closer to that goal, with the trend set to continue as mankind evolves. That is of course if we don't blow each other up or kill each other off in some other way first…

New research published this week in Science Magazine by Jim Oeppen from Cambridge University, and Dr James Vaupel from the Max Plank Institute for Demography in Germany argues that it won't be long before octogenarians (people who live to the ripe old age of one hundred) are commonplace in this country.

They have demonstrated that the average lifespan around the world has more than doubled over the last two centuries to reach around 65 for men and 70 for women. And the long term trend shows no sign of changing, meaning that those people living in the countries with the highest life expectancy can expect an average lifespan of 100 years in around 6 decades.

Japan currently tops the lifespan league, with women reaching an average of 84.6 years and men reaching an average age of 77.6. British men rank 14th in the world with an average age of 75 while women in the UK, who live to 79.9 years, are back in 18th place.

The report coincides with research from AXA Sun Life which calls for the state pension age to be raised from 65 to 70, though if the scientists are correct, there would be plenty of scope for this limit to be pushed later than a time that will ultimately represent the later mid-life.

But the report from AXA is not really to do with the average age of pensioners in this country, rather that putting the date of entitlement to state pension back by five years could help encourage people to start saving for their retirement from their own funds.

The research found that by raising the state pension age by five years, 40 per cent of people would save more for their retirement because they do not want to work beyond 65. Two-thirds were also in favour of making it compulsory for people in work to make contributions into a pension plan.

Steve Folkard, head of pensions marketing at AXA Sun Life, said: "Pension charges have dropped dramatically especially since the introduction of the stakeholder scheme. Flexibility has also improved significantly and people now have much greater freedom over how and when they make their contributions and the size of these.

"But still we have an annual savings gap of £27 billion. If the government is going to be able to tackle this problem, there is little left for them to consider apart from taking action to either force people to save or make them think more seriously about how they will fund their retirement and when they can actually stop working."