Just one fifth of Britons would choose to live forever – if it ever became scientifically possible, according to a new poll.
If faced with the option of immortality, the vast majority would reject it in favour of their own demise.
Although living forever may currently sound like science fiction, experts are hopeful that, one day, humans will only die in road accidents.
Other scientists have claimed that humans may live to be 125 within the next two generations because of medical advances.
Just one fifth of Britons would choose to live forever if given the option of immortality (stock)
NewScientist asked 2,026 adults living in the UK: ‘If you were offered the chance to live forever, how likely are you to take it?’
Some 21 per cent admitted they would probably accept the offer of immortality, while 30 per cent would consider it.
But just under half of the respondents rejected the concept of living forever.
As well as the existing problem of global overpopulation, other concerns included living in a ‘nursing home world’ full of elderly people.
Although most dislike the idea of being immortal, just 44 per cent agreed with the statement ‘we should just accept our natural lifespan’.
Most agree ‘longer life expectancies are a good thing’ and welcome advances in medicine, nutrition and public health that are allowing humans to live longer.
Dr Aubrey de Grey, a biomedical gerontologist, last year claimed humans will one day only die in road accidents – not old age.
The founder of the SENS Research Foundation in Mountain View in California said he believes blood transfusions could keep people perpetually youthful.
No one to date has lived longer than the chain-smoking Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment (pictured) who died aged 122 in 1997. She outlived her husband, who passed away at 73, smoked two cigarettes a day and only gave up cycling when she was 100 years old
He told CBS SF Bay Area: ‘The risk of death will remain the risk of death from causes other than ageing — like being hit by a truck.
‘We don’t know how soon we’re going to defeat ageing.
‘We should be able to keep people truly in a youthful state of health, no matter how long they live and that means the risk of death will not rise.’
Stanford University research in 2014 showed that blood infusions from young mice into older rodents improves the latter’s cognitive function.
On the back of this, biotech start-ups are thought to be racing to replicate this effect in humans so we too can achieve eternal youth and health.
Biotech company Alkahest in San Carlo, California, three years ago injected the blood plasma of 18-year-old humans into old mice.
The Alkahest team found it rejuvenated the bodies and brains of older rodents and brains.
Dutch scientists last summer said people can expect to live until their 125th birthday, within just two generations.
No one so far has lived longer than 122 – the age reached by chain-smoking Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment in 1997.
She outlived her husband, who passed away at 73, smoked two cigarettes a day and only gave up cycling when she was 100.
However, researchers at the University of Groningen forecast that a woman will reach the milestone of 125 by the year 2070.
In Britain alone, the number of people older than 100 is likely to grow from just over 14,500 in 2015 to 1.5 million by the end of the century.
However the claim, made in the journal Nature, has been challenged by US researchers who last year reported human’s life expectancy ‘plateaued’ at 115.