Aging: The Reality: Demography of Human Supercentenarians

Coles, L. Stephen

doi:10.1093/gerona/59.6.b579

Cited by 31 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Recently, there has been much emphasis on evaluating genetic and other familial exposures with regard to nonagenarians, centenarians, and super-centenarians [6,[12][13][14]19] . While it is possible that studying extremes of life expectancy may aid in identifying specific genes [16,19] or other exposures such as parental fecundity and parent's age and reproduction [17] , our data indicate that there are discernible effects seen in the 90s, and there are suggestive effects even in the 70s.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attained Parental Age and Children’s Survival at Mid-Life Ages in a Large Population

Klein

Lee²,

Klein³

2007

Gerontology

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Objective: Long-lived persons tend to share a survival advantage with their parents and siblings; however, there is limited information on benefit beyond the extremes of longevity. We evaluated a survival benefit associated with age of parents. Methods: A population-based study of adults 43–86 years of age in a Midwestern town was performed (n = 4,926). Extensive exam and questionnaire information including current age or age at death of parents of study participants was obtained. Results: While adjusting for age and gender, those with at least one parent surviving to 100 years of age had the best survival (92% survive to age 70 and 54% to age 90). There appeared to be a survival benefit for each decade of maximal parental age. A trend persists when additional risk factors are included in the model. Discussion: There is a survival benefit to offspring of increasing parental age that is apparent as early as 80 years of parental age.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attained Parental Age and Children’s Survival at Mid-Life Ages in a Large Population

Klein

Lee²,

Klein³

2007

Gerontology

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Section: Nih Public Accessmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Reports of supercentenarians have only examined the demography, identification, and age-verification of these individuals. [7][8][9][10] Here, the first phenotypic characterization of a case series of 32 supercentenarians is reported.Centenarians have been found to exhibit marked delays in functional decline and in most cases age-related lethal diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and stroke. 11 Compression of functional decline toward the relative end of their long lives might be a prerequisite or at least a marker of the ability to live to 100.…”

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confidence: 98%

Characteristics of 32 Supercentenarians

Schoenhofen

Wyszynski

Andersen

et al. 2006

J American Geriatrics Society

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OBJECTIVES-To report phenotypic characteristics of 32 age-validated supercentenarians. DESIGN-Case series. SETTING-U.S.-based recruitment effort. PARTICIPANTS-Thirty-two supercentenarians.MEASUREMENTS-Multiple forms of proof were used to validate age claims. Sociodemographic, activities of daily living, and medical history data were collected. RESULTS-Age range was 110 to 119. Fifty-nine percent had Barthel Index scores in the partially to totally dependent range, whereas 41% required minimal assistance or were independent. Few subjects had a history of clinically evident vascular-related diseases, including myocardial infarction (n = 2, 6%) and stroke (n = 4, 13%). Twenty-two percent (n = 7) were taking medications for hypertension. Twenty-five percent (n = 8) had a history of cancer (all cured). Diabetes mellitus (n = 1, 3%) and Parkinson's disease (n = 1, 3%) were rare. Osteoporosis (n = 14, 44%) and cataract history (n = 28, 88%) were common.CONCLUSION-Data collected thus far suggest that supercentenarians markedly delay and even escape clinical expression of vascular disease toward the end of their exceptionally long lives. A surprisingly substantial proportion of these individuals were still functionally independent or required minimal assistance. Keywordssupercentenarian; centenarian; longevity Address correspondence to Thomas T. Perls, MD, MPH, New England Centenarian Study, Boston University Medical Center, 88 East Newton St., Robinson 2400, Boston, MA 02118. thperls@bu.edu. Author Contributions: Dr. Perls played key roles in all aspects of the preparation of this manuscript. Emily Schoenhofen played key roles in study concept and design, subject acquisition and data analysis. Dr. Wyszynski played a key role in data analysis and interpretation. Stacy Andersen played key roles in subject recruitment and enrollment and data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Robert Young played key roles in subject recruitment, ascertainment of demographic data, and age validation. JaeMi Pennington played key roles in subject recruitment and enrollment and data collection. Dr. Terry played key roles in study concept and design, data interpretation, and preparation of the manuscript. The remarkable growth in the number of centenarians (aged ≥ 100) has garnered significant attention over the past 20 or so years. Consequently, a number of centenarian studies have emerged, ranging in emphasis from demographic to genetic. Recently, an even more extreme group, supercentenarians, or people aged 110 and older, has begun to yield sufficient numbers to warrant descriptive studies. NIH Public AccessGreat effort and diligence is required to locate living supercentenarians and validate their age claims. Claims of ages beyond that of the oldest well-accepted age of 122 years (Madame Jeanne Calment) regularly surface in the media, but these are invariably unsubstantiated. [1][2][3] The U.S. census listed 1,400 supercentenarians in 2000 (about 1 per 200,000), 4 but an e-mail based effort facilitated by the Gerontology Rese...

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“…Olshansky et al (2009) and Coles (2004) argued in favor of diminishing gains and an ultimate statistical limit due to the need to reduce all-cause mortality by ever-greater amounts in order to keep increasing longevity-and, in fact, many past efforts to forecast longevity built in diminishing rates of progress against mortality at older ages (Wachter, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities and challenges of a world with negligible senescence

Hughes

Kuhn

Margolese-Malin

et al. 2015

Technological Forecasting and Social Change

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a b s t r a c tThe development of anti-aging technologies could have dramatic implications for a world already challenged by population aging. We explore how the world might evolve given the development and deployment of technologies capable of nearly eliminating mortality and morbidity from most causes. We consider both the great benefits and some of the complex sociopolitical rebalancing resulting from such advances. We use the International Futures (IFs) long-term, multi-issue, global forecasting system in our analysis of the interactions among demographic changes, the related changes in health costs and government finances, shifts in labor force participation, resultant economic transformations, and the environmental sustainability of the dramatically-altered human demands that emerge. We find that the widespread deployment of anti-senescence technologies would cause populations to surge-making fertility rates an issue of tremendous social import-while a much larger, healthier, labor force would spur economic growth. But this is not a given; the cost of treating entire adult populations could prove unbearable to non-high-income economies without significant transfers within and across societies. In the absence of new transformative production technologies, life-pattern financing would require the virtual elimination of retirement and a major restructuring of government finances. Pressures on the environment would also greatly intensify.

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Aging: The Reality: Demography of Human Supercentenarians

Cited by 31 publications

References 23 publications

Attained Parental Age and Children’s Survival at Mid-Life Ages in a Large Population

Attained Parental Age and Children’s Survival at Mid-Life Ages in a Large Population

Characteristics of 32 Supercentenarians

Opportunities and challenges of a world with negligible senescence

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