Publication Date:
2000-09-29
Description:
A fundamental question in aging research is whether humans and other species possess an immutable life-span limit. We examined the maximum age at death in Sweden, which rose from about 101 years during the 1860s to about 108 years during the 1990s. The pace of increase was 0.44 years per decade before 1969 but accelerated to 1. 11 years per decade after that date. More than 70 percent of the rise in the maximum age at death from 1861 to 1999 is attributable to reductions in death rates above age 70. The rest are due to increased numbers of survivors to old age (both larger birth cohorts and increased survivorship from infancy to age 70). The more rapid rise in the maximum age since 1969 is due to the faster pace of old-age mortality decline during recent decades.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Wilmoth, J R -- Deegan, L J -- Lundstrom, H -- Horiuchi, S -- K02-AG00778/AG/NIA NIH HHS/ -- R01-AG11552/AG/NIA NIH HHS/ -- R01-AG14698/AG/NIA NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2000 Sep 29;289(5488):2366-8.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Demography, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-2120, USA. jrw@demog.berkeley.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11009426" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Aged
;
Aged, 80 and over
;
Cohort Studies
;
Female
;
Humans
;
Life Expectancy/trends
;
Life Tables
;
*Longevity
;
Male
;
Mortality/trends
;
Probability
;
Sweden
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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