James Vaupel

..Limited to 1,000 words, we address some serious technical mistakes and factual errors, as well as the misleading quotations in the section of Olshansky's and Carnes' article that attacks some of our joint research...

..However, physiological mechanisms connecting stress with health in Russia remain unclear since existing epidemiological data are scarce and limited to conventional risk factors...

..More generally, our models contribute to understanding of the evolutionary and demographic forces that mold the age-trajectories of mortality, fertility and growth...

..The good news is, according to Vaupel, Carey, and Christensen in their Perspective, that switching to a restricted diet at any age can yield the benefit of increased longevity--at least in flies (Mair et al.)...

..Social science research is needed to provide policy-relevant knowledge about life-course options...

..The author discusses how these findings will affect the future of Social Security and argues for a larger, more focused effort with respect to longevity research by demographers, epidemiologists, and economists...

..Explication of these causes and the genetic license for extended survival, as well as discovery of genes and other survival attributes affecting longevity, will lead to even longer lives...

..Many official forecasts, however, have assumed lower figures which can have severe consequences both for public and private decision making...

..Research by demographers, epidemiologists and other biomedical researchers suggests that further progress is likely to be made in advancing the frontier of survival - and healthy survival - to even greater ages...

..The application of the model to empirical data indicates that it is an efficient and easily applicable approach for determining the influences of genes on human longevity...

..Furthermore, differences in adult lifespan by month of birth decrease over time and are significantly smaller in more recent cohorts, which benefited from substantial improvements in maternal and infant health...

..We apply this method to the analysis of Italian data on genetic markers for five autosomal loci and mitochondrial genomes. Then we discuss basic assumptions used in this analysis and directions of further research...

..We also show how factors such as changes in the initial frequencies of candidate genes in subsequent cohorts, or secular trends in cohort mortality, may influence the results of an analysis...

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..It is shown that ignoring the existence of heterogeneity can lead to a systematic underestimation of genetic effects and effects due to interactions...

..However, the presence of sex-dependent effects and the fact that major CVD-associated genes failed to impose detrimental influence on longevity lead us to concur that the aging process is highly complicated...

..Finally, it will provide a resource for identifying unusual sibships (i.e., dizygotic twin pairs) where both survived to extreme ages, as a basis for discovering genetic variants of importance for extreme survival...

..We extend the formula to decompose change in life expectancy into age-specific and cause-specific components, and apply the methods to analyze changes in life expectancy in Sweden and Japan...

..Environmental influences are non-shared with exception of frailty with respect to respiratory diseases in males, where the shared environment plays an important role...

..Long-lived individuals are rare and may be selected in part for the genetic factors that promote successful aging. The children of long-lived parents may therefore age more successfully than the children of short-lived parents...

..The Nordic countries provide a unique opportunity for such studies, as they have good-quality data in their national health registers, which cover the whole population, and a long tradition of high participation rates in surveys...

..Leukocyte telomere dynamics might help explain the boundaries of the human life span...

..Results from both simulation and model application indicate that our survival analysis model is an efficient method for inferring haplotype effects on human survival in population-based association studies...

..Our method will allow results for yeast to be compared more correctly with those for other species...

..The purpose is to study the age trajectory of hand-grip strength after the age of 45 years...

..Untreated AVB is associated with increased mortality but SSS seems to have a good prognosis. The present study was designed to assess whether first-degree relatives of these patients have an increased mortality risk...

..CONCLUSION: This longitudinal study of the elderly and oldest old does not support the hypothesis that telomere length is a predictor for remaining lifespan once age is controlled for...

..These findings provide a support for the search for genes affecting longevity in humans, especially at advanced ages...

..For the individual, long life brings an increasing risk of loss of independence. For society, mortality reductions are not expected to result in exceptional levels of disability in cohorts of the very old...

..This will allow to dimension future sampling campaigns to study-genetic basis of human longevity...

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..This paper summarizes the newest extension of the register and gives examples of new developments and phenotypes studied...

..A more thorough examination of the data available may yield deeper insights into the role played by endogamy and consanguinity...

..However, large-scale linkage studies of long-lived families, longitudinal candidate-gene association studies and the development of analytical methods provide the potential for future progress...

..CONCLUSIONS: The majority of the variation in baldness in elderly men can be explained by genetic factors, and hair quantity has little impact on perceived age in elderly men...

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..However, the easily applicable case-only approach can be an important tool for screening many potential genes that contribute to human longevity...

..Since centenarians constitute a special population representing successful ageing, the centenarian-only approach will be an important tool in the search for major genes that contribute to human longevity...

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..CONCLUSIONS: No "cost-of-reproduction" in terms of hip fractures was observed. On the contrary, we found that having one or more children was associated with a lower risk of hip fracture...

..Hence grip strength is a suitable phenotype for identifying genetic variants of importance to mid- and late-life physical functioning...

..Long-lived individuals are rare and may be selected in part for the genetic factors that promote successful ageing. The children of long-lived parents may therefore age more successfully than the children of short-lived parents...

..Numerous rare genetic conditions are known to influence fecundability in both males and females. It is less clear to what extent more subtle genetic differences influence fecundability on a population level...

..The combination of survey data with data obtained by linkage to national health related registers enables follow-up studies both of the general twin population and of twins from clinical studies...

..Using a longitudinal study of elderly twins we studied the association between ACE genotype and physical and cognitive functioning and survival in old age...

..Although several genetic determinants (mutations or polymorphisms) have been associated with increased risk of venous thromboembolism, the overall influence of genetic factors on this disease is unknown...

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..Furthermore, we observed this pattern in different experiments and in different genotypes and established that this pattern was not due to genetic heterogeneity of the populations...

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..We conclude that the TCA technique is a reliable method for estimating a subject's age from cementum annulations...

..We do not know the reasons why the suicide mortality is still very high among the oldest old...

..73 (1.37-2.20) for severely impaired Danes compared to individuals with no impairment. Cognitive impairment predicts mortality among the very old, even after controlling for most known predictors of mortality...

..4: To undertake a candidate gene analysis, including haplotype-based analyses to investigate genetic effects on exceptional longevity. ..

..The study will attempt to determine the most informative parameters for predicting health risk for future use in research and public health practice. ..

..Hence it is not clear how much the effects of reunification vs. the effects of other factors account for the change: we will use mortality-surface data and methods to analyze this question. ..

..We will develop powerful, appropriate models and methods of statistical/demographic analysis to study the data in collaboration with other ESF Study Centers. ..

..The data collected will be shared with project and other researchers to undertake many other analyses. ..

..Hence it is not clear how much the effects of reunification vs. the effects of other factors account for the change: we will use mortality-surface data and methods to analyze this question. ..

..The study will attempt to determine the most informative parameters for predicting health risk for future use in research and public health practice. ..