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Does human mortality after age 110 continue to rise, level off, or
start to decline? This book describes a concerted, international
research effort undertaken with the goal of establishing a database
that allows the best possible description of the mortality
trajectory beyond the age of 110. The International Database on
Longevity (IDL) is the result of this ongoing effort. The IDL
contains exhaustive information on validated cases of
supercentenarians (people 110 years and older) and allows unbiased
estimates of mortality after age 110. The main finding is
remarkable: human mortality after age 110 is flat at a probability
of death of 50% per year. The sixteen chapters of this book discuss
age validation of exceptional longevity, data on supercentenarians
in a series of countries, structure and contents of the IDL, and
statistical analysis of human mortality after age 110. Several
chapters include short accounts of specific supercentenarians that
add life to demographic research.
Why longevity? For a number of years, the Fondation IPSEN has been
devoting considerable effort to the various aspects of ageing, not
only to age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's, but also to the
Centenarians, the paragon of positive ageing. The logical
continuation of this approach is to address the question of
longevity in global terms. Behind the extreme values, what span is
accessible to all of us and likely to directly concern most of our
contemporaries? The individual and col lective increase in the
duration of life is one of the most striking phenomena of our time.
It could be one of the most significant events in the "bio-social"
history of humanity. The increase in life expectancy at old age,
which started a few de cades ago only, is going on. The most
well-advised observer had not foreseen or even dared hope for this
increase which will drastically affect our everyday life, our
habits and our behavior. In the fragment of human history we are
living in, it is our responsibility to deal with this major
transformation for the species. Such a transformation needs an
effort from all to adapt to the new conditions. This transformation
has to be managed rather than simply experienced, anticip ated
rather than followed, in order to avoid any attempt to pervert this
major step forward. All that was present during the first symposium
of the new series on longevity of the Colloques Medecine et
Recherche convened by the Fondation IPSEN."
Does human mortality after age 110 continue to rise, level off, or
start to decline? This book describes a concerted, international
research effort undertaken with the goal of establishing a database
that allows the best possible description of the mortality
trajectory beyond the age of 110. The International Database on
Longevity (IDL) is the result of this ongoing effort. The IDL
contains exhaustive information on validated cases of
supercentenarians (people 110 years and older) and allows unbiased
estimates of mortality after age 110. The main finding is
remarkable: human mortality after age 110 is flat at a probability
of death of 50% per year. The sixteen chapters of this book discuss
age validation of exceptional longevity, data on supercentenarians
in a series of countries, structure and contents of the IDL, and
statistical analysis of human mortality after age 110. Several
chapters include short accounts of specific supercentenarians that
add life to demographic research. Content Level Research
Bolle Willum Luxdorph, who lived from 1716-1788, was the first Dane
known to have studied the phenomenon of old age. Luxdorph was a
high-ranking Danish civil servant, a leader of the Danish
Chancellery, as well as a scholar and poet. In the last years of
his life, Luxdorph created an art collection of paintings of older
people ("long-livers"). The exact date at which Luxdorph began
taking an interest in the phenomenon of old age is not known, but
it must have happened sometime in the late 1770s. At this point,
Luxdorph began systematically collecting data concerning very old
people (i.e. persons who had reached the age of 80 and over). This
book examines Luxdorph's collection, which has a triple-source
value in terms of the history of art, the history of civilization,
and the history of science. Both the reconstruction and the
availability of the collection hold specific contemporary and
general importance for: the illustration of very old men and women,
the development of research on ageing, and the associated
socio-cultural topics. Moreover, the collection represents an
encyclopedic interest, the passion to collect, and the origin of
science-orientated collections, as they became characteristic in
18th-century Europe.
The history of longevity is a history of myths. This volume shows
that most reported instances of exceptional longevity are
incorrect. This was the rule everywhere until the end of the 19th
century and is still the case in the vast majority of countries. It
is only when reliable birth registrations are available for a
century or more and when reports of ages above 100 are
systematically checked against these data that the quality of
national statistics on exceptional longevity improves. Several
chapters of this volume provide further evidence that genuine
centenarians before 1800 were non-existent or at least extremely
rare. Sufficiently thorough attempts at verifying the maximal
duration of life in different periods of time have not been made.
Nonetheless, various gerontologists continue to make the
undocumented claim that the maximal duration of life is 110, 115 or
120 years, and that this maximal duration has not changed over the
course of human history. Unreliable reports of extreme ages in
various countries and at various times, including the present,
continue to be cited despite their implausibility and the lack of
firm evidence. This volume carries on the laborious work of
validating the ages of the few persons who may have been those who
have lived longest. While the research was in progress, three
exceptional long-livers died. These three were the long-livers whom
the contributors to this volume scrutinised more closely than any
alleged long-liver has ever been examined before. The three are
Jeanne Calment, who died on August 4, 1997 at the age of 122 years
and 5 months; Marie Louise Meilleur, who died on April 16, 1998 at
the age of 117 years and 7 months; and Christian Mortensen, who
died April 25, 1998 at the age of 115 years and 8 months.
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