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.