This presentation will discuss recent biodemographic studies on human longevity, which may have actuarial significance. Topics include: inheritance of human longevity, impact of maternal and paternal ages at person's conception on person life span, biological explanations why parental-age effects may be important, current biological studies on the effects of month-of-birth on person's characteristics, including person's life span. The recent controversy on the alleged infertility of long-living persons and problem of limits to human lifespan will also be discussed. For more information see the authors' website: http://longevity-science.org/
This lecture will take place on Thursday, March 18, 2004 at 3pm (duration of the talk - 1 hour)
The presentation will take
place at:
BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois
300 East Randolph Street, CAL level
Northeast corner of Randolph and Columbus Drive,
Chicago, IL 60601
Directions:
The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois building is located at 300
EAST RANDOLPH STREET, in Chicago, just North of Grant Park, on the
Northeast corner of Randolph Street and Columbus Drive, an easy walk
from the Loop, and next to the AON/Standard Oil building. After
checking in at the Security desk, proceed down to the CAL level.
To attend this lecture please register at:
http://home.comcast.net/~baronsohn/pages/html/future_events.html
Familial transmission of human longevity
-- Paradox of small narrow-sense heritability of human lifespan vs
strong familial clustering of exceptional longevity
-- Major assumptions of quantitative genetics of lifespan -- linearity
of offspring-on-parent dependence
-- Non-linear, threshold pattern of real offspring-on-parent
dependencies
-- Biological explanations based on evolutionary theories (mutation
accumulation theory) and developmental noise hypothesis
Parental-age effects
-- Mutations and their role in human populations. The concept of
mutation load
-- Links between parental age at conception and mutation load
-- Real data on parental-age effects on person's characteristics
including lifespan
-- Alternative explanations of parental-age effects
Early-life programming of
human longevity
-- Concept of developmental noise
-- Evidence for the importance of early-life conditions for later-life
outcomes
-- Month-of-birth effects on person's characteristics, including life
span
-- Methodological challenges in data analysis and interpretation
Longevity vs fecundity
-- Evolutionary theories of aging and longevity, and the idea of
trade-offs between longevity and fertility
-- Earlier publications and methodological challenges
-- Recent findings and forthcoming publications
Limits to human lifespan
-- mortality decline before the 1950s and the Gompertz-Makeham law
-- new trend of mortality decline in the second half of the 20th century
-- late-life mortality deceleration, leveling-off, and late-life
mortality plateaus