Academic Research Centers, NORC at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA,
Academic Research Centers, NORC at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Gerontology. 2019;65(5):451-457. doi: 10.1159/000500141. Epub 2019 May 20.
There is great interest among gerontologists, demographers, and actuaries in the question concerning the limits to human longevity. Attempts at getting answers to this important question have stimulated many studies on late-life mortality trajectories, often with opposing conclusions. One group of researchers believes that mortality stops growing with age at extreme old ages, and that hence there is no fixed limit to the human life span. Other studies found that mortality continues to grow with age up to extreme old ages. Our study suggests a possible solution to this controversy. We found that mortality deceleration is best observed when older, less accurate life span data are analyzed, while in the case of more recent and reliable data there is a persistent mortality growth with age. We compared the performance (goodness of fit) of two competing mortality models - the Gompertz model and the Kannisto ("mortality deceleration") model - at ages of 80-105 years using data for 1880-1899 single-year birth cohorts of US men and women. The mortality modeling approach suggests a transition from mortality deceleration to the Gompertzian mortality pattern over time for both men and women. These results are consistent with the hypothesis about disappearing mortality deceleration over time due to improvement in the accuracy of age reporting. In the case of more recent data, mortality continues to grow with age even at very old ages. This observation may lead to more conservative estimates of future human longevity records.
老年学家、人口统计学家和精算师都对人类寿命极限的问题非常感兴趣。为了回答这个重要的问题，人们进行了许多关于老年人死亡率轨迹的研究，这些研究往往得出了相反的结论。一组研究人员认为，死亡率在极老年时会随着年龄的增长而停止增长，因此人类的寿命没有固定的限制。其他研究发现，死亡率会随着年龄的增长而持续增长，直到极老年。我们的研究为这一争议提供了一个可能的解决方案。我们发现，当分析更老的、不太准确的寿命数据时，死亡率减速现象最为明显，而在最近的、更可靠的数据中，死亡率会随着年龄的增长而持续增长。我们使用 1880 年至 1899 年美国男女单一年龄出生队列的数据，比较了两种竞争的死亡率模型——Gompertz 模型和 Kannisto（“死亡率减速”）模型——在 80-105 岁年龄段的表现（拟合优度）。死亡率建模方法表明，男女的死亡率都随着时间的推移从死亡率减速向 Gompertz 模式转变。这些结果与随着年龄报告准确性的提高，死亡率减速会随着时间消失的假设是一致的。在最近的数据中，即使在非常高龄时，死亡率仍会随着年龄的增长而持续增长。这一观察结果可能会导致对未来人类长寿记录的更保守估计。
