Economos A C
Gerontology. 1985;31(2):106-11. doi: 10.1159/000212688.
That the steep increase of mean life expectancy in the developed countries during the first decades of this century has now come to a halt is neither news nor reason for panic. Mean life span cannot exceed the apparent biological limit for the human species, a maximum life span LSmax of 100-110 years, that has remained unchanged across time, races and civilizations; it will moreover remain about 20% less than LSmax even if major diseases were to be eliminated due to the inherent individual differences - only a few individuals are endowed with a genetic-physiologic profile that allows them to reach LSmax. Some concepts on the relation of rates of aging and dying and the mechanism of mortality are here pertinent and are amplified. Finally, though the author has extensively criticized the general applicability of the Gompertz 'law of mortality', he has some reservations concerning the recently expressed view that the course of the rate of increase of force of mortality with age may be different in men and women, chiefly slowing down versus continuously increasing; this conclusion may well be an artifact of the analysis.
本世纪头几十年发达国家平均预期寿命的急剧增长现已停止，这既不是新闻，也不是恐慌的理由。平均寿命不可能超过人类明显的生物极限，即最大寿命LSmax为100 - 110岁，这个极限在不同时间、种族和文明中都没有变化；此外，即使主要疾病因个体差异而被消除，平均寿命仍将比LSmax低约20%，因为只有少数个体具有使其达到LSmax的遗传生理特征。这里有一些关于衰老和死亡速率关系以及死亡率机制的概念是相关的，并进行了详述。最后，尽管作者广泛批评了冈珀茨“死亡率定律”的普遍适用性，但他对最近提出的观点有所保留，即男性和女性死亡率随年龄增长的速率变化过程可能不同，主要是减缓与持续增加的差异；这一结论很可能是分析的人为结果。
