Category Archives: Human Longevity

Charles Q. Choi

The death rate in industrialized countries has dropped so much in the last century or so that, for example, a 72-year-old in Japan has the same chances of dying as a preindustrial 30-year-old did, or does, a new study says.

"In other words," the researchers write, " ... 72 is the new 30."

Humans nowadays survive much longer than our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, which rarely live past 50. Even hunter-gathererswho often lack the advanced nutrition, modern medicine, and other benefits of industrialized livinghave twice the life expectancy at birth as wild chimpanzees.

So what's changed in us since the days of our ape ancestors? Are we living so much longer mainly because of changes in our lifestyles or because of genetic mutationsin other words, evolution?

(Related: "Longevity Genes Found; Predict Chances of Reaching a Hundred.")

To find out how we got to this advanced state, the study team compared death rates in industrialized countries with those in modern-day hunter-gatherer groups, whose lifestyles more closely mirror those of early modern humans.

The researchers found that the mortality rate at younger agesduring the first couple decades of lifein the industrialized world is now about 200 times lower overall than in today's hunter-gatherer groups.

"We have a greater distance in mortality levels between today's lowest-mortality nations and hunter-gatherers than there is between hunter-gatherers and chimpanzees," said study leader Oskar Burger, an evolutionary anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany.

Longevity's Great Leap Forward

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"Seventy-two Is the New 30": Why Are We Living So Much Longer?

LOS ANGELES (MCT) Modern humans have gotten incomparably good at survival, doing more to extend our lives over the past century than our forebears did in the previous 6.6 million years since we parted evolutionary ways with chimpanzees, according to a new study.

In fact, humans in societies with plentiful food and advanced medicine have surpassed other species used in life-extending medical research in stretching our longevity and reducing our odds of dying at every point along our ever-lengthening lifespans, the study finds.

The research, published online Monday by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, touches upon the hotly debated question of whether an upper limit to longevity is inscribed in our genes. It makes clear that life extension begins at birth, with a child born in the last four generations standing a better chance of being alive during infancy, adolescence, the reproductive years and after than in any of the 8,000 human generations that came before.

The study authors, from Germanys Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, began by comparing people who have lived or now live in primitive hunter-gatherer societies around the globe in which lifespans have been well documented to citizens of industrialized countries in Europe and Asia. A typical Swede, for instance, is more than 100 times more likely to survive to the age 15 than a typical hunter-gatherer. And a hunter-gatherer who has reached the ripe old age of 30 is about as likely to die in the following year as the worlds champion of longevity a 72-year-old woman in Japan.

In evolutions actuarial table, the researchers wrote, 72 is the new 30.

The bulk of that progress has been made since 1800, when the average lifespan of a Swede at birth was 32. That is roughly on a par with the 31 years that the average hunter-gatherer can expect to live.

By the year 1900, the average lifespan in Sweden had reached 52, and today it stands at 82 an increase of more than 150 percent in just over 200 years.

That puts to shame efforts to extend the lives of laboratory animals, the study authors noted. By inducing genetic mutations in various species, scientists have boosted the longevity of nematode worms by more than 100 percent, of fruit flies by about 85 percent and of mice by roughly 50 percent. Experiments in caloric restriction have also extended the lives of lab animals, but they also fall short of humans real-world gains.

No species dramatizes the breathtaking rate of humans life extension more than chimpanzees, mankinds closest relative. At any age, the life expectancy of a human in a hunter-gatherer society is closer to that of a chimp in the wild than it is to a modern-day resident of Japan or Sweden, according to the study.

The authors wrote that the rapid improvements in human survival could only be accounted for by environmental changes, including better nutrition and medical advances; changes in the genome accumulate far too slowly to explain the progress.

Continued here:
New research examines modern humans’ ability to extend lifespan

Modern humans have gotten incomparably good at survival, doing more to extend our lives over the last century than our forebears did in the previous 6.6 million years since we parted evolutionary ways with chimpanzees, according to a new study.

In fact, humans in societies with plentiful food and advanced medicine have surpassed other species used in life-extending medical research in stretching our longevity and reducing our odds of dying at every point along our ever-lengthening life spans, the study finds.

The research, published online Monday by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, touches upon the hotly debated question of whether an upper limit to longevity is inscribed in our genes. It makes clear that life extension begins at birth, with a child born in the last four generations standing a better chance of being alive during infancy, adolescence, the reproductive years and after than in any of the 8,000 human generations that came before.

The study authors, from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, began by comparing people who have lived or now live in primitive hunter-gatherer societies around the globe in which life spans have been well documented with citizens of industrialized countries in Europe and Asia. A typical Swede, for instance, is more than 100 times more likely to survive to the age 15 than a typical hunter-gatherer. And a hunter-gatherer who has reached the ripe old age of 30 is about as likely to die in the following year as the world's champion of longevity a 72-year-old woman in Japan.

In evolution's actuarial table, the researchers wrote, "72 is the new 30."

The bulk of that progress has been made since 1800, when the average life span of a Swede at birth was 32. That is roughly on a par with the 31 years that the average hunter-gatherer can expect to live today.

By the year 1900, the average life span in Sweden had reached 52, and today it stands at 82 an increase of more than 150% in just over 200 years.

That puts to shame efforts to extend the lives of laboratory animals, the study authors noted. By inducing genetic mutations in various species, scientists have boosted the longevity of nematode worms by more than 100%, of fruit flies by about 85% and of mice by roughly 50%. Experiments in caloric restriction have also extended the lives of lab animals, but they also fall short of humans' real-world gains.

No species dramatizes the breathtaking rate of humans' life extension more than chimpanzees, mankind's closest relative. At any age, the life expectancy of a human in a hunter-gatherer society is closer to that of a chimp in the wild than it is to a modern-day resident of Japan or Sweden, according to the study.

The authors wrote that the rapid improvements in human survival could only be accounted for by environmental changes, including better nutrition and medical advances; changes in the genome accumulate far too slowly to explain the progress.

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Modern humans found to be fittest ever at survival, by far

Public release date: 15-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Kim Newman sciencenews@einstein.yu.edu 718-430-3101 Albert Einstein College of Medicine

October 15, 2012 (BRONX, NY) Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University has received a $3 million grant from the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research to establish the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Human Aging Research. The grant will fund research to translate recent laboratory and animal discoveries into therapies to slow human aging.

Aging contributes to many of the debilitating and costly diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes that burden the United States and many other countries. This complex but universal condition causes individual cells and the body as a whole to decline in function. Finding the mechanisms that underlie the aging process may lead to treatments that slow aging, prevent or limit common diseases, and allow people to live healthier, longer lives.

"Unless we find protective mechanisms to delay aging, we will not make progress against age-related diseases," said Nir Barzilai, M.D., co-director of the new center as well as director of the Institute for Aging Research, the Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert Chair in Aging Research, and professor of medicine and of genetics at Einstein. "With this valuable grant from the Paul F. Glenn Foundation, we hope to make significant advances toward understanding the aging process and improving human health."

"The generosity of Paul F. Glenn and his foundation is a welcome shot in the arm for aging research in the United States, which is chronically underfunded," said Jan Vijg, Ph.D., co-director of the new center, the Lola and Saul Kramer Chair in Molecular Genetics, and professor and chair of genetics and professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at Einstein. "This grant will help Einstein to maintain its position as one of the world's leaders in this rapidly growing field."

"Paul F. Glenn has been a visionary in aging research for more than 30 years," said Ana Maria Cuervo, M.D., Ph.D., co-director of the new center, the Robert and Rene Belfer Chair for the Study of Neurodegenerative Diseases, and professor of developmental and molecular biology, of anatomy and structural biology and of medicine at Einstein. "Some of us got to know him when we were still graduate students and he came to scientific conferences to see the data as it was being developed. Paul's personal approach to science has made a big difference to many of us in the field of aging research and has contributed to the career development of many young investigators."

The funding, in the form of pilot and feasibility study grants, is targeted to several specific research projects: uncovering the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that protect humans against aging and age-related diseases, testing the effectiveness of the first-generation pro-longevity therapies, and developing novel preventive and therapeutic interventions against cellular aging in humans.

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Drs. Barzilai and Cuervo are also co-directors of Einstein's Institute for Aging Research and, together with Dr. Vijg, of the Nathan Shock Center for the Basic Biology of Aging. Both centers are funded by the National Aging Institute, part of the National Institutes for Health.

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Einstein establishes the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Human Aging Research

Some books are so much a part of our childhood experience that when we hear their titles we can almost smell the pages of the book itself, remember where we were when we first opened it, and conjure up entire scenes and memories of reading it for the first or many times thereafter. Charlotte's Web is one of those books. Today, the most famous book by the masterful E.B. White has turned 60. It is no worse for wear in terms of readability and resonance, even amid a world of Y.A. dystopias, fantasies, and futuristic plots and themes. The simple tale of a pig, a girl, and a spider, beginning with a life saved (Wilbur's, by the girl, Fern, and later by Charlotte the spider) and ending with a deathbut then new lifeis threaded through with the personal conflicts, conversations, and camaraderie of the various barnyard creatures involved. It's one for the ages.

We all know the plot, right? This should come as a spoiler to no one:

Wilbur, a tiny piglet, the runt of the litter, is saved by 8-year-old Fern Arable, who begs her dad to let her keep him as a pet. He does, but after Wilbur is old enough, nursed to health by a bottle, the pig is sent to live on Fern's Uncle Homer's farm. Fern gets older and stops visiting so often, and poor Wilbur gets lonely, until he meets a new friend: Charlotte the spider. When it becomes clear (with the help of an old sheep on the farm) that Wilbur is being fattened up because he's intended as a holiday meal, wise Charlotte promises to save him and begins to spin webs that will convince the humans that Wilbur is a pig beyond the pale. Wilbur becomes famousin another time, Wilbur would have had a reality showleft to live out his years in peace on the farm, but happily ever after has complications.

As an added perk for the semantic-minded, Charlotte is kind of a word-nerd: Upon her webs, illustrated in the book by Garth Williams, she writes "some pig," "terrific," "radiant," and "humble." As Eudora Welty wrote in her 1952 New York Times review of the book, of the character of the spider, "When her friends wake up in the morning she says 'Salutations!'in spite of sometimes having been up all night herself, working." It's worth noting that Charlotte is a great female charactersmart, brave, loyal, and doing what she needs to do, even if she's spider rather than human; Fern, also, is an empowered, courageous girl, even at just 8 years old.

Welty added, "As a piece of work it is just about perfect, and just about magical in the way it is done. What it all provesin the words of the minister in the story which he hands down to his congregation after Charlotte writes 'Some Pig' in her webis 'that human beings must always be on the watch for the coming of wonders.'''

Sixty years later, White's children's classic is one of the most-read books of all time. Brooklyn children's librarian Rita Meade told me, "Charlotte's Webhas been a staple on school reading lists for what seems likeforever, and every timea kidrequests it,I tell them 'Oh, you're going to love this book.'I don't have the heart to tell them how sad it is, of course, but I guess it's something that every kid has to experience for him or herself."

It is, in fact, terribly sad. Of course, that's some of the beauty of it; like other deeply tragic and moving kids' books (A Bridge to Terabithia, for example) readers befriend and learn to love characters right along with the other characters in those books who are doing the sameand then, when those characters are so unfairly wrenched from us, we suffer along with their book-based friends. Of course, death is a part of life, and that's one of the messages of these children's books. But there's redemption in that love and friendship having been there before death, which is one reason we rely on these these books as formative reading material. As Charlotte tells Wilbur, "You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, whats a life, anyway? Were born, we live a little while, we die. A spiders life cant help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyones life can stand a little of that."

In an NPR piece today in honor of the book's 60th, author Michael Sims, who wrote The Story of Charlotte's Web, about White's life and famous novel, reveals that when the writer narrated the audiobook of his work in 1970, he couldn't resist the emotional pull either:

"He, of course, as anyone does doing an audio book, had to do several takes for various things, just to get it right," Sims says. "But every time, he broke down when he got to Charlotte's death. And he would do it, and it would mess up. ... He took 17 takes to get through Charlotte's death without his voice cracking or beginning to cry."

Meade adds, of the book's longevity, "I think it's been around for so long because of the honesty of the characters and the way they convey their feelingseven though most of them aren't human, [we get a whole barnyard of characters, in fact] they feel and expresshuman emotions and that makes these emotionsmore easily relatable to kids. It's a great book forstarting discussionsabout difficult issueswith young readers," she says. "It's just a great book anyway."

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A Pig, a Girl, and a Spider: 'Charlotte's Web' at 60

Humans are living longer than ever, a life-span extension that occurred more rapidly than expected and almost solely from environmental improvements as opposed to genetics, researchers said today (Oct. 15).

Four generations ago, the average Swede had the same probability of dying as a hunter-gatherer, but improvements in our living conditions through medicine, better sanitation and clean drinking water (considered "environmental" changes) accelerated life spans to modern levels in just 100 years, researchers found.

In Japan, 72 has become the new 30, as the likelihood of a 72-year-old modern-day person dying is the same as a 30-year-old hunter-gatherer ancestor who lived 1.3 million years ago. Though the researchers didn't specifically look at the United States, they say the life-span trends are not country-specific and not based in genetics.

Quick jump in life span

The same progress of decreasing average probability of dying at a certain age in hunters-gatherers that took 1.3 million years to achieve was made in 30 years during the 21st century.

"I pictured a more gradual transition from a hunter-gatherer mortality profile to something like we have today, rather than this big jump, most of which occurred in the last four generations, to me that was surprise," lead author Oskar Burger, postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany, told LiveScience.

Biologists have lengthened life spans of worms, fruit flies and mice in labs by selectively breeding for old-age survivorship or tweaking their endocrine system, a network of glands that affects every cell in the body. However, the longevity gained in humans over the past four generations is even greater than can be created in labs, researchers concluded. [Extending Life: 7 Ways to Live Past 100]

Genetics vs. environment

In the new work, Burger and colleagues analyzed previously published mortality data from Sweden, France and Japan, from present-day hunter-gatherers and from wild chimpanzees, the closet living relative to humans.

Humans have lived for an estimated 8,000 generations, but only in the past four have mortalities increased to modern-day levels. Hunter-gatherers today have average life spans on par with wild chimpanzees.

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Human Life Span Took Huge Jump in Past Century

Despite what the fashion magazines tell you, 40 isnt the new 30. Seventy is.

A new study finds that humans are living so much longer today compared with the rest of human history that the probability of dying at 72 is similar to the death odds our ancestors likely faced at 30.

This uptick in longevity is quite recent occurring in the last century and a half which suggests it has little to do with genes, starvation diets or anti-aging miracle drugs. Rather, it is likely due to eliminating environmental dangers faced by Homo sapiens of old, an evolutionary anthropologist and his colleagues argue online October 15 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Sanitation measures that clean up drinking water, regular access to food, plus antibiotics and vaccines seem to go a long way toward fighting off death.

Its striking, says Ronald Lee, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley who specializes in demographics and aging. We already think of humans as a really long-lived species, says Lee, who wasnt involved in the study. It raises the question of how far we can go.

Evolutionary anthropologist Oskar Burger and his team wanted to study human longevity in an evolutionary context. So they turned to previously gathered data on chimpanzees, hunter-gatherer societies in parts of Africa and South America and numbers from the Human Mortality Database for Japan, Sweden and France.

The data reveal a steady, gradual drop in the probability of dying relatively young that begins just before 1900 for the French and Swedes. But the mortality numbers for hunter-gatherers remain closer to wild chimpanzees than to these westernized societies. However, when the researchers looked at hunter-gatherer groups who received some western medicine and occasional help with food, the mortality in those groups dropped, widening the gap between them and chimps and bumping them up to numbers comparable with pre-1900 Sweden and France.

Its amazing what clean water and a bit of extra food gets you, says Berger, of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany.

A 30-year-old hunter-gatherer has the same probability of death as a Japanese person today who is 72 years old, the study found. At 15, a hunter-gatherer has a 1.3 percent probability of dying in the next year; Swedes hit those odds at age 69.

Surprisingly, the research also suggests that theres room for improvement, and that the upper limit on healthy human living has yet to be reached. Aging theory suggests that the biological machinery should increasingly break down once a person passes the age of reproducing and caring for young (SN: 10/20/12, p. 16). But for some reason, humans seem to have become exceptionally good at dodging that bullet.

And researchers may even be able to extend human lifespans even longer with insights from ongoing research into the cellular switches and genes that extend the lives of roundworms and rodents in the lab.

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Living longer comes easier

Jay Lee, president of Northeastern Junior College, receives a certificate of recognition celebrating the college's longevity in northeast Colorado. NJC has been in Sterling since 1941. (David Martinez/Journal-Advocate) ( Picasa )

Nevertheless, those three companies plus 43 more were honored for at least 60 years of business Thursday afternoon in NJC's Tennant Art Gallery. They received certificates of appreciation from the Eastern Workforce Center, as part of the Department of Labor and Employment's statewide Grown in Colorado initiative.

Though only about two dozen representatives came to accept their certificates,

Jessie Ruiz, director of human resource and public relations at MV Equipment, talks about the benefits his company's five John Deere dealers has brought the region. (David Martinez/Journal-Advocate) ( Picasa )

I think we had a great turnout, she said. It was a great showcase for what the Workforce Center does.

Garcia said the 10-county region's six offices assist business customers in recruitment and retention of employees. On the job-seeker side, they post new openings on their website and offer classes that teach job readiness skills. The older businesses provide a consistent source for northeastern Colorado jobs, which can be a boon in an economy that hangs at about 8 percent unemployment.

Jessie Ruiz, director of human resource and public relations for MV Equipment, said his company provides about 100 jobs over five John Deere locations (Sterling, Holyoke, Wray, Burlington and Yuma). That's a steady pace for a business that started in 1938 with one employee and a garage.

He said MV Equipment, like many of the other 60-plus-year-old businesses, has embraced the community by partnering with two colleges (including NJC), and six Workforce Center offices even sponsoring the day's ceremonies.

We talk about work force, we talk about job market, he said. We've created 10 new positions. An average employee makes about $40,000. That's about $400,000 we can put back into the economy.

Jay Lee, president of NJC, flaunted the college's status as the biggest junior college representative in the state, plus the fact that it employs about 200 people.

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Local businesses honored for their longevity

A GEORGIAN woman who claimed to be 132 years old - making her the worlds oldest human being ever - has died.

Antisa Khvichava claimed to have been born on 8 July 1880, and had a Soviet-era passport and documentation to that effect, but her age was contested and never officially proven.

She lived in the remote village of Sachino, in north-west Georgia, with her 42-year-old grandson and claimed to have retired from her job as a tea and corn picker in 1965 when she was 85.

Mrs Khvichava claimed to be just 10 years younger than Russias first communist leader Vladimir Lenin, and to have been born a year before the death of the celebrated Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

She said she had 12 grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren, and reportedly attributed her longevity and good health to drinking a small amount of local brandy every day.

Mrs Khvichava, who only spoke in the local language Mingrelian, would already have been 31 when the Titanic sunk in April 1912 and 37 during Russias October Revolution in 1917. She would have been 61 when the Soviet Union entered the Second World War in 1941 and 111 when the Soviet Union formally came to an end in 1991.

Her original birth certificate is said to have been lost during the years of revolutions and civil wars that ravaged Georgia following the fall of the USSR. But local officials, friends, neighbours and descendants have all back up the claim that she was 132 when she died.

Experts have some doubt over the claims however, as all the documents stating her age were created long after Mrs Khvichava's birth. Without documents dating from the 1880s, researchers said her real age is likely to remain a mystery.

The oldest living person at the moment is 116-year-old Besse Cooper from the state of Georgia in the USA. Her birth can be officially proven to have been in August 1896.

The oldest ever verified person was French woman Jeanne Calment, born in February 1875, who lived to 122 years and 164 days before dying in August 1997. She claimed to have met the artist Vincent Van Gogh when she was a young woman.

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Was she really 132? World's 'oldest ever person' dies in remote Georgian village

By David McGrath Schwartz (contact)

Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012 | 1:30 p.m.

CARSON CITY Gov. Brian Sandoval said he will still attempt to reverse salary cuts and furloughs borne by state employees since 2009, but the state has to weigh costs in health and human services and see where the state's tax collections are.

Sandoval, talking to reporters Tuesday after a Board of Examiner's meeting, said he never promised to restore those cuts, though instructions to agencies included that direction.

"I'm hopeful ... we can restore some of those salary reductions that have occurred historically," he said.

Since 2009, the state's budget has been balanced in large part with reductions to the pay for 17,000 state employees. In 2011, the Legislature and Sandoval instituted a 2.5 percent pay cut and six furlough days a year to save the state about $123 million a year. It also eliminated automatic pay increases for some employees and longevity pay, saving $69 million, according to the state budget office.

Sandoval's chief of staff, Gerald Gardner, told the Nevada Appeal last week that he had directed agencies to build those pay cuts and furloughs back into their budgets. Earlier budget instructions from the governor attempted to restore pay levels.

"I appreciate the hard work and dedication of state employees," Sandoval said Tuesday, pointing to state employees' response to Northern Nevada fires and efforts to reduce the costs of leases.

"It's a consideration to restore those" reductions, he said.

He instructed agencies to prepare "flat" budgets, but include the costs of increased caseloads and federal mandates. He said one area of increase has been health and human services, part of which he blamed on the Affordable Care Act.

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Sandoval says he never promised to restore state workers' pay