Introduction Our society is experiencing unprecedented demographic changes where improvements in health care and living conditions together with decreased fertility rates have contributed to the aging of the population and a severe demographic redistribution. Over the last 50 years, the…
Introduction From the biologic perspective, aging is a rather complex term to define. Aging is not a disease but, because aging is the main risk factor for so many chronic diseases and conditions, it is difficult to separate the two…
Introduction The difficulty of undertaking research involving older people tends to be exaggerated. It is wrongly assumed that too many will have significant comorbidity leading to a poor signal-to-noise ratio, an unacceptably high risk of adverse events, inability to complete…
The question “Why does aging occur?” calls for answers at the level of proximate physiologic mechanisms and at the level of ultimate evolutionary origins. This chapter provides an understanding of why aging has evolved and examines what evolution theory can…
Demography of Centenarians According to the U.S. Social Security Administration, in 2010, approximately 51,000 people aged 100 years and older collected Social Security benefits. The U.S. census reported a similar number of 53,364 and an overall prevalence of 1.73 centenarians/10,000…
Biogerontology, the field of biologic aging research, is the final biomedical research frontier. The sequencing of the human genome and advancements in molecular technology have provided enormous potential for regenerative medicine. The list of readily replaceable body parts (e.g., eye…
Introduction According to Wikipedia, epidemiology is defined as “the science that studies the patterns, causes, and effects of health and disease conditions in defined populations.” Epidemiology was first concerned with epidemics of infectious diseases when these were the main cause…
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