This text summarizes the most significant facts and ideas on the phenomenon of finite life span, using an interdisciplinary approach based on quantitative analysis of survival regularities in human populations and in animal models. The survival analysis is shown to be of major significance in tackling a wide range of problems such as: whether life span is programmed or not; whether there is an absolute superior limit for the durtion of life; what is the relative role of social and biological factors for human life span?; why do women live longer than men?; what are the prospects and ways of life span prolongation? This text should be of interest to researchers, graduates and teachers in the fields of biology, gerontology and demography.
Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Für höhere Schule und Studium
Für Beruf und Forschung
Maße
Höhe: 254 mm
Breite: 191 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-3-7186-4983-9 (9783718649839)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
Part 1 Introduction: why is it necessary to study life span?; short history of the subject; the present state of the discipline. Part 2 Individual differences in lifetime: where should the study of life span begin?; individual differences - the key issue in the biology of life span; the nature of variability in lifetimes; in search of the life span distribution law; the Gompertz-Makeham law; unresolved issues and problems. Part 3 The human life span: specific questions connected with research into the human life span: specific questions connected with research into the human life span; regularities of human mortality; the biological characteristics of the human life span; the epidemiological approach to studying the biology of the human life span; prospects for human life span extension. Part 4 Species-specific life span: review of ideas about species-specific life span; is there a species-specific life span limit?; the concept of species-specific life span invariants; the Strehler-Mildvan correlation; the compensation effect of mortality. Part 5 The search for the mechanisms which determine life span: a self-destruction program or wear and tear? analysis of inter-species differences in the duration of life; analysis of intra-species differences in the duration of life; analysis of sex differences in lifetimes; experiments in life extension; the limit of cell division - the key to the mechanism which determines life span?; reliability theory - the methodological foundation for research into the mechanisms which determine life span. Part 6 Mathematical models of life span: introduction; the need for a critical attitude to mathematical models of life span; limiting distributions of the life spans of biological systems; the model of the avalanche-like destruction of an organism in natural aging; the model of a multiply redundant system saturated with defects; the model of a redundant system with an arbitrary number of defects; the heterogeneous populaton model; the model of accumulation of defects with constant intensity of the flow of damage; the problem of the diversity of causes of death and their interaction; concluding remarks. Appendices: list of published animal life tables; features which show a positive correlation with the life span of organisms; features which show a negative correlation with the life span of organisms; features which show a weak correlation with the life span of organisms.
