A mini-review of the evolutionary theories of aging.

Bourg, Éric Le

doi:10.4054/demres.2001.4.1

Cited by 50 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…The finding that the later health of women who have children after age 35 or 40 is better may also partly reflect selective influences: women with initially better health may age at slower rates, have higher fecundity at later ages, and be less deterred from late parenthood on health grounds; this latter effect is also relevant for men (Snowdon et al 1989;Yi and Vaupel 2004). As already discussed, socio-economic and culturalÁhistorical factors may further modify associations (Christensen et al 1998;Gavrilov and Gavrilova 1999;Le Bourg 2001;Doblhammer and Oeppen 2003;Hank 2010).…”

Section: Introduction: Fertility History and Health In Later Lifementioning

confidence: 79%

Fertility history, health, and health changes in later life: A panel study of British women and men born 1923–49

2011

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We investigated associations between later-life health and fertility history for women and men, using the British Household Panel Survey. We modelled health and its rate of change jointly with sample retention over an 11-year period. For women, childlessness is associated with limitation of activity for health reasons and faster acquisition of the limitation. High parity (four or more children) is associated with poorer health for both women and men. For the parous, this association is also found when age at first birth is controlled. Early parenthood is associated with poorer health. For parents of two or more children, a birth interval of less than 18 months is associated with having a health limitation and an accelerated rate of acquiring it. We conclude that biosocial pathways link parenthood careers and the later-life health of both women and men, and that implications of closely spaced births for parents merit further attention.

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Section: Introduction: Fertility History and Health In Later Lifementioning

confidence: 79%

Fertility history, health, and health changes in later life: A panel study of British women and men born 1923–49

2011

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“…Lycett et al (2000) studied a North German historical population in the same time frame and found, again, a "reverse cost" of reproduction, particularly strong among the lower socioeconomic classes. Le Bourg et al (1993) and also Muller et al (2002) studied FrenchCanadian populations in this same timeframe and found no evidence for a cost of reproduction (these studies and other demographic data are reviewed by Le Bourg 2001). McArdle et al (2006) studied an Amish population from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries and found a positive relationship between fertility and longevity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Female fertility and longevity

Mitteldorf

2009

AGE

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Does bearing children shorten a woman's life expectancy? Pleiotropic theories of aging predict that it should, and in particular, the Disposable Soma theory predicts unequivocally that this effect should be inescapable. But many demographic studies, historic and current, have found no such effect. In this context, the Caerphilly cohort study stands apart as the sole test that corroborates the theory. Why has this study found an effect that others fail to see? Their analysis is based on Poisson regression, a statistical technique that is accurate only if the underlying data are Poissondistributed. But the distribution of the number of children born to women in the Caerphilly database departs strongly from Poisson at the high end. This makes the result overly sensitive to a handful of women with 15 children or more who lived before 1700. When these five women are removed from a database of more than 2,900, the Poisson regression no longer shows a significant result. Bilinear regression relating life span to fertility and date of birth results in a small positive coefficient for fertility, in agreement with the main trend of reported results.

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“…An evolutionary perspective on aging and longevity (12) provides one way to stay focused on the bigger picture [see the most recent reviews in (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)]. From the standpoint of evolution, explanations of aging and the limited longevity of biological species are based on two major theories: the mutation accumulation theory (19) and the antagonistic pleiotropy theory (20) (see Williams Classic Paper at http://sageke.sciencemag.org/ cgi/content/abstract/sageke;2001/1/cp13 and "Aging Research Grows Up" at http://sageke.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ full/sageke;2001/1/oa1).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Note that these two theories of aging are not mutually exclusive, and both evolutionary mechanisms might operate simultaneously. The main difference is that in the mutation accumulation theory, genes with negative effects during old age accumulate passively from one generation to the next, whereas in the antagonistic pleiotropy theory, these alleles are actively kept in the gene pool by selection (15). The relative contribution of each evolutionary mechanism to species aging has not yet been determined and remains an important issue.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Quest for a General Theory of Aging and Longevity

Gavrilov

Gavrilova

2003

Sci. Aging Knowl. Environ.

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Extensive studies of phenomena related to aging have produced many diverse findings, which require a general theoretical framework to be organized into a comprehensive body of knowledge. As demonstrated by the success of evolutionary theories of aging, quite general theoretical considerations can be very useful when applied to research on aging. In this theoretical study, we attempt to gain insight into aging by applying a general theory of systems failure known as reliability theory. Considerations of this theory lead to the following conclusions: (i) Redundancy is a concept of crucial importance for understanding aging, particularly the systemic nature of aging. Systems that are redundant in numbers of irreplaceable elements deteriorate (that is, age) over time, even if they are built of elements that do not themselves age. (ii) An apparent aging rate or expression of aging is higher for systems that have higher levels of redundancy. (iii) Redundancy exhaustion over the life course explains a number of observations about mortality, including mortality convergence at later life (when death rates are becoming relatively similar at advanced ages for different populations of the same species) as well as late-life mortality deceleration, leveling off, and mortality plateaus. (iv) Living organisms apparently contain a high load of initial damage from the early stages of development, and therefore their life span and aging patterns may be sensitive to early-life conditions that determine this initial damage load. Thus, the reliability theory provides a parsimonious explanation for many important agingrelated phenomena and suggests a number of interesting testable predictions. We therefore suggest adding the reliability theory to the arsenal of methodological approaches applied to research on aging.

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A mini-review of the evolutionary theories of aging.

Cited by 50 publications

References 70 publications

Fertility history, health, and health changes in later life: A panel study of British women and men born 1923–49

Fertility history, health, and health changes in later life: A panel study of British women and men born 1923–49

Female fertility and longevity

The Quest for a General Theory of Aging and Longevity

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