Exceptional Longevity in Okinawa:

The Nicoya region of Costa Rica: a high longevity island for elderly males

“…Demographers are also aware that age exaggeration among the oldest old in censuses leads to substantial age inflation in very old-age populations, and consequently, to underestimated mortality rates at old ages when computed using census-based denominators especially in populations with low levels of literacy (Coale and Kisker 1986; Preston et al 1999). In part motivated by these prior instances of biased data, recent studies have been especially careful about using only reliable and well-documented information on the age of elderly people, such as those conducted in Okinawa (Willcox et al 2008; Poulain 2011) and Sardinia (Caselli and Lipsi 2006). The current study described here similarly uses only well-documented information on birth dates from the civil registration system that has existed in Costa Rica since 1883, instead of self-reported ages.…”

Determinants of exceptional human longevity: new ideas and findings

“…However, they require serious work on age validation (Jeune and Vaupel 1999; Poulain 2010; Poulain 2011) and careful design including the choice of an appropriate control group. Living to age 100 is a rare event, and it is very difficult to obtain a representative population sample of centenarians for a large country as the United States.…”

Examining mortality differential between a long-living community in Sardinia and the Italian population: a longitudinal analysis

“…Often the analysis looks with interest at the role of specific causes of deaths (Nam et al, 1978;Nam, 1995;Hummer 1996;Corti et al, 1999;Johnson, 2000;Hill et al, 2000;Lynch et al, 2003;Thornton, 2004;Stansbury et al, 2005) and at socioeconomic status (Hoffmann, 2005;Yao & Robert 2011;Sautter et al, 2012). Crossover proves also to be caused by selection effects of exceptional events such as famine (Song, 2010) and it was detected when comparing particular longliving regions -as for example in Okinawa -with the national framework (Poulain & Naito, 2004;Poulain, 2011).…”

“…These include Okinawa in Japan (Willcox et al, 2001;Robine et al, 2003;Poulain & Naito, 2004;Cheung & Robine, 2007;Poulain, 2011), the peninsula of Nicoya in Costa Rica (Rosero-Bixby, 2008;Davinelli et al, 2012;Rehkopf et al, 2013), and the region of Sardinia in Italy (Deiana et al, 1999;Passarino et al, 2001;Poulain et al, , 2011Gatti & Salaris, 2004;Caselli & Lipsi, 2006;Salaris, 2010Salaris, , 2014Orrù, 2011;Pes et al, 2013;Salaris et al, 2013).…”

“…Sardinia has been the subject of several studies on longevity, as it is generally considered a suitable setting: i) for genetic studies, due to its geographical and genetic isolation (Cavalli Sforza et al, 1997;Lampis et al, 2000;Fraumene et al, 2003;Pilia et al, 2006;Strait et al, 2009); ii) for studies of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), given the low mortality rates recorded in the island (Caselli & Lipsi, 2006;Muntoni et al, 2009;Scuteri et al, 2009); iii) for researches on centenarians, found to be geographically limited to the inland area of the region Gatti & Salaris, 2004;Orrù, 2011); iv) for studies of oldest ages in male survival in general (Passarino et al, 2001;Poulain et al, 2011).…”