Faster increases in human life expectancy could lead to slower population aging.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 25876033.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0121922 and PMC identifier 4398478.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Counterintuitively, faster increases in human life expectancy could lead to slower population aging. The conventional view that faster increases in human life expectancy would lead to faster population aging is based on the assumption that people become old at a fixed chronological age. A preferable alternative is to base measures of aging on people's time left to death, because this is more closely related to the characteristics that are associated with old age. Using this alternative interpretation, we show that faster increases in life expectancy would lead to slower population aging. Among other things, this finding affects the assessment of the speed at which countries will age.
Medical subject headings
- Aging
- Life Expectancy
- Longevity