Centenarian Studies: Important Contributors to Our Understanding of the Aging Process and Longevity
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Current Gerontology and Geriatrics Research Centenarian Studies: Important Contributors to Our Understanding of the Aging Process and Longevity Guest Editors: Donald Craig Willcox, Bradley J. Willcox, and Leonard W. Poon Centenarian Studies: Important Contributors to Our Understanding of the Aging Process and Longevity Current Gerontology and Geriatrics Research Centenarian Studies: Important Contributors to Our Understanding of the Aging Process and Longevity Guest Editors: Donald Craig Willcox, Bradley J. Willcox, and Leonard W. Poon Copyright © 2010 Hindawi Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. This is a special issue published in volume 2010 of “Current Gerontology and Geriatrics Research.” All articles are open access articles distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Current Gerontology and Geriatrics Research Editorial Board Gunnar Akner, Sweden Nancy H. Fultz, USA Erdman B. Palmore, USA Gjumrakch Aliev, USA Giovanni Gambassi, Italy Kushang Patel, USA Vladimir Anisimov, Russia Salah Gariballa, UAE Margaret J. Penning, Canada Joel Ankri, France Sataro Goto, Japan Lawrence C. Perlmuter, USA Yasumichi Arai, Japan Ann L. Gruber-Baldini, USA M. Petrovic, Belgium Richard Aspinall, UK Georges Herbein, France Kalluri Subba Rao, India Liat Ayalon, Israel F. Herrmann, Switzerland S. I. Rattan, Denmark Moises´ E. Bauer, Brazil Keith D. Hill, Australia Irene Rea, UK Arie Ben Yehuda, Israel Katsuiku Hirokawa, Japan B. Rogina, USA Y. N. Berner, Israel Christopher Jolly, USA Mike R. Schoenberg, USA Bart Braeckman, Belgium Ryuichi Kawamoto, Japan Shay Shabat, Israel Gennadii Butenko, Ukraine T. Kostka, Poland Jagdish C. Sharma, UK Julie Byles, Australia Yong-Fang Kuo, USA Csaba Soti,¨ Hungary Giampiero Campanelli, Italy M. Kuzuya, Japan Liana Spazzafumo, Italy Gideon Caplan, Australia Timothy Kwok, Hong Kong Gabriela Stoppe, Switzerland Rudolph J. Castellani, USA Fulvio Lauretani, Italy Thomas M. Stulnig, Austria Nicholas G. Castle, USA Helen Lavretsky, USA D. Taaffe, Australia Daniel Chan, Australia Eric Le Bourg, France Dennis Daniel Taub, USA Neale Chumbler, USA Junda Liu, China Machiko R. Tomita, USA L. Stephen Coles, USA Dominique Lorrain, Canada Hiroyuki Umegaki, Japan M. Elaine Cress, USA Gerald Munch,¨ Australia Andrea Ungar, Italy Richard Crilly, Canada M. Malaguarnera, Italy A. Viidik, Denmark Aubrey D.N.J. de Grey, USA Marco Malavolta, Italy Virginia Wadley, USA Howard B. Degenholtz, USA Jean Pierre Michel, Switzerland Jeremy D. Walston, USA Satoru Ebihara, Japan Zoltan Mikes, Slovakia G. Darryl Wieland, USA R. B. Effros, USA Arnold B. Mitnitski, Canada Jacek Witkowski, Poland Carlos Fernandez-Viadero, Spain Eugenio Mocchegiani, Italy Abebaw Yohannes, UK Francesc Formiga, Spain Charles P. Mouton, USA Giuseppe Zuccala, Italy Bertrand Friguet, France Alexey M. Olovnikov, Russia Gilbert B. Zulian, Switzerland Contents Centenarian Studies: Important Contributors to Our Understanding of the Aging Process and Longevity, Donald Craig Willcox, Bradley J. Willcox, and Leonard W. Poon Volume 2010, Article ID 484529, 6 pages Typologies of Extreme Longevity Myths, Robert D. Young, Bertrand Desjardins, Kirsten McLaughlin, Michel Poulain, and Thomas T. Perls Volume 2010, Article ID 423087, 12 pages Centenarians Today: New Insights on Selection from the 5-COOP Study, Jean-Marie Robine, Siu Lan Karen Cheung, Yasuhiko Saito, Bernard Jeune, Marti G. Parker, and Franc¸ois R. Herrmann Volume 2010, Article ID 120354, 9 pages Predicting Successful Aging in a Population-Based Sample of Georgia Centenarians, Jonathan Arnold, Jianliang Dai, Lusine Nahapetyan, Ankit Arte, Mary Ann Johnson, Dorothy Hausman, Willard L. Rodgers, Robert Hensley, Peter Martin, Maurice MacDonald, Adam Davey, Ilene C. Siegler, S. Michal Jazwinski, and Leonard W. Poon Volume 2010, Article ID 989315, 9 pages Dynamic Determinants of Longevity and Exceptional Health, Anatoli I. Yashin, Konstantin G. Arbeev, Igor Akushevich, Liubov Arbeeva, Julia Kravchenko, Dora Il’yasova, Alexander Kulminski, Lucy Akushevich, Irina Culminskaya, Deqing Wu, and Svetlana V. Ukraintseva Volume 2010, Article ID 381637, 13 pages Physical Aspects of Healthy Aging: Assessments of Three Measures of Balance for Studies in Middle-Aged and Older Adults, Clementina D. Ceria-Ulep, John Grove, Randi Chen, Kamal H. Masaki, Beatriz L. Rodriguez, Tim A. Donlon, Jack Guralnik, Bradley J. Willcox, D. Craig Willcox, Claudio Nigg, and J. David Curb Volume 2010, Article ID 849761, 8 pages Assessing Physical Performance in Centenarians: Norms and an Extended Scale from the Georgia Centenarian Study, M. Elaine Cress, Yasuyuki Gondo, Adam Davey, Shayne Anderson, Seock-Ho Kim, and Leonard W. Poon Volume 2010, Article ID 310610, 6 pages Brain Aging in the Oldest-Old, A. von Gunten, K. Ebbing, A. Imhof, P. Giannakopoulos, and E. Kovari¨ Volume 2010, Article ID 358531, 10 pages Oxidative Stress and Longevity in Okinawa: An Investigation of Blood Lipid Peroxidation and Tocopherol in Okinawan Centenarians, Makoto Suzuki, D. Craig Willcox, Matthew W. Rosenbaum, and Bradley J. Willcox Volume 2010, Article ID 380460, 10 pages Discovery of Novel Sources of Vitamin B12 in Traditional Korean Foods from Nutritional Surveys of Centenarians, Chung Shil Kwak, Mee Sook Lee, Se In Oh, and Sang Chul Park Volume 2010, Article ID 374897, 11 pages Resilience Significantly Contributes to Exceptional Longevity, Yi Zeng and Ke Shen Volume 2010, Article ID 525693, 9 pages Understanding Centenarians’ Psychosocial Dynamics and Their Contributions to Health and Quality of Life, Leonard W. Poon, Peter Martin, Alex Bishop, Jinmyoung Cho, Grace da Rosa, Neha Deshpande, Robert Hensley, Maurice MacDonald, Jennifer Margrett, G. Kevin Randall, John L. Woodard, and L. Stephen Miller Volume 2010, Article ID 680657, 13 pages Hindawi Publishing Corporation Current Gerontology and Geriatrics Research Volume 2010, Article ID 484529, 6 pages doi:10.1155/2010/484529 Editorial Centenarian Studies: Important Contributors to Our Understanding of the Aging Process and Longevity Donald Craig Willcox,1, 2, 3 Bradley J. Willcox,2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and Leonard W. Poon7 1 Okinawa International University, Okinawa 901-2701, Japan 2 Okinawa Research Center for Longevity Science, Okinawa 901-2114, Japan 3 Pacific Health Research and Education Institute, Honolulu, HI 96813, USA 4 Department of Research, Kuakini Medical Center, Honolulu, HI 96817, USA 5 Department of Research, Planning and Development, The Queen’s Medical Center, Honolulu, HI 96813, USA 6 Department of Geriatric Medicine, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii, HI 96817, USA 7 The Institute of Gerontology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA Correspondence should be addressed to Donald Craig Willcox, [email protected] Received 31 December 2010; Accepted 31 December 2010 Copyright © 2010 Donald Craig Willcox et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In the course of the next 10 years, say the watchers of before the end of this century. Generation C will indeed be consumer trends, a new generation—Generation C—will in full bloom. emerge. Born after 1990, they are referred to as “digital This unprecedented phenomenon is largely the result natives,” now beginning to attend university and enter the of significant public health advancements that markedly workforce, they are expected to transform the world as we reduced early life mortality, principally due to interventions know it [1]. The “C” stands for “connected,” “communicat- that reduced infectious diseases in the first decades of the ing,” “content-centric,” “creative,” and “change”; however, it 20th century [4]. Lasting effects of such interventions from may just as well stand for “centenarian” as for the first time less lifetime inflammation, and other ancillary benefits, may in history many of this birth cohort will live 100 years or have contributed [8]. More recently we have seen marked more. The fact is that people are living longer and generally reductions in morbidity and mortality at older ages [9]. healthier lives than ever before. Mortality, and by some Less well understood, these late life health improvements measures incident morbidity and disability, is being delayed coincide with the aging of younger cohorts who practiced considerably in today’s elderly [2]. As a result, centenarians, healthier behaviors and had access to better medical care once considered rare, are now becoming commonplace. [10]. The culmination of these advances has resulted in the Indeed, they are the fastest growing demographic group most rapid health improvement in the history of humanity. of the world’s population, their numbers having roughly Centenarians, once rare, are now living testaments to these doubled every decade since 1950, and they are globally remarkable health advancements [11]. projected to more than quintuple between 2005 and 2030 [3]. Despite the mounting weight of scientific evidence for According to some estimates [3], the odds of living to the impending appearance of a new generation of oldest old one hundred have risen from approximately 1 in 20 million and, moreover, one that might rival Generation X, Y or the to1in50forwomeninsomelow-mortalitynations.If baby boomers in social significance, the global implications