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Life-Span Trends in Olympians and Supercentenarians Juliana Antero, Geoffroy Berthelot, Adrien Marck, Philippe Noirez, Aurélien Latouche, Jean-François Toussaint

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Life-Span Trends in Olympians and Supercentenarians Juliana Antero, Geoffroy Berthelot, Adrien Marck, Philippe Noirez, Aurélien Latouche, Jean-François Toussaint Learning From Leaders: Life-span Trends in Olympians and Supercentenarians Juliana Antero, Geoffroy Berthelot, Adrien Marck, Philippe Noirez, Aurélien Latouche, Jean-François Toussaint To cite this version: Juliana Antero, Geoffroy Berthelot, Adrien Marck, Philippe Noirez, Aurélien Latouche, et al.. Learn- ing From Leaders: Life-span Trends in Olympians and Supercentenarians. Journals of Gerontology, Series A, Oxford University Press (OUP): Policy B - Oxford Open Option D, 2015, 70 (8), pp.944-949. 10.1093/gerona/glu130. hal-01768388 HAL Id: hal-01768388 https://hal-insep.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01768388 Submitted on 17 Apr 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Journals of Gerontology: BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. Cite journal as: J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution doi:10.1093/gerona/glu130 Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact [email protected] Learning From Leaders: Life-span Trends in Olympians and Supercentenarians Juliana da Silva Antero-Jacquemin,1,2 Geoffroy Berthelot,1,2 Adrien Marck,1,2 Philippe Noirez,1,2 Aurélien Latouche,3 and Jean-François Toussaint1,2,4 Downloaded from 1Institut de Recherche bioMédicale et d’Epidemiologie du Sport, Institut National du Sport de l’Expertise et de la Performance, Paris, France. 2Université Paris Descartes, EA 7329, Sorbonne Paris Cité, France. 3Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Paris, France. 4Centre d’Investigations en Médecine du Sport, Hôtel-Dieu, AP-HP, Paris, France. http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/ Address correspondence to Juliana da Silva Antero-Jacquemin, MSc, Institut de Recherche bioMédicale et d’Epidémiologie du Sport, Institut National du Sport, de l’Expertise et de la Performance, 11 Avenue du Tremblay, 75012 Paris, France. Email: [email protected] Life-span trends progression has worldwide practical implications as it may affect the sustainability of modern societies. We aimed to describe the secular life-span trends of populations with a propensity to live longer—Olympians and super- centenarians—under two hypotheses: an ongoing life-span extension versus a biologic “probabilistic barrier” limiting further progression. In a study of life-span densities (total number of life durations per birth date), we analyzed 19,012 Olympians and 1,205 supercentenarians deceased between 1900 and 2013. Among most Olympians, we observed a trend toward increased life duration. This trend, however, decelerates at advanced ages leveling off with the upper values with a perennial gap between Olympians and supercentenarians during the whole observation period. Similar tendencies are observed among supercentenarians, and over the last years, a plateau attests to a stable longevity pattern among the longest-lived humans. The common trends between Olympians and supercentenarians indicate similar mortality pres- sures over both populations that increase with age, scenario better explained by a biologic “barrier” forecast. at Institut Nationale De L'Expertise Et La Perform on August 22, 2014 Key Words: Demography—Longevity—Life span—Limit. Received April 16, 2014; Accepted July 1, 2014 Decision Editor: Rafael de Cabo, PhD S the continuous rise in world’s life span still a plausi- maximum life-span trends may figure the general popula- Ible forecast? This topic is of great concern for public tion in the near future. health and policymakers and has worldwide implications The analysis of longer lived cohorts’ life-span trends may as it may affect the sustainability of modern societies guide the debate towards the prolongevist or biologist direc- and health care systems (1–3). Yet, the issue of longev- tion based on one of the different hypotheses: accepting the ity trends has divided researchers and remains a matter of scenario whereby the historic rise in life expectancy will controversy (4). The origin of this divergence is not only a continue, it is necessary to assume that people will more philosophical matter, but it is also supported by differing often live longer than 100, 110, and 120 years (2); precursor methods of investigation. Based on past life table trends, populations would then present signs of provable life exten- the prolongevist side claims that life expectancy will con- sion. Conversely, a deceleration among longer lived cohorts tinue to increase linearly (5,6). Best practices research could be seen as a sign of a close life-span limit (2). has proposed dramatic increases in longevity outcomes, The first population selected was made up of all world- affirming that most children born in developed countries wide Olympic athletes that had participated in the Olympic since 2000 will reach 100 years (7). Supported by biologic Games and were already deceased. Olympian medallists constraints and evolution based, the other side argues have demonstrated a 3-years’ survival advantage in com- that such a forecast is fundamentally unreachable (8,9) parison with their compatriots in 13 developed nations (11). because human life span is biologically determined and Other sources analyzing Olympians longevity, whether we are already approaching a “barrier” to life expectancy medallists or not, have demonstrated a similar advantage increase (1,10). Each side’s conclusions point to opposite (12,13). To the best of our knowledge, Olympians consti- directions. tute the sole worldwide well-defined population that has a We propose an intermediate approach to investigate proven survival advantage, including all ethnicities and dat- life-span trends with novel tools. The approach consists in ing back to the 19th century. analyzing life-span density trends of two highly selected The registered longest-lived member of any species populations with a propensity to live longer. Their current defines its maximum life span (10). Hence, the second Page 1 of 6 Page 2 of 6 ANTERO-JACQUEMIN ET AL. population selected was made up of elite survivors (14): all Life-span Density Function deceased supercentenarians (individuals >110-years-old) The life-span density of Olympians and supercentenar- worldwide (15). ians was estimated over a two-dimensional mesh. X and Y We analyzed both populations’ life span through density were the date of birth and life span, respectively, such that analysis. The density analysis (total number of life dura- the data of an individual are expressed as Xi and Yi with tions per birth date) reveals distinct life-span trends accord- i =1, … , N (see Supplementary Material). ing to the number of subjects with time. Hence, it allows for a highly informative description of life-span upper limits Analysis of the Dynamics of Life-span Trends in a Downloaded from and its relative relevance within the wide range of lifetime Specific Time Frame values. To assess the trends among the life-span upper values, Therefore, we aimed to describe life-span density trends the superior contour of each density layers was smoothed of worldwide deceased Olympians and supercentenarians. through a two-dimensional convolution kernel. The frame was defined within the intervals: X (Olympians) in [1865; 1906]; http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/ Y in [80; 123]; and X in [1865; 1897]; Methods (Olympians) (supercentenarians) Y(supercentenarians) in [110; 123]. The frame selected in X cor- Study Population—Olympians responded to the first year forming a density layer up to Day, month, and year of birth and death were collected the last year of a complete cohort. The selected frame in for 19,012 (n = 17,815 men and n = 1,197 women) who Y corresponded to a life span superior to 80 years up to its had participated in at least one summer or winter Olympic maximum values. Games competition since the first modern edition in 1896, The life-span trends dynamics, for each birth date in the up to 2012 and deceased up to 2013 (study’s date point). selected frame, was calculated by the sum of differences Data came from the most authoritative source of Olympians between adjacent densities in the Y (life span) direction biography (11). The Olympians’ complete cohort (the (see Supplementary Material). All analyses were performed cohort in which all subjects have entirely died out) ranges using Matlab 7.13 (MathWorks Inc.) software. from 1828 to 1906. The Olympians population is mostly at Institut Nationale De L'Expertise Et La Perform on August 22, 2014 composed of adults from high-income countries in Western Results Europe and North America (Table 1). Olympians and Supercentenarians Life-span Density The life-span density of worldwide Olympians and Study Population—Supercentenarians supercentenarians is presented in Figure 1. A verified and validated complete cohort of deceased The first Modern Games occurred in 1896. Thus, supercentenarians born after 1800 was collected from the Olympians born before 1870 participated in the early edi- Gerontology Research Group (15). Overall, 1,205 super- tions at a more advanced age (42.5 ± 8.1-years-old) relative centenarians (n = 125 men and n = 1,080 women) born up to the mean age at first participation (26.5 ± 6.6-years-old) until 1897—the last year without any registered proof of of the full cohort. a supercentenarian alive—were included. The majority of Olympians’ deaths were observed in every age group, rang- supercentenarians also come from high-income countries ing from 15 years and 120 days up to 105 years and 305 days.
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