Main description:

Understanding the relationship between frailty and longevity becomes increasingly important as the world continues to age and life expectancy in most countries continues to increase. The articles contained in this book are the outcome of a colloquium sponsored by Fondation IPSEN in which interdisciplinary perspectives were brought to bear on conceptual, empirical and clinical aspects of this relationship.

Back cover:

Understanding the relationship between frailty and longevity becomes increasingly important as the world continues to age and life expectancy in most countries continues to increase. The articles contained in this book are the outcome of a colloquium sponsored by Fondation IPSEN in which interdisciplinary perspectives were brought to bear on conceptual, empirical and clinical aspects of this relationship. The result is a unique, innovative and timely blend of papers on topics ranging from frailty concepts in animal models and early Homo sapiens, to documentation of progress in morbidity compression, on the relationships between frailty and impairments and inflammation, and perspectives on long-term health care needs in an aging world.

Contents:

The medfly as a frailty model: implications for biodemographic research.- Social control of aging and frailty in bees.- A review of genes that act downstream of the DAF-16 FOXO transcription factor to influence the lifespan of C. elegans.- Calorie restriction in nonhuman primates: impact on aging, disease, and frailty.- Evolutionary perspectives on human longevity and frailty.- Flies without wings.- Biological markers and the molecular biology of frailty.- Inflammation: the fire of frailty?.- Early life conditions affect historical change in old-age mortality.- Aging, frailty, and the compression of morbidity: definite progress.- Cognition and frailty: possible interrelations.- Consequences of the 2003 summer heat wave on mortality levels in France.- The oldest-old: emergence of a new population.- Subject index.