How genes influence life span: the biodemography of human survival.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: In genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of human life span, none of the genetic variants has reached the level of genome-wide statistical significance. The roles of such variants in life span regulation remain unclear. DATA AND METHOD: A biodemographic analyses was done of genetic regulation of life span using data on low-significance longevity alleles selected in the earlier GWAS of the original Framingham cohort. RESULTS: Age-specific survival curves considered as functions of the number of longevity alleles exhibit regularities known in demography as "rectangularization" of survival curves. The presence of such pattern confirms observations from experimental studies that regulation of life span involves genes responsible for stress resistance. CONCLUSION: Biodemographic analyses could provide important information about the properties of genes affecting phenotypic traits.

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Citation

Published Version (Please cite this version)

10.1089/rej.2011.1290

Publication Info

Yashin, Anatoliy I, Deqing Wu, Konstantin G Arbeev, Eric Stallard, Kenneth C Land and Svetlana V Ukraintseva (2012). How genes influence life span: the biodemography of human survival. Rejuvenation Res, 15(4). pp. 374–380. 10.1089/rej.2011.1290 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/14874.

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Scholars@Duke

Wu

Dequing Wu

Research Scientist, Senior
Land

Kenneth C. Land

John Franklin Crowell Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology

I received my Ph.D. in sociology and mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1969. After a year of postdoctoral study in mathematical statistics at Columbia University in New York City, I taught there and was a member of the staff of the Russell Sage Foundation for three years. I then was successively a member of the faculties of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and the University of Texas at Austin before joining the Duke Sociology Department as Chairman in 1986. I served as Chair of Sociology from January 1986 to August 1997. My main research interests are contemporary social trends and quality-of-life measurement, social problems, demography, criminology, organizations, and mathematical and statistical models and methods for the study of social and demographic processes. I have done extensive research in each of these areas and have been elected a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (1978), the Sociological Research Association (1981), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1992), the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (1997), and the American Society of Criminology (2004). I teach Contemporary Social Problems (SOCIOL 111), Advanced Methods of Demographic Analysis, and the Demography of Aging Proseminar (SOCIOL 750S). My other interests include tennis, jogging (10 kilometers), and music.

Ukraintseva

Svetlana Ukraintseva

Research Professor in the Social Science Research Institute

Dr. Ukraintseva studies causes of human aging and related decline in resilience, to identify genetic and other factors responsible for the increase in mortality risk with age eventually limiting longevity. She explores complex relationships, including trade-offs, between physiological aging-changes and risks of major diseases (with emphasis on Alzheimer’s and cancer), as well as survival, to find new genetic and other targets for anti-aging interventions and disease prevention. She also investigates possibilities of repurposing of existing vaccines and treatments for AD prevention and interventions into the aging. For this, Dr. Ukraintseva and her team use data from several large human studies containing rich genetic and phenotypic information (including longitudinal measurements) on thousands of individuals. Dr. Ukraintseva is a PI and Key Investigator on several NIH funded grants, and has more than 130 peer-reviewed publications, including in major journals such as Nature Reviews, Stroke, European Journal of Human Genetics, and some other.


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