Our best papers on aging, mortality and longevity

Dear friends,

We are pleased to share with you our best (most cited) papers on aging, mortality and longevity studies. You can easily get the full text of each publication just by clicking on the titles below. Comments and suggestions are most welcome!

1.
Gavrilov L.A., Gavrilova N.S. The reliability theory of aging and longevity. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2001, 213(4): 527-545.
Cited 211 times, Journal Impact Factor: 2.574

2.
Gavrilov, L.A., Gavrilova, N.S. Evolutionary theories of aging and longevity. TheScientificWorldJOURNAL, 2002, 2: 339-356.
Cited 74 times, Journal Impact Factor: 1.658

3.
Gavrilova, N.S., Semyonova, V.G., Evdokushkina G.N., Gavrilov, L.A. The response of violent mortality to economic crisis in Russia. Population Research and Policy Review, 2000, 19: 397-419.
Cited 68 times, Journal Impact Factor: 0.718

4.
Gavrilova, N.S., Gavrilov, L.A., Evdokushkina G.N., Semyonova, V.G., Gavrilova, A.L., Evdokushkina, N.N., Kushnareva, Yu.E., Kroutko, V.N., Andreyev, A.Yu. Evolution, mutations and human longevity. Human Biology, 1998, 70(4): 799-804.
Cited 51 times, Journal Impact Factor: 0.531

5.
Gavrilov, L.A., Gavrilova, N.S. Season of birth and human longevity. Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine (now Rejuvenation Research), 1999, 2(4): 365-366.
Cited 50 times, Journal Impact Factor: 4.138

6.
Gavrilov, L.A., Gavrilova, N.S. Parental age at conception and offspring longevity. Reviews in Clinical Gerontology, 1997, 7: 5-12.
Cited 42 times

7.
Gavrilov L.A., Gavrilova, N.S., Kroutko, V.N., Evdokushkina, G.N., Semyonova, V.G., Gavrilova, A.L., Lapshin, E.V., Evdokushkina N.N., Kushnareva, Yu.E. Mutation load and human longevity. Mutation Research, 1997, 377(1): 61-62.
Cited 39 times, Journal Impact Factor: 3.556

8.
Gavrilov, L.A., Gavrilova, N.S. Biodemographic study of familial determinants of human longevity. Population, 2001, 13(1): 197-222.
Cited 29 times, Journal Impact Factor: 0.542

9.
De Grey, Aubrey D. N., Leonid Gavrilov, S. Jay Olshansky, L. Stephen Coles, Richard G. Cutler, Michael Fossel, and S. Mitchell Harman. Antiaging technology and pseudoscience. Letter. Science, 2002, 296: 656-656.
Cited 28 times, Journal Impact Factor: 29.747

10.
Carnes, B.A., Olshansky, S.J., Gavrilov, L.A., Gavrilova, N.S., Grahn, D. Human longevity: Nature vs. Nurture - fact or fiction. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 1999, 42(3): 422-441.
Cited 25 times, Journal Impact Factor: 1.084

11.
Gavrilov, L.A., Gavrilova, N.S. Is there a reproductive cost for human longevity? Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine (now Rejuvenation Research), 1999, 2(2): 121-123.
Cited 24 times, Journal Impact Factor: 4.138

12.
Gavrilov, L.A., Gavrilova, N.S. When Fatherhood Should Stop? Letter. Science, 1997, 277(5322): 17-18.
Cited 21 times, Journal Impact Factor: 29.747

Total number of citations for 10 top articles: 616

Book:
The biology of life span: a quantitative approach
LA Gavrilov, NS Gavrilova - 1991 - Harwood Academic Publishers
Cited 323 times

Book in Russian:
Биология продолжительности жизни
ЛА Гаврилов, НС Гаврилова - 1991
Cited 40 times

Source:
http://scholar.google.com/


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News: Evolution in Health and Disease, Aging and Longevity

See also:
-- 'Books Forum' blog
-- 'Health Studies' blog


Dear All:

I am pleased to announce that today the New England Journal of Medicine has published our invited review of this new book:

Evolution in Health and Disease
by Stephen C Stearns and Jacob C Koella
Oxford University Press, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/56n8q9


Here is the reference to our new published book review:

Gavrilov L.A., Gavrilova N.S.
Evolution in Health and Disease [Book Review].
The New England Journal of Medicine, 2008, 359(17): 1856-1857.

Also here is our initial original text of the book review, which is somewhat more detailed and informative when compared to the abridged final edited text published by the journal:

This book introduces evolutionary approach to medicine, and it provides almost encyclopedic coverage of all medical topics where the evolutionary principles are applied. The book consists of 23 chapters written by a large international team of 47 leading researchers from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, and New Zealand. This latest second edition of the book has an extensive updated bibliography of over 1,500 references, and it is organized in 5 major parts:

(1) Introducing evolutionary thinking for medicine;
(2) The history and variation of human genes;
(3) Natural selection and evolutionary conflicts;
(4) Pathogens: resistance, virulence, variation, and emergence;
(5) Noninfectious and degenerative diseases (including aging).

The book is provided with a detailed Subject Index (10 pages), which really helps to navigate in a great diversity of covered topics.

The main content of this book is well summarized in its first, introductory chapter, which overviews evolutionary approach to complex medical issues in a reader-friendly way. The authors seem to be acutely aware of the current healthy skepticism among medical experts regarding practical usefulness of evolutionary theory. Therefore, they start to address these concerns from the very beginning of the book:

"Should doctors and medical researchers think about evolution? Does it bring useful insights? Would doctors and researchers who learned a substantial amount about evolution be more effective than a control group that learned only the usual rudiments? Would providing such education improve health enough to justify the costs?"

They acknowledge that evolutionary theory is not helpful to surgeons, but it may be useful to internists, pediatricians, epidemiologists and geneticists, when "prescribing antibiotics, managing virulent diseases, administrating vaccinations, advising couples who have difficulty conceiving and carrying offspring to term, treating diabetes and high blood pressure of pregnancy, treating cancer, understanding the origins of the current epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases, and answering patients' questions about aging."

This statement is further justified in the introductory chapter with several particular examples and evolutionary insights, which then concludes with 12 'commandments' on "What doctors need to know about evolution and why."

The first introductory chapter is so well written that it may be a sufficient reading for busy practicing doctors. The authors themselves "acknowledge that much medical practice proceeds just fine with little need for a theoretical foundation. Medicine is a profession that offers practical help. .... Evolution is not an alternative to existing medical training and research. It is a useful basic science that poses new medical questions, contributing to research while also improving practice." (page 3).

Therefore this book is of a particular interest to researchers involved in biomedical studies and developing new treatments.

The major evolutionary insight of this book is that many diseases in developed countries (obesity, diabetes, breast cancer, autoimmune and heart diseases, etc.) are promoted by mismatch of human bodies to modern environment, because the environment is changing far more rapidly than humans can evolve. This insight may have some useful practical implications, like convincing patients that physical inactivity, which is so common in developed countries, is a very serious health issue and has to be vigorously avoided, to the same extend as smoking.

The same reasoning justifies the urgent need for a radical revision of the modern diet to a healthier standard, which matches better the ancestral needs of human body, by providing foods with much lower glycemic index (load) and much higher proportion of omega-3 unsaturated fatty acids. These important topics are very well covered in the chapter 20 "Lifestyle, diet, and disease: comparative perspectives on the determinants of chronic health risks" by William R. Leonard from the Northwestern University Department of Anthropology.

Another notable chapter of the book is chapter 9 "Perspectives on human health and disease from evolutionary and behavioral ecology" by Beverly I. Strassmann (Institute for Social Research & Department of Anthropology, Ann Arbor, USA), and Ruth Mace (University College London Department of Anthropology, UK). It presents a thoughtful review of trade-offs between longevity and fertility, and refutes the highly publicized claims that human longevity comes with the cost of impaired fertility among long lived persons.

One minor weakness of this book may be related to some neglect of alternative, non-evolutionary explanations. For example, human aging is discussed mostly in narrow evolutionary terms, while ignoring a more general theory of systems failure (systems reliability theory), which is included now in the Handbook of the Biology of Aging (Academic Press, 2006), and other biomedical publications on aging.

This book will be useful to biomedical students, researchers and doctors, because it stimulates fresh thinking and new approaches to traditional medical problems.

Leonid Gavrilov, Ph.D.
Natalia Gavrilova, Ph.D.
Center on Aging, University of Chicago
Chicago, IL 60637
gavrilov@longevity-science.org

Key words:
New books, New England Journal of Medicine, Evolution in Health and Disease, Evolution, Health, Disease, Leonid Gavrilov, Natalia Gavrilova, Stephen Stearns, Jacob Koella, Oxford University Press, evolutionary medicine, evolutionary genetics, human behavioral ecology, evolutionary microbiology, evolution of aging and degenerative disease, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, asthma, allergies, autoimmune diseases, aging, evolutionary (Darwinian) medicine, evolutionary biology, anthropology, developmental biology, genetics

To read comments on this new book review, and to post your own thoughts, click here


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Evolution in Health and Disease (New Book)

See also:
-- 'Books Forum' blog
-- 'Health Studies' blog


Greetings,

Here is a new book for discussion:

Evolution in Health and Disease
by Stephen C Stearns and Jacob C Koella
Oxford University Press, 2008

Book Description provided by the Publisher (Oxford University Press):

In this fully revised and updated edition, the editors have integrated a completely new set of contributions from the leading researchers in the field to describe the latest research in evolutionary medicine, providing a fresh summary of this rapidly expanding field 10 years after its predecessor was first compiled. It continues to adopt a broad approach to the subject, drawing on medically relevant research from evolutionary genetics, human behavioural ecology, evolutionary microbiology (especially experimental evolution of virulence and resistance), the evolution of aging and degenerative disease, and other aspects of biology or medicine where evolutionary approaches make important contributions.

Evolution in Health and Disease describes how evolutionary thinking gives valuable insights and fresh perspectives into human health and disease, establishing evolutionary biology as an essential complementary science for medicine. Integrating evolutionary thought into medical research and practice helps to explain the origins of many medical conditions, including diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, asthma, allergies, other autoimmune diseases, and aging. It also provides life-saving insights into the evolutionary responses of pathogens to antibiotics, vaccinations, and other human interventions.

Why do we grow old? How can we stay healthy as we age? The book discusses these and many other fascinating questions, as well as suggesting exciting possibilities for future treatment and research. This research level text is suitable for graduate level students and researchers in the fields of evolutionary (Darwinian) medicine, evolutionary biology, anthropology, developmental biology and genetics. It will also be of relevance and use to medical researchers and doctors.

The last, 23rd Chapter of this book may be particularly interesting:

"The evolutionary context of human aging and degenerative disease"
by Steven N. Austad and Caleb E. Finch (pp.301 -311)

It has a section entitled:
"Aging as a by-product of selection for reproductive performance" (pp.302-304)


Key words:
New books, Evolution in Health and Disease, Evolution, Health, Disease, Stephen Stearns, Jacob Koella, Oxford University Press, evolutionary medicine, evolutionary genetics, human behavioural ecology, evolutionary microbiology, evolution of aging and degenerative disease, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, asthma, allergies, autoimmune diseases, aging, evolutionary (Darwinian) medicine, evolutionary biology, anthropology, developmental biology, genetics

Do you have any comments on this new book?
Post them below by clicking here !

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Evolution in Health and Disease (New Book)
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Evolution of Aging

Discussion of a new book The Evolution of Aging by Theodore C. Goldsmith


Greetings,

Here is a new book for discussion:

The Evolution of Aging
How New Theories Will Change the Future of Medicine
by Theodore C. Goldsmith


Book Description
Why do we age? Scientists have been baffled by this question for centuries and disagree regarding even the general nature of aging. Is aging the result of fundamental limitations that apply to all living things, or are organisms designed by nature to age because a limited life span conveys some advantage? All of the theories either fail to fully explain observed animal characteristics or conflict with generally accepted evolution theory.
This issue has potentially enormous implications for medicine. If aging is the result of fundamental and unalterable forces of nature, then anti-aging medicine is impossible and anti-aging research is futile and foolish. If aging is imposed by an evolved life span regulation system, then research will likely reveal means for altering the operation of the aging mechanism and thereby improve the treatment of many age-related diseases and conditions.
This book provides a historical review of biological aging theories including underlying evolution and genetics issues and describes exciting recent discoveries and new theories that are causing renewed interest in aging-by-design. The author discusses Darwin's theory of evolution as well as more recent proposed modifications such as the selfish gene theory, evolvability theory, and group selection in connection with their effects on aging theory. A chapter is devoted to describing the aspects of modern genetics that have implications for evolution theory including the application of digital information theory to genetics.

Comment
This book looks like a popular book (with 29 references only) promoting a controversial idea that aging is genetically programmed. The search for author's scientific publications in peer-reviewed mainstream scientific journals through Pubmed/Medline returns only one article published by this author in Medical Hypotheses, 2004;62(2):304-8: "Aging as an evolved characteristic - Weismann's theory reconsidered." It looks like the author is not an evolutionary biologist, but rather an expert in computer programming, digital systems engineering and microcircuit design for NASA projects (as described at the back cover of the book).
Overall, the book contains some new interesting ideas, but it is definitely not a recommended mainstream textbook for students.
On the other hand, after reading this book, I believe it could be recommended as an additional reading, stimulating creative thinking.



Excerpts:

Page 48 (Disposable Soma Theory):
In fact, some traditional biologists such as Leonid Gavrilov, of the Center on Aging at the University of Chicago, consider the disposable soma theory to be a "version of" the antagonistic pleiotropy theory and a "widowed concept" [Note: what is missing here is the reference to original publication, which explains why the Disposable Soma Theory is a version of the antagonistic pleiotropy theory, and how it has become a "widowed concept"]

Page 153 (Anti-Aging Research):
It is therefore apparent that solutions to the question "what causes aging" may be as unlikely to come from evolutionary biology alone in the next 140 years, as they have been in the previous 140 years. Even some traditional biologists such as L. Gavrilov (26) caution against basing research decisions on theories to an excessive extent:
"Now, when the single-gene life-extending mutations have been found, evolutionary biologists are presented with the task of reconciling these new discoveries with the [traditional] evolutionary theory of aging, and no doubt they will ultimately succeed. However, gerontologists will also have to learn a lesson from the damage caused by decades of misguided research, when the search for major life-extending mutations and other life-extension interventions was equated by evolutionary biologists to a construction of perpetual motion machine."
Future medical researchers tend to be unaware of this history when learning in "Biology 101" about "generally accepted theories of aging." [Note: I agree].

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