Tuesday August 30, 2011, 16.00 – 17.00 hrs
Professor Johan Mackenbach
Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
The idea of a “law of mortality” which governs the increase with age of the risk of dying was first proposed by Benjamin Gompertz (1779-1865), who observed that among humans the mortality rate doubles with every 8 years lived. Since then, mortality rates in western populations have declined spectacularly, but the exponential increase of mortality with age has remained, at least until the age of 80 years. I will review recent progress in the human struggle with mortality, and discuss evidence that beyond the age of 80 the iron laws of mortality no longer hold, suggesting that achieving immortality is less unlikely than it seems.
