"Biodemography of human ageing"

This article in the March 25th 2010 issue of Nature magazine confounds the rest of that issue's Insight Review of human ageing. For someone not versed in the field of demographic statistics used in this article, the graphs and conclusions are unique. By examining a kind of running average of life expectancy, the author is able to talk about the continuing increase in life expectancy.

"Humans will continue to suffer senescence -- but the process is not intractable. Mortality has been postponed considerably as a result not of revolutionary advances in slowing the process of ageing but of ongoing progress in improving health. If progress in reducing mortality continues at the same pace....then in countries with high life expectancies most children born since the year 2000 will celebrate their 100th birthday -- in the twenty-second century. "