5 replies to this topic

[Lazarus Long]

There are many places to look for places to start collecting data and these are from census and birth records, tax rolls, Social Security Administrations etc but another is to just keep your eyes and ears open and then share the information here.

For example this article from my local press caught my attention today.

Happy 100+ birthday — times nine at Rye retirement community

By LIZ SADLER
esadler@lohud.com
THE JOURNAL NEWS
Original publication: September 15, 2006)

RYE — Cecelia Haimerl felt like a spring chicken yesterday, seated among five centenarians for a celebratory tea at The Osborn retirement community.

"I am so amazed at how many people are here," said Haimerl, a small, sprightly nonagenarian who turns 100 next week. "I feel like the youngest of them."

Though she is just shy of a century old, Haimerl was one of nine residents being feted at The Osborn's annual centenarians tea. The guests of honor ranged in age from 99 to 105, and all walk with assistance.

This year marked a record number of centenarian residents at The Osborn. Eight of the honorees are women, six of whom attended the tea. Eight more residents are due to turn 100 next year, potentially pushing the centenarian count into double digits.

"I'm still active. I can do anything," said Minnie Lobl, 101, a former German teacher at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass. "I go to exercise. I'm still around."

Lobl and the other honorees wore pink rose wrist corsages and ate white frosted birthday cake as a tuxedo-clad swing band performed for the dozens of residents and employees who gathered in the Osborn's auditorium.

"This was all unexpected," said Gertrude Miller, a native of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, who turns 106 on Sept. 26.

At the next table was Elizabeth Defaa, 102, who appeared in several silent films, including the 1921 movie "Orphans of the Storm" with Lillian Gish. (excerpt)

A supercentenarian is someone who is officially 110 yeas of age and older but I suggest that we still gather data on everyone at least 100 and older so that we have some lead time to get to those approaching 110.

What strategies do others have for collecting firs the data and then organizing teams for local outreach to collect the genetic samples?

[Lazarus Long]

Links

Supercentenarian Research Foundation

International Database on Longevity

GERONTOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP

Please seek sources and share them by listing them here and then we can sift through them to refine the database.

This forum is specifically designed to work with the first organization on the list above, the SRF.

Anyone that is seriously interested in participating on a collection team or somehow volunteering in this effort can join the MMF forum dedicated to the SRF.

A warning however, that site is dedicated to this purpose and not eclectic like Imminist. They will edit and stay focused pretty exclusively on this single goal. So if you have a good idea appropriate to these objectives please feel free to go and share it but for example if you are interested in promoting supplements to geriatrics or arguing about the *ethics* of this goal it probably won't be of use and stay posted there.

If you really want to debate these or other such things then it may (within reason) be tolerated here in this sub-forum however.

[kgmax]

While trying to find records of the Today Show's Willard Scott Salutes I found the following site... not sure how useful, but it is interesting. http://www.todaysseniorsnetwork.com

I suppose someone could compose a well thought out letter to willard to help get the word out on your project.

[Lazarus Long]

This is a big step for this project.

Researchers Open Supercentenarian Center
Oct 6th - 1:12pm
By JENNIFER C. YATES Associated Press Writer


PITTSBURGH (AP) - A group of researchers has set up a foundation based in Pittsburgh to study the members of a rare and exclusive club: people who live to be older than 110. The Supercentenarian Research Foundation hopes to identify why these people live so long, develop strategies to help combat the effects of aging and improve the quality of life of the very old.

"The longer we wait, the more they're going to die and we will lose that information," said Dr. Stephen Coles, the foundation's treasurer and a researcher who has studied the elderly as part of the Los Angeles Gerontology Research Group.

It's estimated that there are about 300 people worldwide who are 110 years old or older, yet not all of those people have had their ages verified through public documents. As of Wednesday, the foundation reported that there were 76 people in the world _ 66 women and 10 men _ who were verified to be 110 or older.

When someone reaches the age of 110, there is a 50 percent chance that they will not reach the age of 111, said Dr. Doros Platika, the foundation's chairman and CEO. Platika is stepping down later this year from his job as head of the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, a public-private partnership that supports the growth of regional life sciences companies, to devote his time to raising money to fund the Supercentenarian Research Foundation. Coles said demographers have shown that the number of people reaching 100 years old is growing exponentially, while few people live to be older than 110. Researchers are turning to science to try to explain why that is.

The oldest person ever whose age was authenticated was Jeanne Louise Calment, who lived to 122 years and 164 days, the foundation said. She was born on Feb. 21, 1875, and died at a nursing home in Arles in southern France on Aug. 4, 1997. Stanley R. Primmer, the foundation's president, said there have only been seven autopsies of supercentenarians that the group knows of. He said the foundation is in the process of gathering tissues from the very elderly so they can look for clues to longevity.

"We want to know why it is they're able to live longer than the rest of us, and what is the limit to our life span," Primmer said.

The foundation began after several experts on aging met at an anti-aging conference in Las Vegas in 2004, and decided that so-called "supercentenarians" needed to be studied. The group was registered as a nonprofit corporation in May, and its first meeting was held in June in Boston.

Digg it This week, the group announced it would be based in Pittsburgh. Platika said having the group here is appropriate since Allegheny County has a large number of elderly residents. He said the foundation used about $200,000 in private donations to get started and is hoping to raise several millions more over the next few years for research. He emphasized that just having a long life is not the point.

"Having a high quality of life and having a healthy and independent life is the point," he said.



On the Net:

http://www.supercent...-foundation.org

http://www.grg.org

[marcus]

LL,

I've followed this team's work for a couple of years now.
http://www.bumc.bu.e...epartmentID=361

I'd hope there is a strong framework for collaboration in this field as there is going to need to be a lot of data gathered from scattered sources.

Marcus

[Lazarus Long]

Great source Marcus and thanks, this is exactly what I am trying to gather.

Now what we need are the multiple sources like this from all over the world.