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Back in June, in a study published in Science, demographers observed something interesting about human mortality. They looked at the death rates of Italians who lived to at least 105 years and found that while the probability of dying in any given year increases rapidly during adulthood, the rate of increase then starts to taper in old age. By 105, the researchers found, people have a 50/50 chance of dying each year—and that probability holds steady in subsequent years.
“We found that mortality rates, which go up rapidly with age at younger ages, had leveled off at these extreme ages,” University of California, Berkeley, demographer Kenneth Wachter, who led the study, tells The Scientist. This phenomenon is called a late-life mortality plateau. Demographers also think of it as the point at which aging stops—that is, among those who believe that these plateaus exist.
A study published ...
