A new report shows that American centenarians (people who have lived to be 100 or older) are living longer lives. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the death rate among centenarians has dropped 14 percent for women and 20 percent for men from 2008 to 2014. The study also shows that the leading causes of death in this age group are also changing thanks to advances in health and medicine. Death rates for things like influenza and pneumonia are on the decline while more members of this age group are passing away from Alzheimer’s. According to Holly Prigerson, professor of geriatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, the reason why more centenarians are dying from Alzheimer’s is because people that are fit enough to live to be over 100 tend to ultimately “succumb to diseases afflicting the mind and cognitive dysfunction.”
See Rachael Rettner, Even Centenarians Are Living Longer, The Scientific American, January 21, 2016.
Special thanks to Brian Cohan (Attorney at Law, Law Offices of Brian J. Cohan, P.C.) for bringing this article to my attention.
