Longevity

Longevity is the duration of an individual's life or the characteristic lifespan of a population or species. It is shaped by biological, environmental, and social conditions.

Cellular senescence: A state in which cells stop dividing while remaining metabolically active. Senescent cells accumulate with age and can disrupt tissue function.
Life expectancy: The average number of years a person or population is expected to live under specified mortality rates. It is a population average, not the maximum or actual lifespan of an individual.
Healthy life expectancy: The expected years of life spent in good health, accounting for illness or disability. It separates longer survival from longer life in good health.
Aging: The progressive biological changes associated with increasing age. Longevity measures duration; aging describes changes that occur over that duration.
DNA damage theory of aging: The theory that accumulated DNA damage contributes to age-related decline and disease. It links failures in genome maintenance to shorter healthy lifespans.
Maximum lifespan: The greatest age reached by an individual of a species under documented conditions. It marks an observed upper bound rather than a typical duration of life.
Centenarian: A person who has reached at least 100 years of age. Centenarians offer cases for studying exceptional human survival.
Mortality rate: The frequency of deaths in a population during a specified period, often expressed per unit of population. Mortality rates describe population death patterns rather than life duration itself.
Telomere: A repetitive DNA-protein structure that protects the ends of linear chromosomes. Telomere shortening can limit cell division in some tissues.
Survival analysis: A statistical field that analyzes time until an event, often death or disease onset. Its methods estimate how survival changes across ages and conditions.

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