Is Fertility Impaired among the Longevous Women? Testing the Evolutionary Theories of Aging

Natalia S. Gavrilova, University of Chicago
Leonid A. Gavrilov, University of Chicago
Galina N. Evdokushkina, Ministry of Health, Russia
Victoria G. Semyonova, Ministry of Health, Russia

The purpose of this study is to validate the earlier highly publicized findings by Westendorp and Kirkwood published in Nature (1998, Vol. 396, pp. 743 -746) that human longevity comes with a high cost of infertility (almost a half of longevous women were reported to be childless). This finding is actively cited now in scientific literature (over 70 citations) as an established fact supporting the evolutionary theory of aging. In this validation study we reanalyzed exactly the same database, which was used in original publication (genealogies for British aristocracy) and cross-checked the data with other professional data sources in order to test whether the reported number of children was correct. To our surprise we have found that at least in 32% cases (107 out of 335 cases) the childlessness claims in the original dataset were false because of data incompleteness. We also have found that high rate of childlessness among long-lived women is an artifact of data incompleteness, caused by under-reporting of children. After data cleaning, cross-checking and supplementation the association between exceptional longevity and childlessness has disappeared. Thus, it is important now to revise a highly publicized scientific concept of heavy reproductive costs for human longevity and to make corrections in related teaching curriculums for students. It is also important to disavow the doubts and concerns over further extension of human lifespan, that were recently cast in biomedical ethics because of gullible acceptance of the idea of harmful side effects of lifespan extension, including infertility (Glannon, Journal of Medicine and Phylosophy,2002, 27(3): 339-354). We plan to present at the PAA meeting the new results on whether there is a reproductive cost for human longevity, using new extensively cross-checked and validated dataset on the numbers of children for over 4,000 married women with known lifespan and not practicing conraception. Some preliminary results of our studies are available online in the form power-point presentation at: http://www.spc.uchicago.edu/~gavr1/Gavrilova-Grandmothers.ppt We also have made publicly available online our previous 3 publications on related topic: (1) Gavrilov, L.A., Gavrilova, N.S. Is there a reproductive cost for human longevity? Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine, 1999, 2(2): 121-123. Available online at: http://www.src.uchicago.edu/~gavr1/JAAM-Reproductive-Cost.pdf (2) Gavrilova, N.S., Gavrilov, L.A. Data resources for biodemographic studies on familial clustering of human longevity. Demographic Research [Online], 1999, vol.1(4): 1-48. See page 3, section 1.1."Illustrative example: The hopes and disappointments with data on British aristocracy" in particular Available online at: http://www.src.uchicago.edu/~gavr1/DemResearch.pdf http://www.demographic-research.org/Volumes/Vol1/4/ (3) Gavrilov, L.A., Gavrilova, N.S. Evolutionary theories of aging and longevity. The Scientific World JOURNAL, 2002, 2: 339-356. See pages 350-352 in particular Available online at: http://www.src.uchicago.edu/~gavr1/Evolution.pdf http://www.src.uchicago.edu/~gavr1/Evolution.htm