Trends in ages at death of Norwegian centenarians: the 1870-1904 birth cohorts

BACKGROUND: With rapidly rising life expectancy and ageing populations, interest has grown in the survival patterns and ages at death at the highest ages. In Scandinavia, the accumulation of very old population segments coupled with long-established, high-quality population registers permit meaningful analysis. METHODS: This study is based on individual level data from extinct Norwegian birth cohorts using data obtained from the Norwegian Civil Register System. We assess trends in the ages at death of centenarians in Norway for cohorts born between 1870 and 1904 for evidence of any secular increase using quantile regression. RESULTS: We observed that there is no upward trend in centenarian lifespans, in line with recent observations in Sweden, but contrary to the upward trend at the very highest percentiles as observed in Denmark. CONCLUSIONS: The available evidence suggests that the stagnation in centenarian lifespans may be partly due to the failure to find ways of dealing with neurodegenerative diseases.