Demography and Population Aging Volume 1 - Issue 5
Patrice F Dassonville*
Author of the Invention of Time and Space: Origins, Definitions, Nature, Properties, France
Received: October 1, 2018; Published: October 05, 2018
*Corresponding author: Patrice F Dassonville, Author of The Invention of Time and Space : Origins, Definitions, Nature, Properties, Rue
Latour-Maubourg, 06400 Cannes, France
Demographes and economistes warn about a phenomenon which is currently observed in developed nations: The population
aging. The analysis of the causes of this disappointing verdict lets think that time could be a misleading demographic parameter.
Time is not a phenomenon; instead it’s a concept. Therefore
time is not the cause of aging of an individual nor is it the cause of
aging of a population [1]. We are wondering why the average age is
higher in developed nations and why it is lower in underdeveloped
nations. What are the causes of this Strange contrast. The increase
of the average age is an expected syndrome of the development
of a nation. Therefore, time appears as a deceptive demographic
indicator.
Chronological Age and Biological Age
Chronological age is commonly called age; it’s a concept of time
which is expressed with some numbers (years, months and days
since the beginning); the information are very poor. Medicine has
introduced the concept of biological age which takes into account
physical and mental health of the individual , the quality of life,
the cultural level. Unfortunately the collection of these data is
difficult; but the information is very rich, and it is paramount in
economics and in sociology to smartly evaluate a situation and take
appropriate political decisions. For example, quality of life is now
taken into account by some OECD statistics.
Etiology of Aging
The word etiology comes from the Greek, aitia, which means
cause, aitiologia means study of causes. Aging affects all living and
hardware systems; it results from three main factors: endogenous
factors, exogenous factors, and frequent potentiation of both.
Jonathan Hutchinson and Hastings Gilford have identified a genetic
anomaly of which results an accelerated biological aging at the
infant age, with no action on chronological age.
Let’s mention two examples in construction engineering.The
Tower of Pisa (12th century), is an example of change not from time,
but from insufficient foundations (Figure 1). It’s a famous example
of the syndrome of Hutchinson-Gilford. The collapse of the bridge
of Genova in August 2018 is another illustration of the syndrome of
Hutchinson-Gilford, not from time but from low quality of materials,
errors in structures calculations or improper maintenance. It’s
interesting to compare with Roman and Egyptian architecture.
Figure 1: An unexpected physical change, not caused by
time.
Causes of Aging of Bacteria
The innocuity of time on aging of bacteria is demonstrated in
combining observations with a mathematical model [1]. At each
generation, the population doubles.
1 --> 2 --> 4 --> 8 --> 16 --> 32 - - - - 2exp(n)
If we start with « N0 » bacteria, at the « nth » generation the
population of bacteria will be
N = N0 2exp (n)
In an homogenous medium, the generations reproduce at
approximmately the same rate « μ » (Greek letter mu), and the
number « n » of generation is
n = μ t
The number of bacteria finally reads
N = N0 2exp (μ t)
Time « t » is not involved in the experiment ; it is what the clock
of the laboratory indicates. The proliferation rate « μ » has various
causes such as temperature, humidity, gravity, presence of sugar,
specific genotype, and possible potentiation of these factors, one
making the other more effective in some way. « μ » contains all these
componants. Sugar increases the speed of duplication of bacteria;
therefore it reduces the lifetime of a population of bacteria, because
the rate of scissiparity is approximately limited to 60. Prof. Valter
Longo has observed that bacteria could triple their lifetime when
they are deprived of sugar [2].
Causes of Aging of an Individual
For Horace, during their course, the years strip us all our
advantages [3]. Horace thought that time was the main cause of
aging. In the early twentieth centutry, someone 60 years old was
an old person; at same age, nowadays he is in a much better health
status. In January 2017, the French Robert Martin 105 years old,
broke his bike record by traveling 22 km in one hour. The aging
of an individual does not result from time; instead, it results from
numerous causes including junk food, lack of hygiene, lack of
medicalization, exposure to ionizing factors which produce free
radicals, genetic inheritance. According to Prof. Longo there are
three aging genes. [2].
Demography and Age
During classical period, lifetime was about 25 years, mainly
in reason of infant mortality [4]. Demographers take into
account the chronological age rather than the biological age; the
chronological age distribution of a population is easy to measure,
but unfortunately, it does not contain much information. In
underdeveloped countries, the average age is low because infant
mortality between 0 and 6 years is about 50%. Adults die young,
in reason of the deficit or the absence of the factors of progress.
Marveling about the youthfulness of a population and about the
demographic dynamics in coutries with low average age, is a error
of analysis, which is driven by ignorance of the nature of time; this
youthfulness and this pretended demographic dynamics are paid
at price of a high birth rate and of an important premature deaths
rate, which lower statistical averages.
The expressions population old age and population aging, which
describe demography of developped countries, are misleading. The
median chronological age (poorly informative) and the biological
age (physical and mental health) are widely diverging.
The combination of a statistical modeling based on temporal
parameters, distorts the evaluation of reality by conveying a
falsified information; age, that is to say time, is a faulty indicator
in this specific case.The increase of average age of a population, is
a normal result of health progress, caused by feeding, by hygiene,
by medicalization, by education and by mastering of demography.
It leads to the theorem: a low average age is a syndrome of
underdevelopment.