HOW FRAILTY MODELS CAN BE USED FOR EVALUATING LONGEVITY LIMITS - TAKING ADVANTAGE OF AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH

In this paper we discuss an approach to the analysis of mortality and longevity limits when survival data on related individuals with and wi thout observed covariates are available. The approach combines the ide as of demography and survival analysis with methods of quantitative ge netics and genetic epidemiology. It allows us to analyze the genetic s tructure of frailty in the Cox-type hazard model with random effects. We demonstrate the implementation of this strategy to survival data on Danish twins. We then evaluate the resulting lower bounds for biologi cal limits of human longevity. Finally, we discuss the limitations of this approach and directions of further research.