PRACTICAL METHODOLOGY OF EVALUATION OF MORTALITY CURVES AND DETECTIONOF AGING-RELATED INTERVENTIONS

A practical and simple method of direct proof of occurrence of changes in the aging rate is suggested. The aging rate is defined here accord ing to the pacemaker concept of the control of aging as the rate of pa ce of the inner aging clock. The principle of the method consists of t he analysis of relationships between mortality curves. The methodology makes it possible to distinguish the changes in mortality caused by d irect intervention in the basic mechanism of the control of aging proc esses (the pacemaker) from changes caused by intervention in other sys tems of an organism. As mortality curves are often difficult to obtain directly in experimental gerontology, a method of transformation of s urvival data into mortality curves is demonstrated. The general purpos e of this study is to derive more information from experimental data a nd from demographic studies, and contribute to a more exact methodolog y of verification in gerontology.