Aging and its complexity, and regularities- the Gompertz law of mortality. Chronological vs. biological aging. Aging as a process of deficits accumulation. The frailty index as a proxy-measure of individual and population aging. The concept of equality of health deficits. Phenomenological invariants of aging: aging rates; sex-related differences; limit in the deficits accumulation; compensation laws of mortality and deficits accumulation. Stochastic dynamics of age trajectories. Irreversibility of chronological aging and local reversibility of biological aging. What is the law that governs changes in health during aging? Aging, health and wealth, how they are related world wide.

Biography

Arnold Mitnitski, Professor of Medicine, Dalhousie University, is an applied mathematician/data miner affiliated with the Department of Medicine and cross-appointed with CH&E, Mathematics and Statistics, and Computer Science Faculty. Born and educated in Russia (M Engng and PhD in applied math/theoretical mechanics, 1974, St-Petersburg) he moved in Canada (Montreal) in 1992, and in Halifax 2002 to join the Medical School. He has more than 80 peer reviewed publications, the score of presentations at the International meetings. He is a Fellow of the American Gerontological Society, Associate Editor of the BMC Geriatrics and CGGR (Current Gerontology and Geriatrics). His expertise lies in mathematical modeling of complex biomedical systems, advanced data analysis and data mining. Together with Ken Rockwood, 10 years ago, he developed an integrated individualized measure of human health known as the Frailty Index (FI) which now has the numerous theoretical and practical applications in medicine ,epidemiology and recently in Macroeconomics. He was a keynote speaker at the 2011 Long-Run Economic Perspectives on an Aging Society conference in Spain. He is a recipient of CIHR grants and several awards including a prestigious Dalhousie University Research Professor given only to a limited number of individuals at Dalhousie University.
Email: Arnold.Mitnitski at Dal.Ca