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Background: Given the importance of habitual dietary protein intake, distribution patterns and dietary sources in the aetiology of age-related declines of muscle mass and function, the present study examined these factors as a function of sex and age in Irish adults aged 18-90 years comprising The National Adult Nutrition Survey (NANS)., Methods: In total, 1051 (males, n = 523; females, n = 528) undertook a 4-day semi-weighed food diary. Total, body mass relative intake and percentage contribution to total energy intake of dietary protein were determined in addition to protein distribution scores (PDS), as well as the contribution of food groups, animal- and plant-based foods to total protein intake., Results: Total and relative protein intake [mean (SD)] were highest in those aged 18-35 years [96 (3) g day -1 , 1.32 (0.40) g kg -1  day -1 ], with lower protein intakes with increasing age (i.e. in adults aged ≥65 years [82 (22) g, 1.15 (0.34) g kg -1  day -1 , P < 0.001 for both]. Differences in protein intake between age groups were more pronounced in males compared to females. Protein distribution followed a skewed pattern for all age groups [breakfast, 15 (10) g; lunch, 30 (15) g; dinner, 44 (17) g]. Animal-based foods were the dominant protein source within the diet [63% (11%) versus 37% (11%) plant protein, P < 0.001]., Conclusions: Protein intake and the number of meals reaching the purported threshold for maximising post-prandial anabolism were highest in young adults, and lower with increasing age. For main meals, breakfast provided the lowest quantity of protein across all age categories and may represent an opportunity for improving protein distribution, whereas, in older adults, increasing the number of meals reaching the anabolic threshold regardless of distribution pattern may be more appropriate., (© 2020 The British Dietetic Association Ltd.)

Hawai'i is the most ethnically diverse state with the highest proportion of multiracial individuals in the United States. The Stepwise Proportional Weighting Algorithm (SPWA) was developed to bridge the categorization of multiracial Census data into single-race population estimates for common races in Hawai'i. However, these estimates have not been publicly available. A Shiny web application, the Hawai'i Single-Race Categorization Tool, was developed as a user friendly research tool to obtain the age and sex distributions of single-race estimates for common racial groups in Hawai'i. The Categorization Tool implements the SPWA and presents the results in tabular and graphic formats, stratified by sex and age. It also allows the categorization of partial Native Hawaiians as Native Hawaiians in the population estimation. Using this tool, the current paper reports population estimates and distributions for 31 common racial groups using Hawai'i Census 2010 data. Among the major Census races, Asian had the largest population (631 881; 46.5%) in Hawai'i, followed by White (431 635; 31.7%) and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (227 588; 16.7%). Among Census detailed races within Asian, Filipino had the largest population estimate (244 730; 18.0%), followed by Japanese (227 165; 16.7%) and Chinese (103 600; 7.6%). Native Hawaiian accounted for 12.3% of the Hawai'i population (166 944). After recategorizing part-Native Hawaiians as Native Hawaiians, Native Hawaiian increased by 150.0%, with the greatest increase among the young. This publicly available tool would be valuable for race-related resource allocation, policy development, and health disparities research in Hawai'i., Competing Interests: None of the authors identify a conflict of interest., (©Copyright 2023 by University Health Partners of Hawai‘i (UHP Hawai‘i).)

"This study is concerned with the effects of age at marriage on fertility in Taiwan, with the primary objective of understanding the nature and causes of the recent upsurge of the...birth rate." Data are taken from the population register for the period 1975 to 1978 and from two fertility surveys undertaken in 1967 and 1976. It is found that the increase in the birth rate between 1975 and 1978 was primarily due to a large increase in the proportion and number of women aged 25 to 29. It was also due, in part, to an increase in the age at marriage. The effects of shifts in marriage duration, improved fecundability, and increases in premarital pregnancy are also considered. The author suggests that a further decline in fertility is unlikely in the near future unless there are changes in traditional family values, son preference, and number of children desired. (summary in CHI), (excerpt)

The aging of a population structure is an inevitable path of demographic transition, as an inescapable result of decline in fertility rate and extension in life expectancy. Although demographic transition occurred earlier in Japan than in China, the two countries had similar patterns, both of which took a much shorter period of time than Western countries to complete demographic transition, as well as have been aging at a rapid speed that has rarely been seen in the world. Japan has the highest level of population aging in the world, and China has been experiencing a very fast pace of the population aging process and has the largest older population. Drawing upon data from World Population Prospects (2019), this paper compares changes in population aging in both China and Japan. Findings show that Japan's aging process is 30 years ahead of China, but China has been changing in a similar way as Japan. To be specific, both countries experienced four phases of the population aging process: accelerated development period, rapid development period, slow down period and high-level maintained period. In addition, both countries had a quick growing rate of population aging. It will take China 23 years and 10 years respectively for the aging rate increasing from 7% to 14% and then to 20%, while Japan took 24 and 11 years respectively, which is much shorter than developed countries in the West. Furthermore, China has a faster pace than Japan in population aging in the next 25 years. We found that from 2019-2044, China's aging rate, elderly dependency ratio, oldest-old coefficient and median age of population will increase 13.24 percent points, 24.21 percent points, 8.33 percent points, and 8.47 years, while the four indicators of Japan will increase 8.38 percent points, 22.52 percent points, 8.29 percent points, and 6.20 years, respectively.

Background: A decrease in mortality across all ages causes a shift of the age pattern of mortality, or mortality delay, while differences in the rate of decrease across ages cause a change in the shape of the age-at-death distribution, mortality compression or expansion. Evidence exists for both compression and delay of mortality. Existing parametric models to describe the full age pattern of mortality are not able to capture mortality delay versus mortality compression. More recent models that assess delay versus compression mostly focused on the adult or old ages alone and did not distinguish mortality compression below and above the modal age at death, although they represent different mechanisms., Methods: This paper presents a new parametric model that describes the full age pattern of mortality and assesses compression - at different stages of life - and delay of mortality: the CoDe model. The model includes 10 parameters, of which five are constant over time. The five time-varying parameters reflect delay of mortality and compression of mortality in infancy, adolescence, young adulthood, late adulthood, and old age. The model describes infant and background mortality by two simple functions, uses a mixed logistic model with different slopes in adult, middle, and old age, and includes the modal age at death as a parameter to account for the delay in mortality., Results: Applying the CoDe model to age-specific probabilities of death for Japanese, French, American, and Danish men and women between 1950 and 2010 showed a very good fit of the full age pattern of mortality. Delay of mortality explained about two-thirds of the increase in life expectancy at birth, whereas compression of mortality due to mortality declines in young age explained about one-third. No strong compression of mortality in late adulthood age was observed. Mortality compression in old age has had a small negative impact on life expectancy., Conclusions: The CoDe model proved a valid instrument for describing the full age pattern of mortality and for disentangling the effects of mortality delay and compression - at different stages of life - on the increase in life expectancy.

Although many countries' populations have experienced increasing life expectancy in recent decades, quality of life (QoL) trends in the general population have yet to be investigated. This paper investigates whether QoL changed for the general Dutch population over the period 2001-2008. A beta regression model was employed to address specific features of the QoL distribution (i.e., boundedness, skewness, and heteroskedasticity), as well non-linear age and time trends. Quality-adjusted life expectancy (QALE) was calculated by combining model estimates of mean QoL with mortality rates provided by Statistics Netherlands. Changes in QALE were decomposed into those changes caused by QoL changes and those caused by mortality-rate changes. The results revealed a significant increase in QoL over 2001-2008 for both genders and most ages. For example, QALE for a man/woman aged 20 was found to have increased by 2.3/1.9 healthy years, of which 0.6/0.8 was due to QoL improvements.

The recently developed macroscopic approach to demography describes the age distribution of mothers and the net maternity function for a given human population entirely in terms of five parameters. Tracking of these parameters provides a number of new tools for analyzing populations and predicting their future states. Within the macroscopic approach, the new concept of generalized Lotka stability is presented in this paper, as an extension of a strong version of classic Lotka stability. The two leading parameters of the macroscopic approach, the Malthusian parameter r and the perturbation s, are computed from population data and plotted in two-dimensional parameter space. Generalized Lotka stability is then defined in terms of the movement of the (r,s)-vector over time. It may be observed in a number of human populations at specific periods of their history., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: Australian government health expenditure per capita has grown steadily across the past few decades, but little is known about trends in the age distribution of health expenditure., Methods: In this paper, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) fiscal incidence studies, which track expenditure at the household level between 1984 and 2010, are used to shed light on this topic., Results: The main finding was that spending has shifted focus from the younger half to the older half of the population. This shift is evident in three areas: (1) acute care (hospitals); (2) community health services (doctors); and (3) pharmaceuticals. Together, these areas account for approximately 88% of expenditure. The trend is independent of demographic aging. It is unlikely to reflect changes in population health. Its explanation is open to debate., Conclusions: Growth in expenditure per household has been more than threefold faster for elderly than young households. Across this period, expenditure per household per week has increased by 51% for the young, by 79% for the middle aged and by 179% for the elderly. This age-related growth is most prominent in expenditure on acute care, community health services and pharmaceuticals. WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE TOPIC?: The Productivity Commission has published figures that relate age and Australian heath expenditure. However, there has been no published study of age-related trends in Australian health expenditure. WHAT DOES THIS PAPER ADD?: In addition to tracking age-related trends across 26 years, this paper adds a breakdown of those trends into four categories of expenditure, namely acute care, community health services, pharmaceutical benefits, and other. This breakdown shows that the trends vary by expenditure type. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTITIONERS?: The paper shows that forward projections in health expenditure need to take into account age-related trends as well as demographic trends.

The distribution of a population throughout the physiological age of the individuals is very relevant information in population studies. It has been modeled by the Langevin and the Fokker-Planck equations. A major problem with these equations is that they allow the physiological age to move back in time. This paper proposes an Infinitesimally ratcheted random walk as a way to solve that problem. Two mathematical representations are proposed. One of them uses a nonlocal scalar field. The other one is local, but involves a multicomponent field of speed states. These two formulations are compared to each other and to the Fokker-Planck equation. The relevant properties are discussed. The dynamics of the mean and variance of the population age resulting from the two proposed formulations are obtained.

This paper studies the occurrence of record events in score populations which grow stochastically in time. In Rényi's basic record model, a population of independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) random scores grows deterministically--a single new score being added at each time step. Rényi's record theorem asserts that the resulting record events are independent, and that their occurrence probabilities decrease harmonically in time. Moreover, Rényi's result is universal--being independent of the distribution of the i.i.d. random scores. This paper considers an arbitrary stochastic growth of the score population--allowing the number of the i.i.d. random scores added at each time step to follow arbitrary stochastic dynamics. Exploring the stochastic growth model we: (i) establish a general analog of Rényi's record theorem; (ii) show that universality with respect to the distribution of the i.i.d. random scores is maintained; (iii) compute the distribution of the waiting times for record events; (iv) analyze the dependencies/independencies of the record events; and (v) analyze the aging/stationarity of the record events.

With the discovery of a BSE case in a herd, practice in Denmark prior to 2005 has been to cull any herd in its entirety, to avoid the risk of further cases. However, a growing dissatisfaction with this practice has led to a desire to be able to cull a minor fraction of a BSE herd only, while still removing the majority of the risk. One proposed method has been cohort culling. All animals in a certain age window around the age of the infected animal are culled, assuming that the BSE case and all other potential cases were infected at roughly the same time. This paper presents a method to characterize the animals in a BSE infected herd most at risk for developing BSE from the exposure that resulted in the index case. The results suggest that a +/-one-and-a-half year cohort cull would work well in Denmark for index BSE cases with an age of 6 years or less, but for older BSE cases the method is completely inadequate, making age-dependent windows a necessity. Formulas for calculating age-dependent windows are provided, and age-dependent windows for a herd size corresponding to a herd size equal to the 85% percentile of the Danish herds are provided in graphical form. A case study with a 9-year-old index case is presented.

Patients with photosensitive epilepsy (PSE) are said to lose photosensitivity with age. That is, they do not suffer from photosensitive epileptic seizures after the third decade of life. This claim seems to be an over generalised statement and does not take into account all other important confounding factors that determine the duration and process of neurological illnesses. Hence, there are contradictions pertaining to age of freedom of photosensitivity in epilepsy and in epilepsy with photosensitivity. Often patients are declared free from epileptic activity; however, some of these patients are still found to have seizures a few years later. This paper assesses the freedom photosensitivity in 58 PSE patients to ascertain validity of the claim that patients lose their photosensitivity with age. Thirty-nine of the 58 patients (67%) were female whilst (33%) were male, giving a female/male ratio of 3:1. The average age of onset of photosensitivity was 7 years. Of all the cases studied forty-one (71%) had a family history of photosensitive epilepsy, while seventeen (29%) had no family history of photosensitive epilepsy. Proof of photosensitivity in all the patients was determined by persistent EEG abnormalities including occipital spike and wave discharges. Results show that photosensitivity persisted beyond adolescence; hence, there was no specific age limit of freedom from photosensitivity in patients, especially in those with family history of photosensitive epilepsy. However, those patients who were having regular antiepileptic medication and/or were taking adequate preventive measures had a temporary period of freedom from sensitivity which lasted 1-4 years. These findings suggest that freedom from photosensitivity is not age-dependent, especially in those patients with family history of photosensitive epilepsy.