TY - JOUR TI - Comment on 'Naked mole-rat mortality rates defy Gompertzian laws by not increasing with age' AU - Dammann, Philip AU - Scherag, André AU - Zak, Nikolay AU - Szafranski, Karol AU - Holtze, Susanne AU - Begall, Sabine AU - Burda, Hynek AU - Kestler, Hans A AU - Hildebrandt, Thomas AU - Platzer, Matthias A2 - Rose, Michael A2 - Wittkopp, Patricia J A2 - Finch, Caleb A2 - Mueller, Laurence VL - 8 PY - 2019 DA - 2019/07/09 SP - e45415 C1 - eLife 2019;8:e45415 DO - 10.7554/eLife.45415 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.45415 AB - Ruby et al. recently analyzed historical lifespan data on more than 3200 naked mole-rats, collected over a total observation period of about 38 years (Ruby et al., 2018). They report that mortality hazards do not seem to increase across the full range of their so-far-observed lifespan, and conclude that this defiance of Gompertz's law ‘uniquely identifies the naked mole-rat as a non-aging mammal’. Here, we explain why we believe this conclusion is premature. KW - naked mole-rat KW - aging KW - Gompertz KW - longevity KW - Bathyergidae KW - mammals JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -