Age at death (AD) is an old demographic metric recently re-evaluated. In field epidemiology it has been never used because in this case the study population must be extinct or nearly extinct. The research group of the Seven Countries Study of Cardiovascular Diseases was able to reach a follow-up that in most cases corresponds to the extinction of cohorts allowing to study the problem of AD. A review of published material, with focus on 7 selected detailed examples, describes and comments findings dealing with determinants of AD at individual levels, comparison of AD across different causes of death, ecological comparison across different cohorts and possible determinants of differences.