Living Longer Linked to Gene Variations

Environment and family history are factors in healthy aging, but genetic “variants” play an important role in living to be very old.

In a study reported in the journal Science, researchers say that genetic variants can predict exceptional longevity in humans with 77 percent accuracy. The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

The series of genetic variants can suggest whether or not a person will live to 100 years of age. They say this is a breakthrough in understanding the role of genes in determining human lifespan.

Dr. Robert Marion, at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York, says experts probably could have predicted life span with even greater accuracy had they asked people how long their parents had lived. But, this study has paved the way for advances in science to also help determine lifespan.

He says that eventually, if you can identify early in life those individuals who have a predisposition to die young, you might actually be able to approach their care to help them to live longer.

"One of the big benefits of the new genomic medicine is that we're going to be able to do personalized medicine, and this is one way to approach that," explains Dr. Marion.

Who Lives to Be 100?

Right now, people in industrialized nations live an average of 80 to 85 years. About one in 6,000 people in this group achieves centenarian status. Supercentenarians - those who live to 110 or beyond - occur at a rate of only about one in 7 million.

Senior study author Dr. Thomas Perls, says, "We have about 80,000 centenarians alive at any time. The oldest person right now is about 116, in Japan." And, he notes, the majority of people living to 100 and beyond are women.

"Centenarians are indeed a model of aging," says Dr. Perls, at Boston University School of Medicine. "A lot of people would not want to live to 100 because they think they would have every age-related disease under the sun and are on death's doorstep, but this isn't true.

We have noted in previous work that 90 percent of centenarians are disability-free at an average age of 93,” he explains. “They compress their diseases towards the very end of their lives."

Genes an Obvious Area of Study

Given that long life spans tend to run in families, researchers have long suspected that genetics play a big role in this trait.

In this study, the researchers conducted a genome-wide association study with two groups - in 1,055 centenarians and 1,267 non-centenarians participating in the New England Centenarian Study, founded and directed by Dr. Perls.

The team identified 19 genetic clusters or "genetic signatures" of exceptional longevity that described 90 percent of the centenarians studied. The different signatures correlated with differences in the prevalence and age-of-onset of diseases such as dementia and hypertension, and may help identify key subgroups of healthy aging, says Dr. Perls.

Notably, the team found that 45 percent of the oldest centenarians - those 110 years and older - had a genetic signature with the highest proportion of longevity-associated genetic variants.

"I think a lot of study needs to be done as to what guidance physicians and health care providers can give to individuals as to what they do with this information," says Dr. Perls said. In particular, there could be implications from an insurance point of view.

Always consult your physician or other healthcare provider for more information.