Study: The secret to long life is having the right genes

By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY

People who live to 100 and beyond have a unique set of genetic variations that seems to help them live 20 years longer than the rest of the population, researchers have found.
The gene clusters seem to trump disease-causing genes that would otherwise cause common problems of aging. Winning this genetic lottery, though, is no free pass: Exercise and healthy living still play a big role, scientists say.

The paper, in Thursday's online version of the journal Science, describes how scientists scanned the genomes of more than 1,000 centenarians, all Caucasians, from the New England Centenarian Study and found a cluster of 150 genetic markers that are highly predictive of extreme long life.

The older a subject got, the "stronger and stronger the correlation," says Thomas Perls, a professor of medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine and senior author on the paper.

Scientists have always known that long life runs in families, but this is the first time they have had proof that it's a genetic trait. Looking at his or her genes, "we can predict with about 77% accuracy" the probability of a person living to 100, Perls says.

There isn't a publicly available genetic test for this cluster of genes, though Perls says someone probably will start selling one soon. A good surrogate is to look at how long people in your family live.

Genes clearly don't tell the whole story: 23% of those who lived to be 100 or older didn't have the particular set of variants, the researcher found.

What they also don't yet know is what the genes actually are doing to make people live longer.

The study found that centenarians can be divided into 19 different groups of "genetic signatures" that correlate with different patterns of exceptional longevity. "Some signatures correlate with longer survival, others with the most delayed onset of age-related disease such as dementia ... or hypertension," says Paola Sebastiani, a biostatistician at Boston University and lead author on the paper.

The good news, Perls says, is that most humans have genetic variations "to allow us to get to 88, which is eight years longer than average." The catch: To achieve that age, he says, you still have to live a healthy life — exercise, avoid obesity, don't smoke, don't drink too much.

Research indicates most babies born this century in rich countries may live to 100.

The AP (10/2, Cheng) reports, "Most babies born in rich countries this century will eventually make it to their 100th birthday," according to research published in The Lancet. Researchers say "that since the 20th century, people in developed countries are living about three decades longer than in the past," and that "trend shows little sign of slowing down." For the study, researchers "examined studies published globally in 2004-2005 on numerous issues related to aging."
The study showed that "without any further improvement in longevity, three-quarters of babies will mark their 75th birthdays," Bloomberg News (10/2, Hallam) reports. The researchers noted that "better healthcare for the elderly, particularly in the US, has extended lives by making illnesses...manageable over time and allowing earlier detection and intervention."
WebMD (10/1, Hitti) reported that the researchers speculated that "societies will stop looking at life as consisting of three phases -- childhood, adulthood, and old age -- and start dividing 'old age' into a 'third age (young old)' and a 'fourth age (oldest old).'" They added, however, that "it remains to be seen if obesity, which has also been rising, will put the brakes on rising life expectancies."