14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists have recently discovered a suite of 150 “long life” variants in around 70, which would offer them the possibility to guess whether a person would reach 100 years of age, a new study shows. According to the authors of the study, the long-life gene variants might suppress genes associated with ailments related to aging, including heart problems or dementia. The estimations have an accuracy of around 77 percent.
“This is just a genetic predisposition,” study leader Paola Sebastiani, a biostatistician at the Boston University School of Public Health, stated on the matter. “It doesn't mean that you're going to live to be a hundred. Many things can happen in life.” Life span is influenced by lifestyle choices, environment, and other factors more, including, perhaps, the lack of the telltale gene variants, as with the 23 percent of centenarian test subjects of the study.
Sebastiani comments that the long lives of these subjects might have been the result of them avoiding risk factors. “Perhaps they didn't smoke, didn't eat much red meat, or just lived healthier lives,” the biostatistician stated. The New England Centenarians Study has been the largest scientific study in the world on centenarians and their families, as it collected data on thousand Caucasian centenarians since 1995. Other studies on the matter are expected to expand the research to more ethnicities, beginning with Japan.
Through the new discovery, scientists expect to be able to offer people the possibility to learn the period of time their bodies would last. Moreover, advanced studies of the 150 gene variants might result in advancements in areas like personalized genomics and predictive medicine, especially in age-related ailments.
However, it seems that the answer does not rely only in genes. Various environmental factors are also to be taken into consideration, as Dan Buettner, a grantee of the National Geographic Society's Expeditions Council, stated. “To take advantage of any possible future genetic interventions,” Buettner said, “your best strategy right now is to optimize your lifestyle.”