Evidence for Familial Longevity to be Largely Cultural Rather than Genetic

It is certainly possible that a small number of people have mutations or genetic variants that confer notable longevity. The small lineage exhibiting a PAI-1 loss of function mutation springs to mind as an example of this sort of thing. But for the overwhelming majority of long-lived lineages, the evidence on genetic contributions to longevity tends to support the hypothesis that familial longevity arises much more from lifestyle and environment than from inherited genetics. The data from very large genetic databases points to genetic variants contributing little to variation in human life span. The data on exercise, diet, and environmental factors such as particulate air pollution and persistent viral infection regularly results in larger effect sizes for late life mortality. The familial resemblance in length of adult life is very modest. Studies of parent-offspring and twins suggest that exceptional health and survival have a stronger genetic component than lifespan generally. To shed light on the underlying mechanisms, we collected information on Danish long-lived siblings (born 1886-1938) from 659 families, their 5379 offspring (born 1917-1982), and 10,398 grandchildren (born 1950-2010) and matched background population controls through the Danish 1916 Census, the Civil Registration System, the National Patient Register, and the Register of Causes of Death. Comparison with the background, population revealed consistently lower occurrence of almost all dis...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs