The Odds of Surviving Into Your Hundreds

A genetic factor that protects you against heart disease during middle age could reduce the odds that you�ll celebrate your hundredth birthday. Research published in BMC Medical Genetics shows that a genetic trait, which is rarely found in centenarians, is associated with lower cholesterol levels. The risk of suffering from heart disease is increased by a number of factors, including having high levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in your blood. The main component of low-density lipoprotein is apoliprotein whose quality and quantity are related to the quality and expression of the APOB genes you have.In a previous study, Professor Giovanna De Benedictis found that older, healthy people were most unlikely to carry short versions of a DNA region that neighbours the APOB gene. �This indicates that the short alleles are unfavourable to longevity,� she says. In contrast, these short versions are over-represented in healthy, middle-aged adults, indicating that these variants of the APOB gene region play a protective role at this point in your life.

Her group have now analysed both the variability in the DNA surrounding the APOB gene and the low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in over 400 healthy volunteers, between the ages of 20 and 102. The aim was to see if there was any link between the two factors. Their results show that people with short variants of the APOB gene region have significantly lower levels of total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in their blood.

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Interesting. My parents are fairly good candidates for living into their 100's. Good health care, still alert, approaching their mid-80's.

Much reasearch has shown that if you cut your daily calorie intake you would live a lot longer. Maybe that is why you see some old fogeys in some third world countries. It is shown here though www.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/diet.fitness/09/03/anti.aging.diet
The study was conducted on mice and such but apparently it seems to work. I thought that was interesting.

[Edited on 1-3-2004 by Hoppinmad1]

Interesting find.
My Dad's family has a history of longevity, particularly on his Mothers side. She's in her late 80's at present, and is still driving, living on her own, taking care of herself, and is quite healthy. Her parents lived to see their late 90's.