Research into centenarians
Encyclopedia
A centenarian
Centenarian
A centenarian is a person who is or lives beyond the age of 100 years. Because current average life expectancies across the world are less than 100, the term is invariably associated with longevity. Much rarer, a supercentenarian is a person who has lived to the age of 110 or more, something only...

 is a person who has attained the age of 100 years or more. Research on centenarians is becoming increasingly widespread with clinical and general population studies now having been conducted in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. Centenarians are the fastest-growing demographic in much of the developed world. By 2030 it is expected that there will be around a million centenarians worldwide.

Biochemical factors



Research carried out in Italy suggests that healthy centenarians have high levels of vitamin A
Vitamin A
Vitamin A is a vitamin that is needed by the retina of the eye in the form of a specific metabolite, the light-absorbing molecule retinal, that is necessary for both low-light and color vision...

 and vitamin E
Vitamin E
Vitamin E is used to refer to a group of fat-soluble compounds that include both tocopherols and tocotrienols. There are many different forms of vitamin E, of which γ-tocopherol is the most common in the North American diet. γ-Tocopherol can be found in corn oil, soybean oil, margarine and dressings...

 and that this seems to be important in guaranteeing their extreme longevity. Other research contradicts this and has found that these findings do not apply to centenarians from Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

, for whom other factors probably play a more important role. A preliminary study carried out in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 showed that, in comparison with young healthy female adults, centenarians living in Upper Silesia
Upper Silesia
Upper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, the Piast Kingdom of Poland, again of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as of...

 had significantly higher red blood cell glutathione reductase
Glutathione reductase
Glutathione reductase, also known as GSR or GR, is an enzyme that reduces glutathione disulfide to the sulfhydryl form GSH, which is an important cellular antioxidant....

 and catalase
Catalase
Catalase is a common enzyme found in nearly all living organisms that are exposed to oxygen, where it catalyzes the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide to water and oxygen...

 activities and higher, although insignificantly, serum levels of vitamin E
Vitamin E
Vitamin E is used to refer to a group of fat-soluble compounds that include both tocopherols and tocotrienols. There are many different forms of vitamin E, of which γ-tocopherol is the most common in the North American diet. γ-Tocopherol can be found in corn oil, soybean oil, margarine and dressings...

. Researchers in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 have also found that centenarians exhibit a high activity of glutathione reductase
Glutathione reductase
Glutathione reductase, also known as GSR or GR, is an enzyme that reduces glutathione disulfide to the sulfhydryl form GSH, which is an important cellular antioxidant....

 in red blood cells. In this study, those centenarians having the best cognitive and physical functional capacity tended to have the highest activity of this enzyme
Enzyme
Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...

.

Other research has found that people having parents who became centenarians have an increased number of naïve B-cells.

Genetic factors



Research carried out in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 has found that people are much more likely to celebrate their 100th birthday if their brother or sister has reached the age. These findings, from the New England Centenarian Study
New England Centenarian Study
The New England Centenarian Study is a study of persons aged 100 and over in the Boston area. It is one of the oldest, largest and most prestigious studies in the USA and the world....

 in Boston, suggest that the sibling of a centenarian is four times more likely to live past 90 than the general population. Other research carried out by the New England Centenarian Study has identified 150 genetic variations that appeared to be associated with longevity which could be used to predict with 77 percent accuracy whether someone would live to be at least 100.

Research also suggests that there is a clear link between living to 100 and inheriting a hyperactive version of telomerase, an enzyme that prevents cells from ageing. Scientists from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a graduate school of Yeshiva University. It is a not-for-profit, private, nonsectarian medical school located on the Jack and Pearl Resnick Campus in the Morris Park neighborhood of the borough of the Bronx of New York City...

 in the US say centenarian Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...

 have this mutant gene.

Many centenarians manage to avoid chronic diseases even after indulging in a lifetime of serious health risks. For example, many people in the New England Centenarian Study experienced a century free of cancer or heart disease despite smoking as many as 60 cigarettes a day for 50 years. The same applies to people from Okinawa in Japan, where around half of supercentenarians had a history of smoking and one-third were regular alcohol drinkers. It is possible that these people may have had genes that protected them from the dangers of carcinogens or the random mutations that crop up naturally when cells divide.

Similarly, centenarian research carried out at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a graduate school of Yeshiva University. It is a not-for-profit, private, nonsectarian medical school located on the Jack and Pearl Resnick Campus in the Morris Park neighborhood of the borough of the Bronx of New York City...

 found that the individuals studied had less than sterling health habits. As a group, for example, they were more obese, more sedentary and exercised less than other, younger cohorts. The researchers also discovered three uncommon genotype similarities among the centenarians: one gene that causes HDL cholesterol to be at levels two- to three-fold higher than average; another gene that results in a mildly underactive thyroid; and a functional mutation in the human growth hormone axis that may be a safeguard from aging-associated diseases
Aging-associated diseases
An aging-associated disease is a disease that is seen with increasing frequency with increasing senescence. Age-associated diseases are to be distinguished from the aging process itself because all adult animals age, but not all adult animals experience all age-associated diseases...

.

It is well known that the children of parents who have a long life are also likely to reach a healthy age, but it is not known why, although the inherited genes are probably important. A variation in the gene FOXO3A
FOXO3A
Forkhead box O3, also known as FOXO3 or FOXO3a, is a human protein encoded by the FOXO3 gene.- Function :FOXO3 belongs to the O subclass of the forkhead family of transcription factors which are characterized by a distinct fork head DNA binding domain. There are three other FoxO family members in...

 is known to have a positive effect on the life expectancy of humans, and is found much more often in people living to 100 and beyond - moreover, this appears to be true worldwide.

Some research suggests that centenarian offspring are more likely to age in better cardiovascular health than their peers.

General observations

Several studies have shown that centenarians have better cardiovascular risk profiles compared to younger old people. The contribution of drug treatments to promote extreme longevity is not confirmed and centenarians in general have needed fewer drugs at younger ages due to a healthy lifestyle.

Ninety percent of the centenarians studied in the New England Centenarian Study
New England Centenarian Study
The New England Centenarian Study is a study of persons aged 100 and over in the Boston area. It is one of the oldest, largest and most prestigious studies in the USA and the world....

 were functionally independent the vast majority of their lives up until the average age of 92 years and seventy-five percent were the same at an average age of 95 years. Similarly, a study of US super-centenarians (age 110 to 119 years) showed that, even at these advanced ages, 40% needed little assistance or were independent.

See also


  • New England Centenarian Study
    New England Centenarian Study
    The New England Centenarian Study is a study of persons aged 100 and over in the Boston area. It is one of the oldest, largest and most prestigious studies in the USA and the world....

  • Okinawa Centenarian Study
    Okinawa Centenarian Study
    The Okinawa Centenarian Study is a study of the elderly people of Okinawa, Japan. The study, funded by Japan's ministry of health, is the largest of its kind ever carried out...

  • Centenarian
    Centenarian
    A centenarian is a person who is or lives beyond the age of 100 years. Because current average life expectancies across the world are less than 100, the term is invariably associated with longevity. Much rarer, a supercentenarian is a person who has lived to the age of 110 or more, something only...


External links

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