Children of Centenarians May Inherit Health and Longevity

A tiny proportion of people possess a remarkable capacity for long life – just around 0.01 percent of the global population.

These people are known as centenarians: individuals who reach the age of 100. Their lives have long been a focus of scientific research.

Researchers are gradually uncovering what may lie behind their extraordinary longevity.

Yet many questions remain unanswered.

One of them concerns their children. Do centenarians pass this apparent superpower on to the next generation?

A new study published in JAMA Network Open set out to investigate that question.

"We wanted to know whether they pass their good health and longevity down to their children," says geneticist Sofiya Milman from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York.

"And, if so, whether those advantages can be explained by healthy habits or whether something more fundamental, like genetics, is at work."

Centenarian offspring and longer, healthier lives

Milman and her colleagues examined information from three distinct long-term studies. Together, these included more than 2,300 offspring of centenarians and over 1,700 people whose parents had not lived exceptionally long lives, who served as the control group.

"To our knowledge, this is the most comprehensive study to date" to examine the links between parental longevity and children's health, the researchers write in their paper.

Across each of the three cohorts, the analysis found that centenarian offspring had a lower likelihood of dying than the controls. They also faced reduced risks of cardiovascular disease and hypertension. In two cohorts, their risk of stroke was lower too.

These differences were substantial. At any particular age, children of centenarians had a 32 percent lower risk of hypertension, a 33 percent lower risk of cardiovascular disease, and a 42 percent lower risk of death.

When the offspring of centenarians did experience ill health, it generally emerged later than it did among comparable control participants. Hypertension began roughly five years later, while death was delayed by an estimated three years relative to controls.

"The overall consistency of these findings across these quite different studies was especially noteworthy and reinforces the idea that exceptional longevity runs in families," says aging researcher and first author Eric Reed from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Cancer risk and the role of lifestyle

Notably, the findings did not show a significant reduction in cancer risk among children of centenarians.

The team suggests that centenarian offspring could be more resistant to cancer and therefore have lower cancer mortality, even without a lower rate of cancer occurrence.

Another possibility is that their better health is partly associated with more frequent cancer screening. This could identify lower-risk cancers that do not influence mortality.

The researchers point out that environmental and behavioural influences – including diet, education, socioeconomic status and tobacco use – are known to affect the risk of age-related illnesses. However, their analysis found that centenarian offspring retained their protection from disease when controls were matched for these factors.

This may suggest that environmental influences have a smaller effect on the health of people genetically related to centenarians, although that interpretation has its limits.

"This is not to say that lifestyle doesn't count – healthy behaviors remain important for everyone," Reed says.

"But some people from families with exceptional longevity appear to enjoy biological advantages that help them remain healthy despite the environmental and behavioral factors that affect us all."

The findings are reported in JAMA Network Open.

This article was fact-checked and edited by Clare Watson. Although we take pride in our process, we are only human. If you notice an error, please let us know.