Is the secret to longevity hiding in the elderly genes?

C. elegans is a nematode with a size of only 1mm, and that lives around 15 days but has been widely studied, especially for conditions related to metabolism. The development of medications like metformin is commonly used in diabetes treatment stems from findings during the research with these worms. The genes that encode the Insulin Growth Factor (IGF-1) have been found on C. elegans and other living beings, prolonging their lives and possibly including human beings in further studies. All these results led to discovering new knowledge about hormones and diets for us. Most human pathological conditions like metabolic, neurological, and cardiovascular pathologies are not found on these warms, and there must be a reason; this is why constant research is being done to find the answers to all these aging conditions. A group of scientist has said that the secret to longevity should be hidden in the centenarians genes; most of them don’t suffer from the pathologies previously mentioned; hence further investigations need to be made, “From this rare but valuable population, we can gain “insight into the physiology of healthy aging and the development of new therapies to extend the human healthspan” said one of the authors of the study posted on Mother’s Nature Magazine. “Long-lived individuals, through their very existence, have established the physiological feasibility of living beyond the ninth decade in relatively good health and ending life without a period of protracted illness,” was also quoted from the authors. Not only genetics has to be considered to be the central role in longevity, other factors like socioeconomic status, daily habits, lifestyle, and access to health care can also play a part in this, but there is no enough consistency on these circumstances surrounding centenarians hence genetics still considered to play an important role. A study published by the European Journal of Human Genetics found that longevity wasn’t related to the environment; this was determined because they study centenarians that share similar lifestyles with people from their community; however, not everybody lived that long. “Identification of the genetic factors that underlie extreme human lifespan should provide insights into the mechanisms of human longevity and disease resistance,” authors said.

How to know which genes are the ones related to longevity?

Genome-wide association studies or GWAS study genetics variations that could lead to certain conditions like longevity or diseases. It cannot precisely determine which part of the DNA affects health but can highlight a segment of it.  Some segments that control the aging process has been found; however, they haven’t been able to translate this into longevity. The downside of this kind of study is that it is only limited to people from one geographical area, without considering people from other continents. “Extremely long-lived individuals, such as centenarians, compose only a tiny proportion (~0.01 percent to 0.02 percent) of the United States population, but their genes contain a biological blueprint for healthy aging and longevity,” the authors of the study said. This is the central hypothesis that is handled at the moment and motivates researchers to continue with their work. At the moment, what has been done are genomic screens of centenarians and study possibly gene variants that lead to longevity. This test has also been done in animals like warms and mice in years before to study conditions like aging. All these studies done in animals and men are to develop an antiaging drug that can work improving health conditions related to the elderly and provide a better quality of life, similar to the centenarians that can live over 100 years and don’t develop diseases associated with aging.