Your Gender and Age Play a Role in Longevity– New Study Shows

A joint research study published in the journal Science has presented evidence that longevity genetics are influenced by both age and gender. Similarly, another paper published in the same journal by Joao Pedro de Magalhaes from the University of Birmingham highlights the technical challenges that the team faced with understanding how aging works, as well as the work they carried out on the new project. 

Despite several years of studying the aging process, scientists have yet to come up with a clear explanation as to why organisms age, and why some organisms live longer than others. In this new study, researchers analyzed the genome of mice and humans and tried to determine whether something in them plays a crucial role in how long a species lives on average.  

The researchers (who were a joint team of scientists from Switzerland and the United States) conducted quantitative trait locus mapping on a large aging dataset of nearly 3000 mice that was gathered by a previous team. They discovered multiple loci that they associated with longevity, with some being specific to one or the other gender. 

They also observed that mice that weighed more in their early years had smaller litter sizes, and also died at a much younger age. 

They, therefore, suggest that the same genes associated may play a role in determining the other two traits. They also observed that isolated age-related genes remained dormant until the later stages of an organism’s life. 

The researchers further examined data available in public biobanks and discovered that human genes behaved in a similar manner to the age-associated genes in mice. They also observed similar genes in a unique type of worm and discovered that disabling these genes influenced longevity. 

In conclusion, this research study plays a vital role in proving that humans and other animals have genes that influence their longevity.