Genes found to play an underestimated role in determining longevity

Tel Aviv (dpa) – People are twice as likely to inherit their lifespan than was previously thought, according to a team of researchers led by scientists at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. The "genetic contribution" to how long a person lives is around 50%, the team found, following a trawl of health databases in Denmark and Sweden. Published in the journal Science, the results could “have far-reaching implications for ageing research and public health,” according to the Weizmann Institute, whose scientists teamed up with the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and Leiden University to conduct the research. For decades, many scientists believed the input of genes and ancestry to longevity to be anything from around 10% to perhaps 25% – underestimations arising from limited historic health and mortality data. "For many years, human lifespan was thought to be shaped almost entirely by non-genetic factors, which led to considerable skepticism about the role of genetics in aging and about the feasibility of identifying genetic determinants of longevity," said Weizimann's Ben Shenhar. Mortality due to war, infectious diseases, the effects of physical or unsafe work, accidents, poor diet, lack of medical care and other such "extrinsic" causes were not always easy to pick out in records. "Environmental forces, such as disease or living conditions, exert a powerful influence on how long someone lives and often obscure or confound potential genetic effects," said the American Association for the Advancement of Science/AAAS, the journal's publisher. Hereditary causes of death – for those who do not get killed first by extrinsic causes – mean "processes originating within the body, including genetic mutations, age-related diseases, and the decline of physiological function with age," the researchers said. "If heritability is high, as we have shown, this creates an incentive to search for gene variants that extend lifespan, in order to understand the biology of aging and, potentially, to address it therapeutically," said Shenar. Other recent research has pointed to a potential role for taurine, an amino acid, in slowing the aging process. Still other scientists have pointed to the 200-year lifespan of the bowhead whale, a longevity that has been put down to the Arctic giant having a protein in its cells that protects from carcinogenic mutations. The following information is not intended for publication dpa spr coh

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)