Genetic Experts Still Puzzled by Longevity of World's Oldest People - East Idaho News

Genetic Experts Still Puzzled by Longevity of World’s Oldest People

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getty 111414 dnagenetics?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1415972206028iStock/Thinkstock(STANFORD, Calif.) — Since there are fewer than 75 supercentenarians in the world, scientists want to know the secret of their longevity.

Alas, they’re going to have to keep searching for the answer even after the genes of 17 people older than 110-years-old were sequenced.

It turns out that despite a painstaking decoding effort, scientists were unable to find genes that are associated with an extremely long life span.

Stanford University genetics expert Stuart Kim, the study’s co-author, says nonetheless there’s likely a strong genetic component to longevity.

He and co-author Stephen Coles from the Gerontology Research Group in Los Angeles went ahead and published the results anyway in the event that others doing similar research might be able to unlock the secret of supercentenarians.


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