Wire: BLOOMBERG News (BN) Date: Aug 3 2011 0:01:01
Living to 100 May Rely More on Genes Than Lifestyle, Study Finds

By Oliver Renick
Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- People who live 95 years or more are
as likely as the rest of the population to smoke, drink and eat
an unhealthy diet, suggesting their survival to that ripe age is
based on genetics and not lifestyle, researchers found.
Scientists studied 477 Ashkenazi Jews who were 95 years and
older, picking that population for their similar genetic makeup.
Along with the lifestyle findings, the researchers discovered
shared genetic mutations that may have helped the group survive,
and could be the basis for further scientific study, said Nir
Barzilai, lead author for the study published today in the
journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
One of these mutations controls a protein known as CETP, or
cholesteryl ester transfer protein, which raised the amount of
beneficial cholesterol in their body, the report said. Another
variant affected metabolism.
“To be 100, you need genetic help,” said Barzilai,
director of the Longevity Gene Project at Yeshiva University’s
Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, in a telephone
interview. “They didn’t do anything special as a group.”
The average age of Barzilai’s group was 97, and most
participants from the regular population died at the age of 75.
Barzilai and researchers used interviews and blood tests to
determine the health of the participants’ lifestyles.
People who live to age 100 or older make up about 0.1
percent of the 40 million U.S. adults ages 65 and older,
according to the Census Bureau.

Fatter, More Alcohol

The elderly group showed higher rates of daily alcohol
consumption and fattier diets than 3,000 people who died earlier
and were interviewed at an average of 70, studied in a previous
report. About the same percentage of people in each group were
smokers or overweight, according to the study.
Among long-living men, 24 percent consumed alcohol daily,
compared with 22 percent of the 70-year-olds, and 43 percent
regularly exercised, compared with 57 percent of the younger men.
Of elderly women, 35 percent attempted a low-fat diet, compared
with 39 percent of the 70-year-old group.
“You want everybody to be 100,” Barzilai said. “The
medical cost of that last two years of life of someone who dies
at 100 is a third of the last two years of life of somebody who
dies at 70.”