- The secret as to why some people live to 100 whereas others do not may be hidden in the metabolic profiles of centenarians and is established earlier in life.
- A new study found that people who lived to 100 tended to have lower — but not extremely lower — measurements of creatinine, glucose, and uric acid.
- The researchers also discovered that the metabolic profiles of centenarians were already established decades before their 100th year.
A new study has investigated what may be unique about people who live to be 100 years old and beyond. The study’s authors were looking for differences in body function prior to extreme old age that might expand our understanding of aging and longevity.
This makes it the first piece of research to compare blood biomarkers measured at earlier stages of life for people who eventually lived to be centenarians against others who did not.
Their findings indicate that centenarians, by and large, were likely to have lower levels of glucose, creatinine, and uric acid than other people.
The median differences between centenarians and others were small, and centenarians rarely had values at either the low or high end of the healthy ranges, tending to remain in the middle ranges of measurement.
The researchers also found that eventual centenarians had settled into a metabolic profile by age 65, 35 years before reaching the century mark.
The study is published in GeroScience.
Due to improved life expectancies globally, older adults, including people living past the age of 100, are the fastest-growing age group. In 2015, there were nearly half a million centenarians alive, and it is predicted that by 2050 there will be 3.7 million people worldwide who are older than 100.
The study’s authors analyzed data from over 44,000 Swedes enrolled in the population-based AMORIS (Apolipoprotein MOrtality RISk) cohort. They then measured the participants’ biomarkers between 1985 and 1996, and followed these until 2020.
The researchers looked at 12 blood…
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