(Genetic) Epidemiology of Aging

Longevity is usually defined as age at death or survival to an exceptional age, such as 90 years or older or even 100 years or older. In the past century, most Western countries have experienced substantial increases in life expectancy. This has been mostly due to a marked reduction in early life mortality during the first half of the twentieth century, followed by an almost twofold reduction in mortality at ages above 70 years in the past 50 years (Figure 1; source: CBS). Longevity is a complex phenotype to which both environmental factors such as lifestyle and genetic factors are known to contribute. The genetic contribution to age at death has been estimated to range from 15 to 25%, and up to 40% for reaching longevity, suggesting a significant but relatively modest genetic contribution to the human lifespan. However, the clustering of extreme ages in families and the increased relative risk of survival to old age amongst the siblings of nonagenarians and of centenarians (100+) suggest that the genetic factors play a much stronger role as the phenotype becomes more extreme. While environmental factors affecting longevity include smoking, alcohol consumption, diastolic blood pressure and C-reactive protein, APOE and FOXO3 remain the only genes consistently associated with longevity.

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