The science that could help you live to 100 – Wired.co.uk

In the early 1990s, Tom Perls met two people who would change his life. Perls, then a gerontology fellow at Harvard Medical School, was visiting Bostons Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for Ageing and needed to see a couple of patients who just happened to be over 100. But he couldnt find them in their rooms. He eventually tracked down one patient, a 103-year-old woman. She was busy playing Chopin and Mozart on the piano. Perls other patient, a 101-year-old former tailor, was discovered in the occupational health room mending his housemates clothes.

They totally surprised me and thats when the epiphany happened, says Perls, who is now based at Boston University. These folks seemed to be ageing incredibly slowly compared to other people. He wanted to figure out their longevity secrets and vowed to find as many other centenarians as he could. The project became the New England Centenarian Study, the worlds largest study of exceptionally old people.

Centenarians are less rare than they used to be. In the UK, there were 15,120 centenarians alive in 2020 (almost double the figure in 2002), according to the Office for National Statistics. But becoming eligible for a birthday letter from the Queen is still a remarkable feat. We spoke to longevity experts about the science that might help all of us get there and the misconceptions about ageing you should stop believing.

Myth: Theres an evolutionary reason for ageing

To figure out how to slow (or even stop) ageing, we need to know why our bodies do it in the first place. But biologist Cathy Slack from Aston University, says scientists just arent sure yet. From a purely theoretical perspective, theres no beneficial reason to age, she says. We used to think ageing resulted from a buildup of reactive oxygen species (free radicals) which caused molecular damage, but recent research suggests this is unlikely to be the full story. The current most popular explanation is that ageing is an unwanted side effect of biological processes that promote growth and reproduction in our younger years, says Slack.

After a certain point, the same mechanisms that once made us fitter start making us sicker and the body fails to turn them off. Scientists call this the hyperfunction theory of ageing. Its like a tap being left on, says Slack. You need to fill the bath, but if you leave the tap on, the water overflows and you flood your bathroom.

Myth: Old age automatically means poor health

Findings from Perls study of centenarians showed the pianist and the tailor werent outliers. People who make it to 100 arent just long-living, they tend to avoid serious illness until the final chapter of their lives. His participants medical histories suggest there are three broad categories of centenarian. Around 43 percent are delayers who dont exhibit age-related diseases until they reach their eighties. Another 42 percent are survivors who live with chronic disease from their 60s and 70s but it doesnt kill them. The remaining 15 percent or so are escapers - those with no clinically demonstrable disease at 100 years and over.

Its true that age is a major risk factor for many serious illnesses such as heart disease, dementia and diabetes. But Perls believes the old adage the older you get, the sicker you get is false. He prefers to think of it as the older you get, the healthier youve been.

Myth: Theres nothing you can do to prevent death

Its likely that centenarians, and especially super-centenarians (people who live to 110 and over) have genetic variants which protect them from age-related disease, says Perls. But genetics isnt the full picture when it comes to longevity. In fact, research suggests only about 25 per cent of the variation in human lifespan is down to genes. Health-related behaviours and the environment make up the lions share.

Just look to Californias Seventh Day Adventists, says Perls. People from this Christian denomination tend to live up to a decade longer than the average Californian. They dont smoke, drink, or eat meat, which might explain it. Perls thinks most of us could make it into our nineties simply by following a reasonably healthy lifestyle from middle age.

Nutritional epidemiologist Frank Hu, from Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, agrees. His research, published in the British Medical Journal in 2020, uncovered five lifestyle factors that could gift you ten extra years of life. People whod never smoked, didnt drink much, had a normal BMI, exercised for around 30 minutes a day, and ate a high-quality diet expanded not only their lifespan but also the number of years they lived without serious diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. The findings are cause for optimism, says Hu. You dont need to go vegan or run a marathon. Small healthy tweaks might extend your life significantly.

Stopping senescence could be key to living long

Other longevity research zooms in on a type of cell that accumulates in our tissues as we get older. These cells no longer multiply, but they also refuse to die. Biologists once dismissed these zombies, called senescent cells, as irrelevant to health and disease. But some researchers now believe manipulating them could be key to better ageing. Biochemist Judith Campisi from the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in California found senescent cells ooze inflammatory proteins that damage tissue and halt surrounding cells from carrying out their normal processes. Removing them from the body might therefore slow down age-related decline.

In James Kirklands laboratory at Mayo Clinic, Minnesota, mice given drugs called senolytics, which selectively kill these senescent cells, survived for longer than normal and showed delayed onset of multiple conditions usually associated with ageing. Several biotech companies, such as Unity Biotechnology, have since set their sights on senolytics as a potential fountain of youth.

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The science that could help you live to 100 - Wired.co.uk