NEW EVIDENCE THAT PROTECTIVE EFFECTS OF FAMILIAL LONGEVITY EXPIRE AT OLDER AGES

• Published in: Innovation in aging 2017-07, Vol.1 (suppl_1), p.896-896
• Main Authors: Gavrilov, L.A., Gavrilova, N.S., Krut’ko, V.N.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Abstracts
• ISSN: 2399-5300; 2399-5300
• DOI: 10.1093/geroni/igx004.3215

This study presents new findings that challenge a common belief in sustained protective effects of familial longevity during the human life course. We found that the survival advantage of biological relatives of long-living individuals vanishes at older ages, suggesting that protective effects of longevity-assurance genes disappear at age 95–100 years. We compared survival patterns of 3,664 siblings of U.S. centenarians with survival of a control group of 4,078 siblings of shorter-lived individuals (died at age 65 years). Survival analysis after age 40 years was conducted separately for 4,201 male and 3,541 female siblings born in 1886–1896. Although siblings of long-lived individuals have lower mortality at younger ages compared to siblings of shorter-lived individuals, their actuarial aging rate (rate of mortality growth with age) is consistently higher, so that their survival advantage practically disappears at older ages. To validate these findings, we analyzed data on survival of 3,408 U.S. centenarians born in 1890–97 with known information on maternal and paternal lifespan. We found that indeed both maternal and paternal longevity (lifespan 90+ years) have no protective effect on survival after age 100 years. These findings challenge predictions of the mutation accumulation theory of aging about higher survival advantage at older ages associated with familial longevity due to lower load of late-acting deleterious mutations. Our findings are compatible with predictions of the reliability theory of aging suggesting higher initial levels of system redundancy (reserves) in individuals with protective familial/genetic background. Supported by the National Institute on Aging (R01 AG028620 to L.G.).