United States

OBJECTIVES: To assess the cause of death for centenarians' offspring and controls. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Community-based, nationwide sample. PARTICIPANTS: Family pedigree information was collected on 295 offspring of centenarians (from 106 families with a parent already enrolled in the nationwide New England Centenarian Study) and on 276 controls (from 82 control families) from 1997 to 2000. Controls were individuals whose parents were born in the same year as the centenarians but at least one of whom died at the average life expectancy.

Identifying the factors that contribute to long and healthy life can lead to improved interventions that can help delay or prevent the onset of major aging-related diseases and disabilities and increase the time that older persons spend in good health. Studies on longevity and other exceptional survival outcomes can contribute to this knowledge.

BACKGROUND: Asian Indian women have a higher rate of coronary artery disease (CAD) than do other ethnic groups, despite similar conventional risk factors and lipid profiles. Smaller high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) particle size is associated with reduced cardiac protection or even an increased risk of CAD. Exceptional longevity correlates better with larger HDL-C particle sizes.

The exceptional longevity of centenarians is due in part to inherited genetic factors, as deduced from data that show that first degree relatives of centenarians live longer and have reduced overall mortality. In recent years, a number of groups have performed genetic association studies on long-living individuals (LLI) and young controls to identify alleles that are either positively or negatively selected in the centenarian population as consequence of a demographic pressure. Many of the reported studies have shown genetic loci associated with longevity.

BACKGROUND: Identification of gene variants that contribute to exceptional survival may provide critical biologic information that informs optimal health across the life span. METHODS: As part of phenotype development efforts for the Long Life Family Study, endophenotypes that represent exceptional survival were identified and heritability estimates were calculated. Principal components (PCs) analysis was carried out using 28 physiologic measurements from five trait domains (cardiovascular, cognition, physical function, pulmonary, and metabolic).

This consensus statement summarizes key contemporary research themes relevant to understanding the psychology and socioculture of sport injury. Special consideration is given toward high-intensity sport in which elite athlete training and performance efforts are characterized by explosive physical speed and strength, mental fortitude to push physical limits, and maximum effort and commitment to highly challenging goals associated with achieving exceptional performance.

Mortality hazard and length of time until death are widely used as health outcome measures and are themselves of fundamental demographic interest. Considerable research has asked whether labor force retirement reduces subsequent health and its mortality measures. Previous studies have reported positive, negative, and null effects of retirement on subsequent longevity and mortality hazard, but inconsistent findings are difficult to resolve because (1) nearly all data confound retirement with unemployment of older workers, and often, (2) endogeneity bias is rarely addressed analytically.

OBJECTIVES: To characterize the social characteristics and physical, functional, mental, and cognitive health of exceptional survivors in the United States and how the experience of exceptional longevity differs according to social status. DESIGN: Nationally representative longitudinal study of older Americans. SETTING: United States. PARTICIPANTS: One thousand six hundred forty-nine men and women born from 1900 to 1911 from the Health and Retirement Study: 1,424 nonsurvivors who died before reaching the age of 97 and 225 exceptional survivors who survived to age 97 and older.

OBJECTIVES: To test whether lower serum uric acid (UA) levels are associated with longevity independent of renal function. DESIGN: Cross-sectional cohort study. SETTING: Ashkenazi Jewish individuals with exceptional longevity (Longevity Genes Project at Albert Einstein College of Medicine). PARTICIPANTS: Long-lived individuals (LLI) of Ashkenazi Jewish ethnicity (mean age ± standard deviation 97.7 ± 2.9, n = 365), their offspring (mean age ± standard deviation 68.2 ± 8.2, n = 593) and controls (without family history of longevity, mean age ± standard deviation 72.5 ± 9.9, n = 356).