"But Alon, who co-authored the research, and his colleagues said such figures were underestimates. I hope this will inspire researchers to make a deep search for the genes that impact lifespan, Alon said. These genes will tell us the mechanisms that govern our internal clocks. These can one day be turned into therapy to slow down the rate of ageing and in that way slow down all age-related disease at once."
"Now scientists think they may have unlocked a key secret to long life quite simply, genetics. The team looked at heritability, the proportion of change in a characteristic such as height, body weight or lifespan within a population that can be attributed to genetics rather than environmental factors. Previous studies for human lifespan have thrown up a wide range of values with heritability ranging from 6% of the variation to 33%."
Previous heritability estimates for human lifespan ranged from about 6% to 33%, largely because deaths caused by external factors obscured genetic effects. A mathematical model that accounts for extrinsic mortality and biological ageing was created and calibrated using correlations of lifespan from historical twin datasets in Denmark and Sweden. Removing the impact of extrinsic mortality revealed a stronger genetic signal underlying biological ageing. The adjusted analysis indicates roughly half of the variation in human lifespan is due to genetics. Identification of those genes could reveal ageing mechanisms and point to therapies that slow ageing and age-related disease.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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