Children of centenarians were 42% less likely to die at any age — across three long studies

Some people reach 100 without developing the diseases that end most lives. Do their children inherit some of that protection? A study published in JAMA Network Open followed three populations for up to 29 years — 2,319 adult children of centenarians, compared with 2,703 people whose parents had shorter lives, drawn from long-running studies at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Boston University, Tufts Medical Center and the UK Biobank. At any given age, the centenarians' offspring were 42% less likely to die, 33% less likely to develop cardiovascular disease and 32% less likely to develop hypertension — and when those conditions did arrive, they came years later. Adjusting for smoking, diet, exercise, alcohol, education and income barely changed the numbers. One surprise: cancer was the exception, where the offspring looked no different — a finding senior author Sofiya Milman said the team did not expect, and a clue for where longevity's protection does and does not reach.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being