Centenarian Offspring A Model Of Successful Aging

The New England Centenarian Study (NECS), which was started in 1995, is a population-based nationwide study of centenarians based at Boston University Medical Center. With signifi cant evidence pointing to a strong familial component to longevity, the NECS expanded its recruitment to include the offspring of centenarians and comparison groups. Similarly, the Ashkenazi Jewish Centenarian Study (a component of which is the Longevity Genes Project [LGP]) based at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine, focuses on centenarians of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and their family members, including the offspring of centenarians. Numerous centenarian studies have demonstrated a substantial familial component to longevity that is related to both genes and exposure. Parents of centenarians live longer; the mean age of survival for the mothers and fathers of centenarians is 10 to 15 years longer than the average life expectancy for the time (Perls, Bochen, Freeman, Alpert, & Silver, 1999). Siblings of centenarians also live longer (Willcox, Willcox, He, Curb, & Suzuki, 2006); female siblings are 8 times as likely and male siblings are 17 times as likely to live to age 100 compared to the average for their United States birth cohort (Perls