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Wanted: 95-year-olds who’ve won the genetic lottery — and can help unlock the mysteries of healthy longevity.
The SuperAgers Family Study aims to look at those who are 95 or older and their children to determine what genetic strengths they possess to ward off typical age-related diseases.
Unlocking the key to these so-called superagers’ success could save billions of dollars for the healthcare system and create treatments for disease prevention or to help those grappling with disease, according to Sofiya Milman, the study’s principal investigator.
Many superagers delay the onset of most age-associated diseases by decades as compared with the general population, and many remain disease-free through their entire lifetimes, Milman said.
“Older age is associated with debilitating health status and issues that spring up on us as we age. Superagers — by 20 to 30 years — delay the onset of age-related diseases,” Milman said. “Aging and developing age-related diseases is not inevitable but most of us didn’t win the genetic lottery.”
The researchers anticipate that the study will provide answers to many critical questions such as whether superagers lack genetic variants that predispose some people to chronic diseases, or whether there are genetic variants that protect against chronic diseases or slow the aging process.
“A lot of other research has shown that genetics plays a role. Lifestyle is also important, but we’re finding that not all superagers have perfect lifestyles. Genetics is the key that is stronger, we believe. Some superagers are thriving in spite of their lifestyle,” Milman said.
In addition to the superagers themselves, the study seeks to look at their offspring, as well as the spouses of the offspring. The offspring will help determine if having a parent with an exceptional lifespan means they also are enriched with longevity-supportive genetic variants. Meanwhile, the children-in-law will serve as a comparison group without a genetic predisposition for longevity.
“We’re interested in getting as many ‘triads’ as possible,” Milman said of the grouping of the older adult, their child and the child’s spouse.
So far the study has enrolled about 340 participants, half of whom are superagers and half their offspring. Ultimately, the study aims to enroll 10,000 participants over the next two years.
The SuperAgers initiative will be launching a national campaign through traditional media, as well as social media, to help find participants. To participate in the study, go to superagersstudy.org. “We’re really looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Milman.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, superagers account for less than 0.2% of the U.S. population.
The study has tried to learn from past research how make this effort as simple as possible in terms of time required, ease and convenience of the study. The study is all remote, allowing superagers and their children to participate from home and complete a questionnaire and mail in a saliva sample in a kit provided to them. There are no follow-up tests needed.
“It’s an opportunity for people to become ‘citizen scientists,’ ” Milman said.
Also, the study will provide free ancestry information to those who want it.
The questionnaire asks about participants’ activity level now and when they were younger, sleep habits and other lifestyle factors. “We want to try to learn as much about them as possible,” Milman said.
Superagers who have been looked at in other, smaller studies have shown a delay in the onset of disease, a tendency to be more positive in older age, as well as more optimistic, along with lower levels of growth hormones. This larger SuperAgers study is necessary because the other studies were too small to draw statistical conclusions, Milman said.
The SuperAgers initiative is led by the American Federation for Aging Research and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in collaboration with the Boston University School of Medicine. The initiative will share data with the National Institutes of Health so that it’s available to other researchers, Milman said.
