Longevity gene link also keeps mind clear

There are about 70,000 centenarians in the U.S. today.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
A gene variation that's been linked to living a very long life also serves to help very old people think clearly and retain their memories into their 90s and beyond, according to a new study published Tuesday.
The gene variant alters cholesterol particles in the blood, making them bigger than normal. Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York City believe that this gives people with the genetic tweak an advantage, since smaller particles can more easily lodge themselves in blood vessel linings, leading to the fatty buildups that cause heart attacks and strokes.
For the study, published in the journal Neurology, a team led by Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging at Einstein, examined 158 people of Ashkenazi Jewish (Eastern European) descent who were 95 or older.
Compared with elderly subjects who lacked the gene variant, those who had it were twice as likely to have good brain function, based on standard test scores. The researchers found the same sort of pattern when they studied a group of 124 Ashkenazi Jews who were between 75 and 85.
Among centenarians, they were three times more likely to possess the gene variant than a control group representative of the general population and also had considerably larger-sized particles of both "bad" low-density cholesterol and "good" high-density lipoproteins.
Quotable
"It's possible that this gene variant also protects against the development of Alzheimer's disease," said Barzilai. "Without good brain function, living to age 100 is not an attractive proposition," he said.
He noted that most studies have been focused on identifying risk factors associated with developing age-related diseases, but "little effort has been made to identify the reasons for longevity in exceptionally old people, and why they don't develop disease."
In the new study, "we've shown that the same gene variant that helps people live to exceptional ages has the added benefit of helping them think clearly for most of their long lives," Barzilai said.
Currently, about one in 10,000 people in the general population lives to the age of 100. But the number of centenarians in the U.S. is growing rapidly.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, during the 1990s, the ranks of centenarians nearly doubled, from about 37,000 counted at the start of the decade, to more than an estimated 70,000 today. And analysts at the Census suggest that this per-decade doubling trend may continue, with the centenarian population possibly reaching 834,000 by the middle of the next century.
Barzilai said he and colleagues continue to study the gene variation, with the aim of developing drugs that might mimic its salutary effect on the circulatory system.