No one can evade death forever, but some people are mysteriously good at it.
While the average human life lasts about seven decades, a few sturdy souls press on to become centenarians – people who live for at least a century. About one in 1,000 centenarians will survive an additional decade, earning the elite title of 'supercentenarian' upon reaching their 110th birthday.
Scientists are understandably fascinated by these notable survivors, who may hold valuable secrets about longevity. Research has yielded lots of clues, including links to genes as well as to behavior and environment, but clear answers remain elusive.
That may be partly due to inadequate data, according to the authors of an ongoing longitudinal study on centenarians and supercentenarians in Brazil.
While Brazil's average life expectancy may not rival those of more notable countries like Japan or Italy, it does have a large portion of centenarians, the researchers note.
In a new viewpoint article, they synthesize recent discoveries about biological distinctions of centenarians – including data from their cohort in Brazil, where the abundance of centenarians in a genetically diverse population may offer key insights about human longevity.
Previous research has largely relied on genomic data from relatively homogenous populations, especially compared with Brazil.
With little representation from such diverse populations, there's a gap in our knowledge that could hinder efforts to find mechanisms behind longevity.
"This gap is especially limiting in longevity research, where admixed supercentenarians may harbor unique protective variants invisible in more genetically homogeneous populations," says first author and gerontologist Mateus Vidigal de Castro, a researcher at the Human Genome and Stem Cell Research Center in São Paulo.
This includes Indigenous people as well as Portuguese colonists who began arriving in 1500, but also millions of enslaved Africans taken to Brazil in the following centuries, plus waves of immigration from Europe, Japan, and elsewhere.