People age at very different rates, and researchers are increasingly focused not just on living longer, but on staying healthy for longer. A new study presented at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics in Gothenburg suggests that the key may lie in families that repeatedly produce unusually long-lived, healthy people, not just in isolated individuals.
The research builds on earlier findings from the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, where a team led by Prof. Ellen Slagboom found that middle-aged adults whose parents lived longer developed cardiometabolic diseases, meaning conditions linked to the heart and metabolism, on average 13 years later than their partners whose parents died younger. Lead researcher Pascal Puter said this showed that longer healthy years can run across generations.
To dig deeper, the scientists analyzed DNA from 212 sibling groups from longevity families. They identified four genomic regions likely to contain genes linked to long life, narrowing the search from about 20,000 genes to 350. A further analysis found 12 rare genetic mutations that may contribute to longer, healthier lives. One stood out in the CGAS gene, which helps trigger an inflammatory response when DNA appears where it should not inside a cell, such as during viral infection or cell damage.
Puter said people in those families likely carried only one active copy of CGAS instead of two. That appears to reduce inflammation while still preserving enough immune defense to fight infection and repair damage. He said, “We hope this family approach will help us separate environmental factors from those that are truly genetic, especially when it comes to rare mutations,” adding that the CGAS effect in lab experiments had been surprisingly strong.
The researchers cautioned that much more work is needed before drawing conclusions for human health. Shutting down the CGAS pathway entirely could increase vulnerability to infection and cancer, while overactivity could cause chronic inflammation and long-term tissue damage. The next step is testing the mutation in live animals, specifically killifish at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne, Germany, where the fish live only three to nine months. The team will also keep studying the other promising mutations. Conference chair Prof. Alexander Raymond said the findings could help scientists identify the biology behind healthy aging and the factors that may extend everyone’s healthy years.
