Finally, secret to live 100 years revealed

London: Scientists have cracked the secret of why some people live a healthy and physically independent life over the age of 100: long telemores and low inflammation.

For the first time, a team of experts from Newcastle University’s Institute for Ageing and Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, explored which biological and pathological processes may be the most important for successful ageing after 100 years of age.

They identified that to live past the age of 100 you must keep inflammation down in the body and telemores  long  hich are the part of human cells that affect how our cells age.

Severe inflammation is part of many diseases in the old, such as diabetes or diseases attacking the bones or the body’s joints, and chronic inflammation can develop from any of them.

“Centenarians and supercentenarians are different - put simply, they age slower. They can ward off diseases for much longer than the general population,” said Professor Thomas von Zglinicki. In groups of people aged 105 and over (semi-supercentenarians), those between 100 and 104 age groups, the team measured a number of health markers which they believe contribute towards successful ageing, including blood cell numbers, metabolism,  inflammation and telemore length.

Scientists, however, found that the children of centenarians, who have a good chance of becoming centenarians themselves, maintained their telomeres at a ‘youthful’ level corresponding to about 60 years of age.