The death of the world’s oldest person, Maria Branyas Morera, at the age of 117 may have many people pondering the secrets to extraordinary longevity, but scientists say it may be best to avoid taking longevity advice from centenarians themselves.
According to the Guinness World Records website, Branyas believed her longevity came from “order, tranquility, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity and staying away from toxic people”.
However, Richard Faragher, a professor of biogerontology at the University of Brighton, said that scientists are actually still trying to work out why some people live past 100.
Faragher said there are two main theories and they are not mutually exclusive.
The first, he said, was that some individuals were essentially just lucky. In other words, just because centenarians had certain habits didn’t mean those habits drove their longevity—a flaw in logic known as “survival bias.”
“Just because you survived smoking 60 a day doesn’t mean smoking 60 a day is good for you,” Faragher said.
The second theory, he said, was that centenarians had specific genetic characteristics that equipped them to live longer lives—in other words, they were made more robust because of their genetics.
Faragher said both theories, however, resulted in the same warning: “Never, ever take health and lifestyle tips from a centenarian.”
He added: “What you see most of the time with most centenarians – and these are generalizations – is that they don’t need much exercise. Often their diet is quite unhealthy,” noting that some centenarians were also smokers.
“It flies in the face of a lot of epidemiological evidence that we have about how to extend your healthy life expectancy,” he said, adding that one big study found that not smoking, exercising, drinking moderately and eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day can increase life expectancy by up to 14 years.
“The fact that [centenarians] do many of these unhealthy things and still get by [life] say they are either lucky or typically very well endowed [genetically],” he said.
Branyas admitted that luck played a role in her longevity, while her daughter Rosa Moret once attributed it to genetics. “She has never gone to hospital, she has never broken any bones, she is fine, she has no pain,” Moret told Catalan regional television in 2023.
Faragher added that many of the possible reasons why centenarians live longer may actually be examples of reverse causation. For example, the idea that a positive mental outlook can help you live for a very long time may be rooted, at least in part, in people being more gifted because they have better health.
“When was the last time you had a very positive mental attitude and a toothache?” he said.
Faragher added that one problem was that when considering centenarians, there was a tendency to focus on things that could help their survival. “But we don’t consider the disruptors,” he said.
Prof David Gems, a geneticist at University College London, said that while sex was an important factor in longevity – with women aging more slowly than men – he agreed that luck was important, noting that one example was the natural variation in aging rate is.
“I work on nematodes that only live a few weeks,” he said. “The worms are genetically identical to each other, and they are kept under identical conditions, but the first worms die of age at about 10 days, and the last at about 30 days.”
But while a dose of luck at an individual level may help explain why some people live past 100, experts say there are well-known factors that can help improve life expectancy at a population level, including improvements in health care and hygiene.
“From about 100 years ago, what we started to see was that major advances in life expectancy were driven by improvements in reducing the likelihood of children dying,” said David Sinclair, chief executive of the International Longevity Center, which was largely due to was introducing vaccinations and clean water.
“What we’ve had in the last 20 years, and we’re going to see over the next 20 years, is a similar focus in terms of age,” Sinclair said, adding that it includes improvements in flu and shingles vaccines, statins, and other medications that will help increase life expectancy among older people.
But he said governments also needed to act to help individuals make healthier choices – choices that would ultimately help them live longer – adding that many people lived in environments where it was difficult to exercise, eat well or pollution to avoid
Even if one lives in triple figures, it is not necessarily the case that life will be filled with balloons and burning birthday cakes.
As Sinclair said, while news reports about centenarians tended to be optimistic, it often emerged that such individuals faced challenges, such as living alone for many years.
“The reality is not always as positive as it seems,” he said.
