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Centenarians and the Genetics of Longevity

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The Molecular Genetics of Aging

Part of the book series: Results and Problems in Cell Differentiation ((RESULTS,volume 29))

Abstract

People have always been fascinated with extreme longevity. The ability to achieve extreme old age has been viewed as a miracle, as in the case of Methuselah, who lived 969 years, and as a curse in the case of Jonathan Swift’s strudleburgs, in his book Gulliver’s Travels. Claims of supercentenarians (age greater than 110 years) still capture the attention of the popular media and are accepted as valid without further investigation. Scientists and the lay public usually ask, “What’s their trick?”, expecting or perhaps hoping that there is a magic environmental factor that can be manipulated into a fountain of youth. Unsubstantiated and dangerous promises of eternal youth by antiaging practitioners who sell $20,000-per-year regimens of human growth hormone also profit from the belief held by many that immortality is a simple game of resetting the endocrinologic thermostat.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gerontology Division, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Division on Aging, 330 Brookline Ave, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Thomas Perls, Dellara F. Terry, Margery Silver, Maureen Shea, Jennifer Bowen & Erin Joyce

  2. Department of Medicine, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Stephen B. Ridge

  3. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Division on Aging, 330 Brookline Ave, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Ruth Fretts

  4. Center for Genome Research at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, One Kendall Square, Building 300, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    Mark Daly

  5. Genetics Division, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 300 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Stephanie Brewster, Annibale Puca & Louis Kunkel

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  1. Thomas Perls
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  2. Dellara F. Terry
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  3. Margery Silver
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  4. Maureen Shea
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  7. Stephen B. Ridge
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  10. Stephanie Brewster
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  1. Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205 Ave. Docteur Penfield, H3A 1B1, Montréal, Quebec, Canada

    Siegfried Hekimi

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Perls, T. et al. (2000). Centenarians and the Genetics of Longevity. In: Hekimi, S. (eds) The Molecular Genetics of Aging. Results and Problems in Cell Differentiation, vol 29. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-48003-7_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-48003-7_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-53686-1

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