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Offspring of centenarians have genetic advantages
- BMc2020 4y agoAccording to Heinlein, the Howard Foundation was started in the 19th century by Ira Howard, a millionaire dying of old age in his forties, for the purpose of extending human lifespan. Howard himself did not live to see the outcome; he simply endowed the experiment with his own fortune, and the trustees of the Howard Foundation used the limited scientific knowledge of the time to create a selective breeding human program to encourage, financially, people of long-lived ancestry to have children together. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_families https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_families
- paulpauper 4y agoCentenarians exhibit extreme longevity and compression of morbidity and have a unique genetic signature, and their offspring seem to inherit their compression of morbidity, as measured by lower rates of age-related pathologies. The aim therefore of the work carried out by the team headed by José Viña has been to determine if the offspring of centenarians are less frail and if a “centenarian genetic footprint” exists. Isn't that what we would expect. Extreme longevity is understood to be strongly heritable.