Interviewing Thomas Perls
The MIT Technology Review is running an interview with researcher Thomas Perls on his centenarian study and the forthcoming Long Life Family Study: "Not only do these people live long, but many of them seem to escape the disability associated with diseases of aging or to compress that disability period into a short time span very late in life. ... I think genes that modulate risk for heart disease will be very important. That's still the number-one killer, even among the very old. In addition, more and more scientific studies show that fat metabolism will play a big role. ... We previously found that centenarians were more likely to have a certain variant of the gene for microsomal transfer protein, which plays a role in packaging cholesterol. However, subsequent studies have had different results. ... That shows how important it is to confirm results in different populations and suggests that the importance of various genetic longevity factors varies from one population to another."
Link: http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=17193