Beyond 110: How Supercentenarians Actively Resist Aging

 I'm going to easily get there even after my stroke at 50, now 69.

Beyond 110: How Supercentenarians Actively Resist Aging

Supercentenarians individuals aged 110 years or older — do not merely survive to extreme old age; they actively resist the hallmarks of aging. A new Brazilian study of more than 100 centenarians, including 20 supercentenarians, offers insights into the genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors that promote exceptional longevity and could inform interventions to extend health span in the general population.

Exceptional Resilience

“The convergence of robust immune cell function, preserved protein maintenance systems, and systemic physiological integrity makes supercentenarians an exceptional model for studying biological resilience in healthy aging. Rather than merely surviving to extreme old age, these individuals actively resist the hallmarks of aging, offering insights that could reshape our understanding of longevity and inform future interventions to extend health span,” wrote researchers at the Human Genome and Stem Cell Research Center, University of São Paulo, in São Paulo, Brazil, in Genomic Psychiatry, explaining why supercentenarians represent an invaluable resource for the scientific community.

Centenarian Demographics

Centenarians are individuals who have reached at least 100 years of age. Supercentenarians are those aged 110 years or older. According to data from the Italian National Institute of Statistics, as of January 1, 2025, Italy was home to 23,548 centenarians, over 2000 more than the previous year. Most were women (83%).

Semi supercentenarians aged 105-109 years numbered 724, of whom 90.7% were women. Only 19 supercentenarians were living in Italy, and consistent with the female longevity advantage, just one was male.

Italy’s oldest living man is a resident of Basilicata who has surpassed 111 years of age. The country’s oldest living woman, residing in Campania, is 115 years old. The world’s longest-lived man is currently João Marinho Neto, aged 113 years and living in Brazil, and among women, Ethel Caterham, aged 116 years and living in the United Kingdom. The longest-lived person ever recorded was Jeanne Calment from Arles, France, who died in 1997 at the age of 122 years. Extreme human longevity suggests the existence of protective genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors that promote resilience and adaptation across the life course.

“The presence of protective genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors could promote resilience and adaptation throughout life. These factors may guide the development of more effective preventive and therapeutic strategies for healthy aging in the general population and improve specific health care for older adults,” the authors wrote.

Genetic Diversity

According to the authors, the Brazilian population offers a uniquely powerful setting for longevity research because Brazil has one of the highest levels of genetic diversity worldwide, shaped by the admixture of Indigenous peoples with early Portuguese colonizers, enslaved Africans, and later immigrants arriving in the 20th century, including Europeans, particularly Italians, Germans, and Portuguese, as well as Japanese populations.

This genetic heterogeneity, the authors argue, creates unparalleled opportunities to uncover protective mechanisms against aging that may be missed in more homogeneous cohorts.

The researchers collected clinical data and biological samples from more than 100 centenarians, including 20 supercentenarians, living in different regions of Brazil, and representing diverse social, cultural, and environmental backgrounds.

“Notably, at the time of contact with our researchers, some Brazilian supercentenarians were lucid and independent in basic daily activities, such as feeding themselves,” the authors noted.

Familial Longevity

Another major strength of the cohort is the inclusion of exceptional familial cases that offer valuable insights into the heritability of longevity. One remarkable example is a 109-year-old woman whose nieces are aged 100, 104, and 106 years, representing one of Brazil’s longest-lived families ever documented. “Investigating such rare familial clusters offers a rare window into the polygenic inheritance of resilience and may help disentangle the genetic and epigenetic contributions to extreme longevity,” the researchers wrote.

Finally, because many participants lacked access to modern medicine, the cohort provides a rare scientific opportunity to investigate resilience and immune resistance factors in a typically underrepresented group, offering a rare opportunity to investigate resilience mechanisms that extend beyond medical intervention.

“These discoveries may contribute to the development of improved therapeutic strategies and precision medicine approaches that are globally relevant and locally tailored to diverse populations,” the authors concluded.

This story was translated from Univadis Italy, part of the Medscape Professional Network.