Hold the butter! The genetic secrets of centenarians are starting to be unravelled – and they hint that low cholesterol plays a role in their unusual longevity. “This is one of the first studies to detect rare genotypes in these exceptional individuals,” says João Pedro de Magalhães of the University of Liverpool, UK, who was not involved in the research. It is thought that genetics accounts for up to 30 per cent of the variability in human lifespan. But so far just two genes have been linked to longevity, and neither has a large influence – creating a genetic puzzle sometimes called “missing heritability”.
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