Longer lived parents: Protective associations with cancer incidence and overall mortality

Abstract

Background. Children of centenarians have lower cardiovascular disease prevalence and live longer. We aimed to estimate associations between the full range of parental attained ages and health status in a middle-aged U.S. representative sample. Methods. Using Health and Retirement Study data, models estimated disease incidence and mortality hazards for respondents aged 51-61 years at baseline, followed up for 18 years. Full adjustment included sex, race, smoking, wealth, education, body mass index, and childhood socioeconomic status. Mother's and father's attained age distributions were used to define short-, intermediate-, and long-lived groups, yielding a ranked parental longevity score (n = 6,055, excluding short-long discordance). Linear models (n = 8,340) tested mother's or father's attained ages, adjusted for each other. Results. With increasing mother's or father's survival (>65 years), all-cause mortality declined 19% (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.81, 95% CI: 0.76-0.86, p