Chance and Causality in Ageing and Longevity

Abstract

The improvement of the quality of life of elderly people is going to become a priority because of the continuous increase in the number of oldest people. This renders the studies of the processes involved in longevity, a complex process influenced by several biological, environmental, and lifestyle factors as well as by chance, of critical importance. Centenarians have been proposed as a model of “positive biology” because they have reached the extreme limits of lifespan, avoiding or delaying major age-related diseases. The identification of the factors that predispose to long and healthy life is of tremendous interest for translational medicine. Here we briefly describe the results obtained so far and their meaning, focusing on the role of chance and causality.