Centenarian offspring: Start healthier and stay healthier

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To assess the relative incidence of age-related diseases in a group of centenarian offspring who have thus far been considered to be predisposed to "healthy" aging. DESIGN: Longitudinal study. SETTING: Nationwide sample. PARTICIPANTS: Four hundred forty centenarian offspring and 192 referent cohort subjects who met inclusion criteria of having initial and follow-up health questionnaire data available. Median age of both cohorts was 72 at the initial health questionnaire. MEASUREMENTS: Initial health questionnaires were collected from 1997 to 2006. Follow-up questionnaires were collected from 2004 to 2007. The mean period of follow-up was 3.5±1.7 years for the centenarian offspring and 3.9±2.2 years for the referent cohort. RESULTS: During the follow-up period, centenarian offspring had a 78% lower risk of myocardial infarction (P