Secrets of Healthy Aging and Longevity From Exceptional Survivors Around the Globe: Lessons From Octogenarians to Supercentenarians

Successful aging among Chinese near-centenarians and centenarians in Hong Kong: a multidimensional and interdisciplinary approach

“…International collaboration and the use of standardized instrument across different centenarian studies may facilitate such inquiries. Finally, future studies may benefit from examining the geneÀenvironment interactions that entail healthy longevity, and translating relevant findings into evidence-based interventions and health promotion programs for SA to the middle-aged and younger elders (Willcox, Willcox, & Ferrucci, 2008).…”

Centenarians as Stem Cell Donors

“…Projects such as the New England Centenarian Study Address correspondence to Ricki Lewis, E-mail: rickilewis54@gmail.com or Renad I. Zhadnov, E-mail: zrenad@gmail.com (http://www.bumc.bu.edu/centenarian) and the Okinawa Centenarian Study are scrutinizing the human genome for gene variants associated with extreme longevity. Might the very aged also have extraordinary regenerative capacities (Willcox 2008)? If the oldest old resist or overcome the degenerative diseases that kill most of us, perhaps they do so because of a built-in reserve -their stem cells.…”

“…Centenarian stem cells must be investigated with the same thoroughness as ES or iPS or any other stem cells, to determine their developmental potential, mutational load, telomere lengths, and markers of 'stemness'. Their genomes must be scanned for genes known to affect longevity, such as FOX03A (Flachsbart 2009;Willcox 2008), and genome-wide association studies done to identify new loci. Refined gene expression profiling and proteomics on the cells of centenarians will reveal gene interactions.…”

Clinical and laboratory characteristics of active and healthy aging (AHA) in octogenarian men

“…Their purpose was to include in this definition-along with the absence of major diseasesoptimal psychological, physical and social functioning up to old age. Several terms of this concept have thereafter been used (''active aging'', ''productive aging,'' ''aging well,'' ''living well,'' ''senior wellness'', ''positive biology'') [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12], and recently the abbreviation AHA (''active and healthy aging'') has been used in Europe. We have chosen to use the terms AHA and non-AHA in the present paper.…”