By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
US scientists have developed a way of predicting how likely a person is to
live beyond the age of 100.
The breakthrough, described in the journal Science, is based on 150 genetic "signposts" found in exceptionally long-lived people.
The Boston team created a mathematical model, which takes information from these signposts to work out a
person's chance of reaching 100.
It is based on the largest study of centenarians in the world.
This is a rare trait - only one in 6,000 people in industrialised countries reaches such a ripe old age. And 90% them are still disability free by the age of 93.
The researchers now think they have cracked the genetic secret of this longevity.
The team originally embarked on their study in 1995. Since then, they have scanned the genomes of 1,000 centenarians.
They identified genetic markers that are "most different" between centenarians and randomly selected individuals.
The research was led by Paola Sebastiani, a professor of biostatistics at Boston University, and Thomas Perls, associate professor of medicine, also at Boston University.
"We tested our model in an independent set of centenarians and achieved an accuracy of 77%," explained Professor Sebastiani.
"So out of 100 centenarians we could correctly predict the outcome of 77."
She said that the "23% error rate" indicated that, although "genetics is fundamental in exceptional longevity it's not the only thing".
"So there may be other factors like environment or other lifestyles that may help people live longer and healthier lives."
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