Secrets of The Oldest Living Person
Aging can be scary for us. It may come with uncertainty, fear or even worry of our bodies breaking down.
Secrets of The Oldest Living Person
Aging can be scary for us. It may come with uncertainty, fear or even worry of our bodies breaking down.
That’s why today, we will be understanding a supercentenarian (a person who lives past 100), and how her genes and daily activities affected her positively.
The Subject
Researchers in a paper investigated the genome of Maria Branyas Morera, a US-born Spanish woman who died in August 2024 at age 117 years and 168 days, shortly after becoming the world’s oldest living person.
So naturally, many in the scientific community were curious about how she managed to become much longer lived people living decades to centuries ago, who had an average lifespan of 70 years old.
What The Researchers Did
The team took genetic samples from Maria, examining her genome and comparing it with those belonging to 75 other women.
They found that she lived so long because she both won the genetic lottery, which was accumulative of her parents and grandparents efforts. She both possessed genes that guarded against common age-related diseases and followed a healthy lifestyle and diet.
More surprisingly, the researchers found one consistent practice she held for years.
Her Secrets
To get the obvious out of the way, one Researcher quoted: “She never smoked, she never drank alcohol, she liked to work until she could (not) … She lived in the countryside, she did moderate exercise (mostly walking 1 hour a day) … She had a diet that included olive oil, Mediterranean style and was active even in her later years.
But she had one consistent practice of keeping her gut microbiome healthy like a younger person. There are many plant-based foods that achieve this, such as kefir (made from coconut, rice, or almond milk), kombucha, and fermented foods like kimchi, and tempeh
But Wait, Aren’t Genetics Malleable?
According to Cleveland Clinic, epigenetics is the scientific field that explores how our environment and daily choices influence the way our genes are expressed, not by changing the DNA sequence itself, but by placing chemical “marks” on or around our genes.
These tiny marks act like switches or dimmers: turning genes on or off, or tampering with how much each gene needs to express itself.
These small changes respond to factors such as diet, physical activity, stress levels, exposure to toxins, early life experiences, and social environment.
The concept reveals that while we can’t choose the genes passed down to us, we might have some influence over how active those genes become over time.
Research suggests that epigenetic changes play a role in a wide range of health outcomes, from metabolism and aging to neurological disorders, cancer, inflammation, and autoimmune conditions.
What This Means
According to Researcher Claire Steves, a professor of aging at King’s College London, “it’s not going to be one single bullet, it’s got to be multiple different pathways.”
It seems that Maria’s secrets might possess us a chance to change the genetics to keep us internally younger.
Source:
Cleveland Clinic: Epigenetics
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