1985 Volume 22 Issue 5 Pages 457-467
In view of the rapid lengthning of human lifespan, it is important to consider what kinds of conditions the very elderly require to maintain, physical, mental and social health. Healthy centenarians provide adequate research material to clarify the determinants of the physiological phenomenon of highly advanced age. It is commonsense to consider that longevity is obtained by interaction of hereditary and environmental factors. The main purpose of this paper is to make clear whether or not hereditary factors are involved in attainment of longevity. There have been many papers reporting longeval persons having longeval ancestors and offspring in their pedigree. Most of them are merely reports of facts and are not able to prove that longevity comes from longeval families. One paper (Abbott, 1974) reported a controlled case study directed at this proof but selection of control cases, it can be pointed out, was affected by some biassed factors. We, however, have adopted the following strict conditions for the selection of control cases: The control case (1) must be born and raised and must die in the vicinity of the centenarian's residence; (2) must be the last or the second last of siblings; (3) must be older than the average Okinawan lifespan (at present older than 75 years in males and 82 years in females); (4) must have the eldest sibling live to between 100 and 105 years old, if alive; (5) must be mentally alert enough to understand our questions and give satisfactory answers; and (6) must have at least three siblings who died from known cause other than suicide, homicide, ccident and war trauma. By using these criteria, only eleven cases were selected out of 2270 elderly people (more than 65 years old). Various indices of longevity were calculated between centenarians and control families in each separate group of family members: fathers, mothers, male siblings, female siblings, total siblings and total family members. In conclusion, these results show that factors influencing longevity are inherited mainly through the female line but some are also inherited through the male line. It cannot be forgotten that children are strongly influenced by their mothers in lifestyle and habits during their growth and maturity. In view of these facts, HLA examinations were essential to confirm the hereditary basis of longevity.
