Think You'll Live A Long Life? Your Parents Can't Help.

First you were told the secret to a long life is eating right and exercising. Then, you learned it's all in your genes.

Now scientists believe neither is right. An article in the New York Times explains that what you thought you knew was wrong:

... recent studies find that genes may not be so important in determining how long someone will live and whether a person will get some diseases — except, perhaps, in some exceptionally long-lived families. That means it is generally impossible to predict how long a person will live based on how long the person’s relatives lived.

One researcher, James Vaupel, director of the Max Planck Institute's Laboratory of Survival and Longevity in Germany, told reporter Gina Kolata that only 3% of how long a person lives can be accounted for by their parents longevity. Even identical twins die, on average, ten years apart.

The current understanding of what contributes to individual longevity:

... a complex mix of events that there is no accurate predicting for individuals. The factors include genetic predispositions, disease, nutrition, a woman’s health during pregnancy, subtle injuries and accidents and simply chance events, like a randomly occurring mutation in a gene of a cell that ultimately leads to cancer.

There is still a role for genetics, since many fatal diseases have genetic components. And diet and exercise remain important for general health. But randomness -- such as random mutation, or random developmental events -- is much more important than previously thought.

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H/t: Marginal Revolution