Study finds link between long life and DNA of ancient hunter-gatherers
By Health and Science Africa
New research has found a link between people with exceptional ability to live long and inherited DNA from Ice Age hunter-gatherer populations in Europe.
The team of Italian scientists compared DNA from hundreds of adults and controls. The study tests how genetic ancestry, DNA patterns from earlier populations, affects aging.
Small differences in inherited DNA can alter how bodies respond to stress and infection over a lifetime.
Earth.com reports that the Study44 was led by Prof. Cristina Giuliani, an associate professor at the University of Bologna (UniBo) in Italy.
The study follows epigenetics, chemical tags that change how genes behave, across populations, which fits a longevity study.
An official report counted 23,548 residents aged 100 or older in Italy on January 1, 2025, and almost 83% were women.
That mix lets researchers test whether one ancient lineage shows up more often in people who reach extreme old age.
Longevity studies work best when scientists define the outcome clearly, because vague age cutoffs blur genetic signals.
Researchers recruited centenarians, people who reach age 100 or more, and compared their DNA with that of younger adults from similar regions.
The ancestry study modeled each participant’s DNA as a blend of four components, including farmers, steppe herders, hunter-gatherers, and Iranian-Caucasus groups.
