[ExI] Genetics Only a Small Part of How Long You Live

[BillK]

Colossal family tree reveals environment’s influence on lifespan
Genetics explains only a small part of differences in how long a
person lives, finds analysis that links 13 million people.

Erika Check Hayden  01 March 2018

<https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02596-9>

Quotes:

Computational biologist Yaniv Erlich of Columbia University in New
York City and his colleagues have used crowdsourced data to make a
family tree that links 13 million people. The ancestry chart,
described today in Science1, is believed to be the largest verified
resource of its kind — spanning an average of 11 generations.

Erlich’s team analysed the birth and death dates of the people in this
tree, and calculated whether individuals were more likely to have died
at similar ages if they were closely related. The group concludes that
heredity explains only about 16% of the difference in lifespans for
these individuals. Most of the differences were down to other factors,
such as where and how people lived.

Scientists already suspected that environment has more influence than
genes on how long people live. But Erlich estimates that genes have
even less of a role than researchers had thought.

Erlich says that “good” genes might extend a person’s life by an
average of five years. Some environmental factors make a much bigger
impact on longevity; smoking, for instance, can subtract ten years.
-------------


This research indicates that 'memes' like avoiding starvation and
disease are much more important than genetics.


BillK