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Why Some People Live Longer Than Others is New Major
Study
By Gwen Ericson
Sept. 11, 2004 Researchers at Washington University
School of Medicine in St. Louis will head an ambitious
study of people who live exceptionally long and healthy
lives to identify the factors that account for their
longevity.
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Why do some people live longer than
others? |
A team led by Michael Province, Ph.D., professor of
biostatistics and genetics, received a five-year, $4
million grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA)
to establish a Data Management and Coordinating Center (DMCC)
for the Exceptional Longevity Family Study.
"The trick is not just to live long, but to live
disease free. We want to find out how people do it,"
says Province. "There is preliminary evidence from many
sources that genes play a significant role, especially
for the oldest of the old, those who live past 100."
The DMCC will be the cornerstone of the multicenter
longevity project, linking together four study centers
(three in the United States and one in Europe) funded by
NIA. The study centers will gather genetic and health
information from over 3,000 long-lived volunteers and
their descendants, and the DMCC will provide a central
facility to tabulate and analyze the data gathered.
"There will be a great deal of data," Province
indicates. "We will be looking for genetic risks for
cancer, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's disease,
diabetesall the major risksas well as asking about
personal habits, looking at medical histories, and doing
clinical tests."
The DMCC will also advise the study centers on
detailed experimental design and ensure stringent
quality control of the data for the duration of the
study. "We hope to develop this study into a flagship
resource for human longevity research for well beyond
its initial five years of funding," says Province.
Province and other members participating in the
project have had extensive experience with multicenter
health studies and have developed innovative statistical
tools that can now be applied to identify both the
genetic and the non-genetic causes of extreme longevity.
"There are a whole slew of things that we have been
playing with and testing to see how well they work on
very complex data," Province states. "And they can be
very powerful, especially for the analysis of clusters
of interacting causes and complex pathways." In
addition, with recent developments in computer
technology, the DMCC will be able to perform statistical
analyses that previously would not have been possible.
Ingrid Borecki, Ph.D., associate professor of
biostatistics at Washington University School of
Medicine, will co-direct the DMCC project, assisted by
J. Philip Miller and a team from the Division of
Biostatistics. The study center leaders will be Richard
Mayeux, M.D. (Columbia University), Anne Newman, M.D.
(University of Pittsburgh), Thomas Perls, M.D. (Boston
University), and James Vaupel, Ph.D. (Max Planck
Institute for Demographic Research, Germany).
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