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How can we know how long we are going to live? The real answer is that we can not, but new research from the University of Edinburgh can help give some people a better idea of their expected life.
In recent research presented at the American Society of Human Genetics At the annual meeting, scientists explain how they have devised a way to estimate whether a person can expect to live longer or shorter on average. Their approach came from studying the effect of genetic variations on the lifespan of the human genome.
In the largest ever genome-wide association study, researchers combined the genetic data of more than 500,000 participants from the British Biobank and other cohorts with data on the lifetime of the participants' parents. The effects of a single gene on life span being minimal, so it was necessary to have a larger sample size to identify genes relevant to our lives. This sample helped the researchers validate six previously identified associations between specific genes and aging, such as the APOE gene, linked to the risk of neurodegenerative disease.
In addition, the research team has discovered 21 new genomic regions that have an influence on lifespan. They then used their results to create a polygenic risk score for lifetime, which is a personalized genomic score that estimates a person's genetic probability of living longer.
"Using only one person's genetic information, we can identify the 10% of people with the most protective genes, who will live on average five years longer than the less protected 10%, "says student Paul Timmers graduated from the University of Edinburgh. .
The study also explored the specifics of the effects of genetic variants on the aging process, with researchers seeking to determine whether certain variants directly affected aging or influenced the risk of individual diseases that could lead to death. They found that among the common variants, the genes associated with Alzheimer's disease, heart disease and smoking-related conditions were related to overall lifespan. Interestingly, they found no association of life expectancy for other cancers, suggesting that the risk of death from other cancers is the result of rarer genetic variants or 'environment.
"It was an interesting result," says Timmers. "We suspect that the variants we found, such as smoking and Alzheimer's, belong solely to the modern period of human history. For example, a genetic propensity to smoke was not prejudicial before the discovery of tobacco, but it is the case now. As natural selection has not yet had many generations to act on these variants, these are still quite common. "
In the future, researchers plan to study how the variants and functional pathways they have identified affect lifespan.
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By Connor Ertz, Earth.com Editor
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