Born to Last

Scientists who study people past 100 keep noticing the same thing: certain gene variants show up far more often in the very old than in everyone else.

Two names come up again and again, FOXO3 and APOE. They aren't magic switches. They seem to nudge processes like DNA repair and inflammation control in a slightly more resilient direction, decade after decade.

Genes Aren't Destiny

Here's the part that surprises people who fixate on their DNA. When researchers compare twins and large families, genetics explains only a minority of lifespan differences between people, on the order of a quarter.

The rest comes down to environment, behavior, and plain luck. Your inherited odds are real, but they leave most of the story unwritten.