from the be-careful-when-choosing-grandparents dept.
Andrew writes "This item from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences from New Scientist: Annibale Puca and his team of researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) have used genetic linkage analysis to show a 95% probability that a particular region on chromosone four correlates to long lifespan in humans. Importantly this region appears to have a strong influence on the rate of ageing. Read about it at: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns999 91201"
According to an HHMI press release, "By comparing the DNA of siblings who are extremely long-lived, researchers believe they have found a region on chromosome 4 that may hold an important clue to understanding human longevity. According to the researchers, their finding is "highly suggestive" that somewhere in the hundreds of genes in that region of chromosome 4 is a gene or genes whose subtle modifications can give a person a better chance of living well beyond the average life expectancy."
Additional information on this research can be found at EurekAlert and in this article from UPI.
