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What is this evidence? That wealthier, higher IQ people tend to live longer and suffer less age-related illness. For example:

I don't think that it's ever been a grand mystery that regular exercise, a good physician relationship, and eating sanely are going to be good for you; the common wisdom for good health long predated the scientific studies showing that it was the case. The grand mystery is why so few people keep up with those efforts in their own lives, and suffer because of that negligence. I've been inclined to interpret results like the research above to mean that more intelligent people tend to get wealthier but also tend to do more of the right things for their health - you can be as rich as you like, but if you weren't exercising all that time you were making money, you're still going be at a higher risk for suffering cardiovascular disease at the end of the day.

Smarter people have a greater tendency to keep up with common sense health practices and gain a benefit by doing so. That's my thesis. As to why that is the case - well, that gets back to what IQ actually measures, whether time preference is very different between individuals, and so forth.

Dr. Platika is the chairman of the Supercentenarian Research Foundation, a new organization designed to raise funding for studies of supercentenarians, or people who have lived more than 110 years. Dr. Platika wants to know: Why have the very aged survived as long as they have? Are they less susceptible to the common diseases that slow down the rest of us? Ultimately, Dr. Platika hopes the foundation will contribute to the discovery of products that help people fight degenerative and other conditions associated with aging and maintain their mobility and quality of life.

The SRF has fairly close ties to the Methuselah Foundation, as I recall. Certainly, amyloidosis is a condition that interests both parties: a buildup of different types of clumping biochemicals in different tissues that leads to loss of function and eventually death. It is thought to be an important cause of death in supercentenarians who have evaded all the other common killers.

Coles argues, based on these autopsies, that supers aren't perishing from the typical scourges of old age, such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, and Alzheimer's Disease. What kills most of them, he says, is a condition, extremely rare among younger people, called senile cardiac TTR Amyloidosis. TTR is a protein that cradles the thyroid hormone thyroxine and whisks it around the body. In TTR Amyloidosis, the protein amasses in and clogs blood vessels, forcing the heart to work harder and eventually fail. "The same thing that happens in the pipes of an old house happens in your blood vessels," says Coles.

The Methuselah Foundation is funding development of biomedical remediation as a technology platform to safely remove amyloid and other forms of aggregate from tissues, which should prevent that process from contributing to degenerative aging.

I noticed a paper today which contains an interesting take on how inflammation leads to damage. It's not just the inflammatory response, per this theory, but also the anti-inflammatory systems evolved to shut off an inflammatory response after it has served its purpose. If inflammation is constantly jammed on, then so is the anti-inflammatory system - based on the hormone cortisol - that is trying to shut it down. So you have at once all the downsides of both a constantly active immune system, and an immune system that is constantly damped down: damage from constant activity yet poor immune response when you do need it to fight off disease:

Indeed, the phenomenon of anti-inflammaging, mainly exerted by cortisol, with the passage of time becomes the cause of a marked decline of immunological functions, and its coexistence with the increased levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines of inflammaging, ultimately have negative impacts on metabolism, bone density, strength, exercise tolerance, the vascular system, cognitive function, and mood. Thus inflammaging and anti-inflammaging together determine many of the progressive pathophysiological changes that characterize the "aged-phenotype", and the struggle to maintain robustness finally results in frailty.

The author points to cortisol, and if you look at the Wikipedia entry you will see touches upon a wide range of vital systems in the body. If inflammation is always on, then excess cortisol is constantly trying to turn it off, causing harm along the way.

Fortunately solutions to prevent the immune system from getting into this state in the first place are within sight. If the medical research community makes a sane shift from a philosophy of futile attempts to patch up the end results of aging to preventing and reversing specific degenerations earlier in life, then I imagine we'll see a range of ways to restore a damaged immune system in the clinic by 2030. Have a look back in the Fight Aging! archives for some pointers:

• When and How Does the Decay of Your Immune System Start?
• Striking Back at Cytomegalovirus
• Steps Towards Rebuilding the Aged Immune System
• The Aging Immune System, Thymic Involution, and Wnt4

CONCLUSION: Progressive impairment of the immune system accompanies aging. The better preservation of function and antioxidant systems in the neutrophils of centenarians could play a key role in the longevity of these subjects.

The catalase data is interesting, given the work of Rabinovitch showing that increased catalase expression in mice - if targeted to the mitochondria - extends healthy life. It seems that there might be a fair degree of difference within the human species as to how genetically resistant people are to aging. For more on why catalase - an antioxidant - likely works to extend life when introduced to the mitochondria, you might look back into the Fight Aging! archives.

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