Growing Old Gracefully

For researchers at the University of Miami, it's not just how long you live that's important, but how healthy you are as you age, according to the MIT Technology Review's Arlene Weintraub. The researchers are studying Amish people who have lived to at least 80 in search of genes that may promote "successful aging" — aging without disease, depression, or frailty, Weintraub says. The Miami team believes that one key to such "successful aging" is a genetic pattern they've found in 15 percent of the Amish octogenarians, called "haplogroup X," in the cellular regions responsible for energy control and deterioration levels, she adds. The researchers are planning further studies to better understand how "haplogroup X" affects mitochondrial function, and plan to account for potential environmental effects, Weintraub reports.