Living to 100 may benefit more than one generation. Children of centenarians tend to live longer while delaying major threats to heart health.
A study published in JAMA Network Open found that adults with at least one parent who lived to 100 had substantially lower risks of death, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension than people whose parents had shorter lives. Several of these outcomes also occurred years later, suggesting that exceptional longevity may involve an extended period of healthier aging rather than survival alone.
Led by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Boston University, and Tufts Medical Center, the work strengthens evidence that unusually long and healthy lives cluster within families. Lifestyle remained important, but it did not fully account for the advantages observed among centenarians’ children.
“Centenarians—people who live to age 100 or older—offer crucial insights into what it looks like to age well,” said Sofiya Milman, M.D., M.S., professor of medicine and of genetics at Einstein, vice chair for research in the department of medicine, and senior author of the study. “We wanted to know whether they pass their good health and longevity down to their children—and, if so, whether those advantages can be explained by healthy habits or whether something more fundamental, like genetics, is at work.”
Three Studies Track Exceptional Longevity
The researchers combined evidence from three geographically diverse, long-running projects: the Einstein-led LonGenity study, the New England Centenarian Study (NECS) at Boston University, and the UK Biobank. Together, the analysis included 2,319 adults with at least one centenarian parent and 2,703 controls.
Control participants either had parents who lived to age 85 or younger or were spouses of centenarians’ offspring. Including spouses gave researchers another useful comparison group because couples often share environments and health habits but not the same inherited biology.
The available data covered 16 years in LonGenity and the UK Biobank and 29 years in NECS. Although the studies collected information independently, the team analyzed each group using the same approach. This allowed the researchers to determine whether associations with death and age-related disease appeared consistently across different populations.
Lower Risks and Later Disease
At any given age, people with a centenarian parent had a 42% lower risk of death than participants whose parents had shorter lifespans. Their risk of cardiovascular disease was 33% lower, while their risk of hypertension was 32% lower.
The timing of these outcomes was also notable. Centenarians’ offspring died approximately three years later on average and developed hypertension about five years later. Delaying a common condition such as high blood pressure could have wider health implications because hypertension contributes to heart, blood vessel, kidney, and brain disease.
The benefits remained largely consistent after the researchers accounted for smoking, alcohol consumption, exercise, diet, education, and socioeconomic status. The findings therefore suggest that familiar health behaviors and social circumstances do not completely explain why exceptional longevity runs in certain families.
Protection Has Clear Limits
Having a centenarian parent did not provide equally strong protection against every disease. Stroke risk was reduced only in the LonGenity and NECS studies, not consistently across all three groups. Cancer risk was no lower among centenarians’ offspring, a result that agrees with some earlier research.
“The overall consistency of these findings across these quite different studies was especially noteworthy and reinforces the idea that exceptional longevity runs in families,” said Eric Reed, Ph.D., staff scientist in medicine and lead author of the study. “This is not to say that lifestyle doesn’t count—healthy behaviors remain important for everyone. But some people from families with exceptional longevity appear to enjoy biological advantages that help them remain healthy despite the environmental and behavioral factors that affect us all.”
Turning Longevity Biology Into Treatments
“This study wasn’t designed to identify the specific inherited traits that benefit centenarians’ children,” Dr. Milman said. “However, studying families with exceptional longevity can provide a unique window into the biology of healthy aging. Our findings provide a strong rationale for studying centenarians and their families to uncover those biological factors that promote longevity and protect these individuals from age-related diseases.
“Ultimately,” Dr. Milman added, “discovering those factors could lead to treatments that mimic the effects of naturally occurring longevity mechanisms, potentially helping people who did not inherit exceptional longevity to live longer and healthier lives.”
“This study provides strong evidence that the offspring of centenarians share some of their parents’ advantages in healthy aging,” said study co-author Paola Sebastiani, Ph.D., director of the Center for Quantitative Methods and Data Science at Tufts Medical Center. “These findings bring us closer to understanding the biological factors that may help protect against age-related disease and promote longer, healthier lives.”
Reference: “Exceptional Parental Longevity and Onset of Morbidity and Mortality Across Cohorts” by Eric R. Reed, Matthew Wysocki, Maya Gal, Sandra Aleksic, Tina Gao, Nir Barzilai, Kenny Ye, Anna E. Bortnick, Stacy L. Andersen, Thomas Perls, Paola Sebastiani and Sofiya Milman, 26 August 2026, JAMA Network Open.
DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.30964
This study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Resnick Emerging Scholars in Aging award.
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