Clinical Research Paper|Volume 3, Issue 1|pp 63—76

Health and function of participants in the Long Life Family Study: A comparison with other cohorts

Anne B. Newman^1,², Nancy W. Glynn¹, Christopher A. Taylor¹, Paola Sebastiani³, Thomas T. Perls⁴, Richard Mayeux⁵, Kaare Christensen⁶, Joseph M. Zmuda¹, Sandra Barral⁵, Joseph H. Lee⁵, Eleanor M. Simonsick⁷, Jeremy D. Walston⁸, Anatoli I. Yashin⁹, Evan Hadley⁷

¹University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology, Center for Aging and Population Health, Pittsburgh, PA 15213,USA
²University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA
³Department of Biostatistics, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02118, USA
⁴Division of Geriatrics, Department of Medicine, Boston University Medical Center, Boston, MA 02118, USA
⁵The Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center and the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA
⁶The Danish Aging Research Centre, Epidemiology, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
⁷National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
⁸Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Bayview Medical Center, Baltimore, MD 21224, USA
⁹Duke University, Center for Demographic Studies, Durham, NC 27708

Received: December 23, 2010Accepted: January 8, 2011Published: January 10, 2011

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.100242

Copyright: © 2011 Newman et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Individuals from families recruited for the Long Life Family Study (LLFS) (n= 4559) were examined and compared to individuals from other cohorts to determine whether the recruitment targeting longevity resulted in a cohort of individuals with better health and function. Other cohorts with similar data included the Cardiovascular Health Study, the Framingham Heart Study, and the New England Centenarian Study. Diabetes, chronic pulmonary disease and peripheral artery disease tended to be less common in LLFS probands and offspring compared to similar aged persons in the other cohorts. Pulse pressure and triglycerides were lower, high density lipids were higher, and a perceptual speed task and gait speed were better in LLFS. Age-specific comparisons showed differences that would be consistent with a higher peak, later onset of decline or slower rate of change across age in LLFS participants. These findings suggest several priority phenotypes for inclusion in future genetic analysis to identify loci contributing to exceptional survival.