Live Long? Die Young? Answer Isn’t Just in Genes

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But recent studies find that genes may not be so important in

determining how long someone will live and whether a person will get

some diseases — except, perhaps, in some exceptionally long-lived

families. That means it is generally impossible to predict how long a

person will live based on how long the person's relatives lived.

Life spans, says W. Vaupel, who directs the Laboratory of

Survival and Longevity at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic

Research in Rostock, Germany, are nothing like a trait like height,

which is strongly inherited.

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