It is often seen as inevitable that our physical and cognitive health will decline with age – that slow, steady erosion of body and mind is something we simply must accept.
But a growing body of research is challenging that long-held assumption, suggesting that much of what we think of as ‘normal ageing’ may, in fact, be preventable or even reversible.
A remarkable new study suggests that centenarians – the rare few who live to 100 and beyond – possess an almost ‘superhuman’ ability to stave off disease until very late in life.
Rather than simply surviving illnesses that would prove fatal to others, they appear to delay or even avoid many of the most common diseases of ageing altogether.
They are far less likely to develop conditions ranging from heart attacks and strokes to high blood pressure.
Separate studies also suggest they have unusually resilient immune systems, potentially making them less susceptible to everyday infections.
Many also retain sharp mental function well into their 90s.
‘Our centenarians live healthier for 20, 30 years longer,’ Dr Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Geroscience at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and leader of the Longevity Genes Project, told the Daily Mail.
President Jimmy Carter was 100 years old when he died. He was the longest-lived president in United States history
‘And even after the age of 100, 30 percent of them don’t have a disease.’
So what makes centenarians so resilient – and more importantly, is it simply luck of the genetic draw or are there steps we can all take to become like them?
Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden believe much of the answer lies in the immune system. Tracking nearly 275,000 people over three decades, they found that centenarians don’t simply survive disease better than everyone else – they appear to avoid many of the illnesses that usually accompany old age.
Together, the findings suggest centenarians don’t simply delay disease – they remain healthier for longer, postponing serious illness until very late in life.
Unlike most people, whose health typically deteriorates over the last five to eight years of life, centenarians remain remarkably healthy and independent for far longer, with illness compressed into their final months or even weeks.
Swedish researchers describe this as a distinct pattern of ageing. Dr Nir Barzilai calls it the ‘compression of morbidity’ – the idea that rather than spending years living with chronic disease, sickness is delayed until the final weeks or months of life.
‘They lived, lived, lived and died,’ he said of the centenarians in his studies. ‘They were sick maybe five or six weeks.’
Barzilai believes that’s because the biological processes that slow ageing aren’t confined to the immune system.
Sir David Attenborough officially became a centenarian when he celebrated his 100th birthday on May 8, 2026
Instead, the same mechanisms appear to protect every organ in the body.
The Swedish studies back up that theory.
They first found that centenarians were dramatically less likely to develop many of the diseases that normally define old age.
By age 85, just four percent had suffered a stroke, compared with 10 percent of people who died in their 90s.
Despite living the longest, their lifetime risk of heart attack was almost half that of those who died in their 80s, and they were also significantly less likely to develop cancer.
The second study revealed something even more striking. Centenarians didn’t just avoid the biggest killers – they seemed to escape the gradual accumulation of the everyday health problems that make old age so difficult.
By age 85, they had, on average, just 1.2 diagnosed conditions, compared with 2.4 among people who died at 90.
Rather than collecting multiple chronic illnesses affecting different organs, they typically remained healthier for longer, and from their 90s onwards their disease burden barely increased.
Others, by contrast, experienced the familiar cascade of diagnoses that often accompanies the final years of life.
There was one notable exception. Hip fractures became increasingly common among centenarians simply because they lived long enough for the risk to catch up with them, although they still tended to experience them later than everyone else.
The obvious question is whether there’s any way of knowing if you’re on a similar trajectory.
Iris Apfel, the self-described ‘world’s oldest living teenager,’ lived to 102 before her death in 2024
Barzilai says the strongest clue may already be written into your family tree.
Decades of ageing research, including his own, suggest genetics play a powerful role in exceptional longevity. If your parents or siblings lived into their 90s or beyond, you’re already more likely to follow suit.
If both parents were centenarians, your life expectancy jumps by 24 percent. Even one centenarian parent gives you a 13 percent boost.
Genetics, of course, isn’t something you can change. But it isn’t the only clue to how you’re ageing.
The Swedish research suggests there are signs that someone is following a centenarian-like trajectory long before they reach 100.
One way to think about it is through the concept of ‘healthy life expectancy’ – the number of years we can expect to live in good health, free from serious illness or disability.
In most wealthy countries, there’s a sizeable gap between healthy life expectancy and overall life expectancy.
In the US, the average person can now expect to live to around 79.
But healthy life expectancy – the number of years spent free from significant illness or disability – is closer to 66.
In other words, many Americans spend the final decade or more of life coping with an ever-growing list of health problems, from heart disease and diabetes to arthritis, frailty and memory loss.
Centenarians largely escape that pattern.
Rather than entering a prolonged period of declining health, they remain comparatively healthy and independent well into their 90s before experiencing a relatively brief period of illness at the very end.
One of the clearest early signs appears to be cardiovascular health.
By age 80, only eight percent of people who would go on to become centenarians had been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. Reaching that age without heart disease doesn’t guarantee you’ll live to 100, but it does suggest you’re ageing in a way that more closely resembles those who do.
Your immune system may offer another clue.
Jeanne Calment, the world’s oldest person, lived to 122 and died in Arles, France, in 1997
In one study of Brazilian supercentenarians, researchers found that key immune cells behaved more like those seen in people decades younger.
Rather than showing the sluggish, exhausted immune response that typically accompanies ageing, their immune systems appeared to remain remarkably effective at responding to threats.
That could help explain why many centenarians seem unusually resilient – not just against life-threatening diseases, but against the everyday infections and inflammation that gradually wear the body down over time.
For most of us, the signs are less dramatic.
If you rarely get sick, recover quickly when you do, and don’t suffer from persistent inflammatory conditions, it may suggest your immune system is ageing more slowly than average.
In a separate Swedish study, researchers analyzed routine blood tests from more than 44,000 adults, taken up to 35 years before some would become centenarians.
Those who eventually reached 100 already had healthier profiles in their 60s, with lower blood sugar, uric acid and creatinine levels, along with other markers of good metabolic, kidney and liver health.
None of the biomarkers was exceptional on its own. Instead, centenarians tended to have consistently healthy, middle-of-the-range results across multiple measures.
Healthy habits still matter. Genetics may load the dice, but they don’t tell the whole story.
Increasingly, scientists believe epigenetics – the chemical switches that turn genes on or off without altering the DNA itself – helps explain why two people with similar genetic risks can age very differently.
Factors such as diet, exercise, sleep, stress and smoking can all influence these switches over time, altering how genes linked to inflammation, metabolism and ageing behave.
In other words, while you can’t change the genes you inherit, you may be able to influence how they’re expressed throughout your life.
The world’s ‘Blue Zones’ – regions where exceptional longevity is unusually common – offer perhaps the best evidence that lifestyle can help extend not just lifespan, but healthspan.
In places such as Okinawa, Japan, Sardinia, Italy, and Nicoya, Costa Rica, people who reach 100 don’t spend hours in the gym or obsess over calories. Instead, they move naturally throughout the day by walking, gardening and doing household chores.
Their diets are built largely around beans, vegetables, whole grains and other minimally processed foods. In Okinawa, many also follow the principle of hara hachi bu – stopping eating when they feel around 80 percent full.
Just as important are the less obvious habits.
Strong social connections, a clear sense of purpose and daily rituals that reduce stress are woven into everyday life. Together, these behaviors are thought to help delay many of the diseases that shorten healthy life.
Despite this, Barzilai cautions against assuming lifestyle alone explains exceptional longevity. He said that many of the centenarians he has studied ‘were smokers.’
‘They were obese. They didn’t exercise. And despite that, they were healthy.’