Do I inherit my life expectancy from my parents?
Genetics explains roughly one third of how long you live, so your parents give you a biological starting point, not a prediction. Lifestyle and environment account for the greater part and are things you can actually influence.
Roughly one third of the variation in how long people live is linked to hereditary factors. That may sound like a lot, but it also means that two thirds is determined by environment, lifestyle and chance. Healthcare, social circumstances and personal choices therefore weigh at least as heavily.
The influence of long-lived parents is concretely measurable. People with at least one parent who reached the age of 90 scored 31% better on a broad measure of health and physical condition in later life, compared with people whose both parents died before the age of 76. People who themselves reached the age of 85 to 105 in good health had parents who lived on average a decade longer than their peers. These are meaningful associations, but they are not guarantees.
There are also nuances. Historical research in aristocratic families shows a modest but measurable link between the lifespan of the father and that of his children. In a French historical population, the hereditary component was greater in daughters than in sons, but this applied specifically to survival at older ages, not to mortality at younger ages. These associations are correlational: they describe a pattern, but do not prove a direct cause.
Certain hereditary conditions within a family can negatively affect life expectancy. For example, mothers of women with polycystic ovary syndrome (a hormonal condition associated with insulin resistance) had a 50% higher mortality rate than average. And a predisposition to ADHD was found in genomic research to be statistically associated with a shorter lifespan, although this finding should be interpreted cautiously because not all analyses showed the same picture.
In short: you do not inherit a fixed fate, but you do inherit a biological starting position. If you have long-lived, healthy parents, you have a statistical advantage. But if your parents died early or had hereditary metabolic conditions, that is a signal to pay extra attention to lifestyle and prevention, not a reason to resign yourself to the same outcome.
Claims are based on observational and historical research, partly in specific populations (aristocratic families, historical French populations). Heritability estimates vary by study and method. Causal relationships are difficult to establish; most findings are associative.
Do my stem cells run out as I get older?
Your stem cells do indeed decline with age: they repair tissue less effectively and become partly exhausted. Regular exercise, good sleep and not overeating are the best-supported ways to slow this process.
Can you counteract DNA damage from ageing through your lifestyle?
Quitting smoking, exercising regularly and eating plenty of vegetables demonstrably reduce DNA damage; antioxidant supplements are unlikely to help with this.
Why do your telomeres get shorter as you age?
Telomere shortening is part of life: every cell division costs a piece. But smoking, chronic stress, and sleep deprivation demonstrably accelerate that process. That acceleration is therefore something you can partly influence yourself.
What do zombie cells do to your ageing?
Zombie cells accumulate as you age and accelerate ageing through inflammatory signals; how to tackle them is promising but still very much under investigation.
Why do damaged proteins accumulate in your cells as you age?
As you age, several systems that clear away damaged proteins weaken simultaneously and amplify each other's failure. This is one of the central mechanisms behind age-related diseases, but how to stop it in a targeted way is still actively being researched.
What do mitochondrial mutations mean for how quickly you age?
Mitochondrial mutations and dysfunction likely contribute to faster biological ageing. You cannot control the accumulation of that damage with a single supplement, but lifestyle factors that support mitochondrial health (exercise, good nutrition, sufficient sleep) are the best-supported way to slow this process.