For roughly two centuries, human life expectancy climbed steadily as medicine, sanitation, nutrition, and healthcare improved. More recent research, however, suggests that this long upward trend may now be leveling off in developed countries. If that is the case, the next major challenge may no longer be simply preventing disease, but understanding aging itself.
That raises a fundamental question: what actually happens to the body as it ages, and could those biological changes someday be treated in much the same way as disease?
A Rare Look at Extreme Human Longevity
A research team led by Dr. Manel Esteller, Head of the Cancer Epigenetics group at the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, has now published the final peer-reviewed results from an unusually detailed study of Maria Branyas, the Catalan woman who lived beyond 117 years.
Using samples collected with minimally invasive techniques, the researchers examined her biology across several layers at once. Their multi-omic analysis included genomic, proteomic, epigenomic, metabolomic and microbiomic technologies, making it the most comprehensive biological investigation yet conducted on a supercentenarian.
