Research

Mixed

Semi-supercentenarians (aged 105+) exhibit a significantly lower epigenetic age (approx. 8.6 years younger) than expected based on their chronological age.

For individuals reaching extreme old age (105+), biological age may lag significantly behind chronological age. This suggests that some individuals possess genetic or epigenetic traits that slow down the molecular processes of aging. While this is not an intervention, it underscores the importance of biological age metrics in assessing health in the very elderly, as they may be biologically younger than their birth year suggests.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
According to this model, 105+ are on average 8.6 years younger than expected based on chronological age. The systematic underestimate of age in centenarians has also been observed in most other tissues from centenarians [67].
Steve Horvath et al. · Aging · 2015

Why this rating

Robust statistical modeling, but the sample size of semi-supercentenarians is small (n=75) and limited to one population.

Source

Decreased epigenetic age of PBMCs from Italian semi-supercentenarians and their offspring

Steve Horvath et al. · Aging · 2015

DOI 10.18632/aging.100861

cohort · n=184Cited 334×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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