RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A team of Japanese scientists at Osaka University analyzed the clinical and genetic data of 700,000 individuals, in order to understand what are the major risk factors that are reducing the longevity of the current generation.
Osaka, as reported in an article published by Galileo magazine, is a city known for the longevity of its inhabitants. As is the case of Misao Okawa, who died in 2015 at the age of 117, and who lived all his life in this area.
During the research, academics noted that the people most genetically susceptible to high blood pressure or hypertension and obesity live on average fewer years.
“The goal of our study was to understand how we can use genetic information to determine risk factors that can impact health results that we can directly influence,” said one of the authors of the Yukinori Okada study in a press release.
Galileo reports that scientists have thoroughly examined data from 700,000 people in Japan, Finland and the UK. They then estimated the polygenic risk score for an estimate of someone’s genetic susceptibility to a biological trait, such as a predisposition to suffer from certain pathologies.
At the end of the experiment, researchers found that high blood pressure and obesity are the two risk factors that have the greatest impact on the life span of the current generation. On the one hand, hypertension has been shown to be responsible for decreasing life expectancy in the three populations studied; and on the other hand, obesity has been shown to have a more significant impact on European individuals.
“These are truly impressive results that show how genetics can be used to anticipate and fight health risks,” Okada stresses.
“The information we collect can serve as an approach to identifying certain genetic aspects in order to look for risk factors and point to targeted changes in lifestyle and medical treatment,” it concludes.