Humans have always sought out a way to extend their lifetimes. In fact, even the oldest written story, The Epic of Gilgamesh, centers around a king going on a quest for immortality. The human imagination has always been piqued by the idea of running away from the uncertainty of death, and beyond the intriguing stories that concept brings with it, this curiosity has spurred the development of the field of longevity research.
Beginning in the early twentieth century, research into aging boomed, with most significant experiments being conducted on mice or single-celled organisms. These studies centered on calorie restriction, and found it to increase the average lifespan of an organism and limit the development of age-related diseases. Then during the 1980s, scientists at the University of Houston turned their focus to an innocuous member of the animal kingdom: worms. Worms from the species C. elegans, were investigated to understand what genes play a major role in aging. According to the Columbine Health Systems Center for Healthy Aging, research focused on this species is notable to the modern longevity field because it taught researchers that aging goes beyond a single organism’s choices and behaviors; it involves the genes passed down from generations prior.
However, for as much progress as was made in the twentieth century in the field of longevity, application to human communities has been slower to advance. The biological indicators of aging used today were built on exclusively male clinical testing, until 1993 when women were included in studies. In an article from The Observer, Priyanka Jain and Kayla Barnes-Lentz detail how the longevity field neglects half of the entire population by not adequately funding research into how the female body ages and continuously overlooking the insights female hormones bring to research.
Neglecting to investigate biology that isn’t white and male has also delayed the recognition of an impressive cluster of centenarians, or people who live to be one hundred, in Brazil. As stated by the Juta Medical Brief, most studies on longevity are “dominated by relatively homogeneous populations,” where racial mixing, and therefore a higher level of genetic mixing, has not occurred. A varied genome is crucial for health, and especially for the slower aging process that allows supercentenarians to live longer lives. In Brazil’s history, many waves of immigration have occurred: the Portuguese, enslaved Africans, numerous European ethnicities, and even a significant number of Japanese people. Thus, in Brazil there exists a particularly rich depth of genetic diversity, combining genes from diverse immigrants and Indigenous communities, causing stronger immune systems and cellular health in modern Brazilians. As of this year, the University of São Paulo is observing the genetic compositions and lifestyles of over 160 centenarians, with the study expected to grow to over 200 by the middle of this year, according to journalist Miguel Ángel Criado.
Seeing how much can be learned from overlooked populations encourages curiosity and is important for scientific research to develop equity and overcome traditional bias. Dr. Mayana Zatz, a renowned genetics professor at the University of São Paulo, agrees that the longevity field needs to “include ancestrally diverse and admixed populations, such as Brazil’s, or provide financial support for genomic, immunological, and longitudinal studies that deepen scientific insight and enhance equity in global health research.” Going forward in this direction is not only the most just path, but will allow humanity to understand our own biology better and make advancements toward longer, healthier lives for everyone.
