摘要：随着生活水平的提高，人们的寿命越来越长，但能健康快乐地活过百岁的老人仍是少数。因而，无论是健康科学家和普通人都对年龄超过110岁的超级百岁老人的长寿秘诀也才被好奇心。
西班牙117岁的世界最长寿老人玛丽亚·莫雷拉
随着生活水平的提高，人们的寿命越来越长，但能健康快乐地活过百岁的老人仍是少数。因而，无论是健康科学家和普通人都对年龄超过110岁的超级百岁老人的长寿秘诀也才被好奇心。
如果他们的秘诀能通过科学方法研究？他们的基因组能告诉我们哪些关于衰老的信息？他们为何能避开那些夺走许多人生命的疾病？如果真能发现这些秘诀，它们或许真能帮助其他人长寿？
这些问题正是近日一篇论文的核心。该论文于9月24日发表在《细胞报告医学》期刊上，研究对象是玛丽亚·布拉尼亚斯·莫雷拉的基因组。这位出生于美国的西班牙女性于2024年8月去世，享年117岁零168天，而就在去世前不久，她刚成为世界上最长寿的在世者。
该研究的合著者、西班牙巴塞罗那何塞·卡雷拉斯白血病研究所研究员马内尔·埃斯特勒博士表示：“她非常慷慨，乐于助人，能和她合作非常棒。”
研究人员埃斯特勒博士与玛丽亚合影
埃斯特勒及其研究团队采集了布拉尼亚斯的血液、唾液、尿液和粪便样本，随后对她的基因组进行检测，并与其他75名伊比利亚女性的基因组进行对比。
研究人员得出结论：总体而言，布拉尼亚斯之所以长寿，是因为她既拥有“基因彩票”般的好运，又保持着健康的生活方式。她不仅拥有能抵御常见老年疾病的基因，还遵循着健康的生活方式和饮食习惯。
埃斯特勒表示：“她从一开始就很幸运，并且在一生中还获得了额外的加持。”他认为布拉尼亚斯的长寿约有一半归功于基因，另一半归功于生活方式。他透露：“她从不吸烟，从不喝酒，喜欢工作到实在做不动为止。她住在乡下，会进行适度锻炼（主要是每天散步一小时）她的饮食是地中海风格，包含橄榄油，对她来说，还有一样特别的食物就是酸奶。”
布拉尼亚斯的生活方式中，有一件事或许略显特别，那就是她对酸奶的摄入。她每天要吃三份酸奶。研究人员推测，这一习惯连同她的其他饮食习惯，使她的肠道微生物群维持在与年轻得多的人相似的状态，并降低了她的炎症水平。
蔬菜、酸奶和橄榄油构成的地中海式饮食
除了大量食用酸奶外，布拉尼亚斯还拥有多种有助于健康衰老的基因变异。研究团队发现的部分基因包括：一种与免疫功能和认知能力相关的基因、一种影响身体脂肪代谢效率的基因，以及另一种与老年大脑健康和心脏病相关的基因。
伦敦国王学院衰老学教授克莱尔·斯蒂夫斯表示：“这篇论文的细节程度令人惊叹。研究人员进行了深入研究，并成功评估了多种不同的生物衰老机制。在我看来，这是第一篇真正如此细致地开展此类研究的论文。”她还补充称，未来的研究应验证这些发现是否能在其他超级百岁老人身上重现。
研究团队在论文中指出，通过对布拉尼亚斯基因组的研究，他们得以证明“极高龄与健康状况不佳并非内在相关”。斯蒂夫斯表示：“老年健康不佳并非不可避免。它是由生物机制导致的。而这是我们可以改变的。”她还补充称，该论文表明“长寿不会是单一因素作用的结果，必然涉及多种不同的途径”。
埃斯特勒希望，通过识别与健康衰老相关的基因和蛋白质，研究人员能够为开发针对这些特定元素的药物提供指导。
斯蒂夫斯补充道：“我们的目标未必是让所有人都活到117岁。我们希望的是尽量缩短人们生病和受苦的时间。而这位女士似乎做到了这一点，同时还实现了长寿。”
1925年时的玛丽亚
She was the world’s oldest person, living to 117. What do her genes reveal about the secret of longevity? By Issy Ronald on CNN. September 27, 2025.
When a supercentenarian, someone who is older than 110 years old, is interviewed, they are inevitably asked to share their tips for longevity.
But what if their secret could be studied scientifically? What could their genome tell us about ageing and why they avoid the diseases that claim so many other people? If any secrets were uncovered, might they, perhaps, help others to live as long, too?
Questions like these are at the heart of a recent paper, published Wednesday in the journal Cell Reports Medicine, which investigated the genome of Maria Branyas Morera, a US-born Spanish woman who died in August 2024 at age 117 years and 168 days, shortly after becoming the world’s oldest living person.
“She was a very generous person, trying to help, so it was great to work with her,” Dr. Manel Esteller, a researcher at the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute in Barcelona, Spain, who co-authored the study, told CNN.
Esteller and the research team took samples from Branyas’ blood, saliva, urine and stool before examining her genome and comparing it with those belonging to 75 other Iberian women.
Overall, they concluded, Branyas lived so long because she both won the genetic lottery and lived a healthy lifestyle. She both possessed genes that guarded against common age-related diseases and followed a healthy lifestyle and diet.
“She was a lucky person from the start, and she got an extra plus through her life,” said Esteller, attributing about half of Branyas’ longevity to her genetics and about half to her lifestyle.
“She never smoked, she never drank alcohol, she liked to work until she could (not) … She lived in the countryside, she did moderated exercise (mostly walking one hour a day) … She had a diet that included olive oil, Mediterranean style and, in her case, yogurt,” he told CNN.
If there were one slightly unusual thing about Branyas’ lifestyle, it might be her consumption of yogurt, as she ate three servings a day.
Researchers hypothesized that, along with the rest of her diet, this habit kept her gut microbiome resembling that of a much younger person and reduced her levels of inflammation.
Still, Branyas’ love of yoghurt didn’t necessarily caused her “overall fitness” and her gut microbiome is “probably reflecting she’s actually a very good host to all those microbes because of all the other factors that are good about her body,” said Claire Steves, a professor of aging at King’s College London, who wasn’t involved in the study.
Aside from eating lots of yogurt, Branyas possessed various variations of genes that helped her age healthily. Some of those that the research team identified included a gene associated with immune function and cognitive retention, a gene that influences how efficiently the body metabolizes fats, and another gene associated with aging brain health and heart disease.
“The level of detail in this paper is extraordinary,” Steves told CNN.
“They have gone very deep and managed to assess a wide range of different biological aging mechanisms … To my note, this is the first paper that’s every really done this in this detail,” she said, adding that future studies should see whether the findings are replicated in other supercentenarians.
Steves, like the researchers themselves, cautioned against drawing broad conclusions from this study, which focuses on just one person, since the aging process is different for everyone.
“When you’re only looking at one person, you can’t be sure whether or not what you’re seeing is because of just fluke, you can’t be sure that the relationship is really clear,” Steves said, though she added that focusing on one person can still offer some insights.
For example, by examining Branyas’ genome, the research team were able to illustrate that “extremely advanced age and poor health are not intrinsically linked,” as they said in their study.
“Ill-health in age is not inevitable. It comes about because of biological mechanisms … it’s something we can change,” said Steves, adding that the paper shows “it’s not going to be one single bullet, it’s got to be multiple different pathways.”
And by identifying the genes and proteins involved in healthy aging, Esteller hopes researchers can guide the development of drugs that can target these specific elements.
“Our aim should not necessarily be to all live to 117,” Steves added. “What we want to do is to try and squash the time when we’re unwell and suffering to as small as possible. And that’s what this lady seems to have done, as well as living to a long time.”
来源：读行品世事一点号
