Familial excess longevity in Utah genealogies

We evaluated the influence of family history on longevity by examining long evity in a cohort of 78.994 individuals drawn from the Utah Population Data base (UPDB) who were born between 1870 and 1907, and lived to at least age 65. We examined Mendelian genetic and social modes of transmission of exces s longevity (the difference between observed and expected longevity) by var ying weighted kinship contributions over different classes of relatives. Th e genetic component of the variation in excess longevity measured as herita bility, h(2), was approximately 0.15 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.12-0.1 8). Among siblings of probands who reached the 97th percentile of excess lo ngevity (+14.8 years, currently age 95 for men and 97 for women), the relat ive risk of recurrence (lambda (s)) was 2.30 (95% CI 2.08-2.56). In sibship s whose relatives were in the top 15% of the distribution for familial exce ss longevity, the value of lambda (s) increased substantially, indicating t hat considering the longevity of distant relatives may be helpful in the se lection of families in which to identify genes influencing aging and longev ity.