[reasonattlm]

We should treat this study and the discussion of the relevance of the results as being highly speculative.

Firstly, near all genetic variants that have been found to correlate with age in one study population fail to replicate in other study populations, and this is true of studies with cohorts consisting of thousands of individuals. The study here used a primary cohort of less than 100 individuals over the age of 100. This is ever the challenge in research focused on extreme old age: very few people make it that far. There was a secondary validation cohort of a few hundred centenarians, but I'm not sure that should increase our confidence in the data, given the existence of other studies that did much the same thing and still failed to replicate.

Secondly, given the identification of a genetic variant, near everything one can say about it is quite speculative in advance of much more detailed research into how exactly that variant changes cell behavior.

Lastly, the most robust data established to date on the contributions of genetic variants to human longevity, with studies pulling from very large national databases such as the UK Biobank, suggests that genetics has only a minor role to play. Lifestyle choices and exposure to pathogens are the dominant factors. In the case of long-lived families, cultural transmission of lifestyle choices relating to longevity seems a more plausible explanation than genetics, given the rest of the literature as it presently stands.

[TaupeRanger]

Bingo. Not sure why every biology/medicine post on HN is unquestioningly upvoted and accepted as established fact by so many commenters, who always discuss the applications instead of the validity. I wish this community of all would know better.