Scientists have just taken the most detailed look yet at the biology of a record-breaking human life, profiling a woman who lived to 117 years and 168 days free of cancer, cardiovascular disease and dementia. What they found could help us all with our own longevity.
A team from the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute in Spain performed a thorough investigation of the woman born in San Francisco in 1907 and who lived the rest of her years in Spain after her family relocated when she was eight. While the researchers refer to her as M116 in the study, this supercentenarian was Maria Branyas Morera, who made global news in 2024 as officially the oldest person to have ever lived.
In this fascinating study, researchers looked at her DNA and its epigenetic markers, gene activity, proteins, blood metabolites, gut microbes and immune cells, which offered a clear picture of how she achieved what very few people do – not just living well into her 100s, but doing so healthily. Despite many of the telltale molecular signs of aging, Branyas Morera also possessed some critical biological markers that help explain how she remained disease-free in her later years.
Some biological signs were indicative of old age, however. Her chromosomes possessed very short telomeres – the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes that erode with each cell division – and she had a high amount of ultra-short telomeres. She also had clonal hematopoiesis, common with age, where one bone-marrow stem cell picks up a mutation and its offspring start making a disproportionate share of a person's blood cells. She also had a higher share of age-associated B cells – a subset that tends to build up in later life and are more inflammatory and less efficient at making effective antibodies, weakening the immune system over time.
However, despite these age-related markers, which can ultimately lead to developing cardiovascular disease or cancer, Branyas Morera remained free of both.
Perhaps more remarkable were the markers that defied her 117.5 years on Earth, bearing the hallmarks of being protective rather than destructive. Her lipid metabolism read like a cardiologist’s dream: little very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) cholesterol cholesterol and triglycerides, very high high-density lipoprotein (HDL, or the "good" cholesterol) and a lipoprotein particle pattern linked to excellent cardiovascular health. Her inflammation markers that integrate multiple acute-phase proteins (GlycA/GlycB) were also low, helping shield her from chronic illnesses.
Her gut health told a similar story. Her microbiome was unusually rich for someone her age and skewed toward “younger” features – most notably, high levels of Bifidobacterium, a genus that typically dwindles in late life and is associated with anti-inflammatory signaling and production of beneficial short-chain fatty acids. The researchers noted that Branyas Morera routinely ate yogurt, which can nurture these beneficial bacteria strains. These beneficial microbes are also supported by eating fermented foods like kimchi and miso.
But perhaps the strongest evidence of her secret to longevity came through her epigenetic clock markers, which tell the story of biological age through DNA methylation patterns. Across blood, saliva and urine, her biological age was significantly younger than her chronological age on multiple independent clocks. A ribosomal-DNA methylation clock, which was computed from whole-genome bisulfite sequencing, estimated that she was about 23 years "younger" than her calendar age. While our biological aging tends to speed up as we move into later life, Branyas Morera appeared to defy this trend and showed signs of decelerated epigenetic aging.
However, some of her impressive health appears to have come down to genetics, too. While we're yet to find a single "longevity gene," scientists have identified a cluster of variants that people who live long and health lives often have. In Branyas Morera's case, genomic sequencing revealed that she had a handful of rare variants linked to immune fitness, cardiovascular protection, neuroprotection and mitochondria health. She also lacked some common risk mutations – for example, she didn’t carry deleterious apolipoprotein E alleles, which are linked to late-life disease including Alzheimer's. Her blood cells revealed she had strong mitochondrial function, which helped keep her interconnected systems running smoothly. (Aging often comes with increased mitochondrial dysfunction.)
Of course, all these markers only tell some of the story of longevity – but her biological blueprint gives us a good idea of why some people appear to age at a much slower rate. And while there isn't much we can do about genetics (yet), Branyas Morera had many markers – strong lipid metabolism, low inflammation, excellent mitochondrial health and a robust microbiome – that we can influence through diet and lifestyle at any age.
Ultimately, Branyas Morera died in her sleep at age 117 years, 5 months and 18 days, after a few months of suffering several age-related issues including the chronic lung condition bronchiectasis, an esophageal diverticulum, and osteoarthritis. However, she remained cancer-free and was cognitively healthy.
She spent most of her life in the historic Spanis community of Catalonia, where the centenarian population has boomed in recent decades – up 4.6-fold between 2000 and 2021 – drawing increasing attention from scientists.
The study was published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine.
Source: Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute via Scimex
