Is Longevity Predetermined at Birth? Here's the Scientific Explanation

KOMPAS.com - Many people want to live long lives. Although you can adopt a healthy lifestyle, the chances of living a long life are also influenced by something we cannot change, namely innate genetics.

A study proves that the genetic component is actually much larger than previously estimated. This means that DNA plays an important role in determining a person’s lifespan.

This topic used to be very difficult to study because it required decades to collect human age data.

An old study entitled “The heritability of human longevity: a population-based study of 2872 Danish twin pairs born 1870-1900”, found that genes only contribute 20-25 percent to a person’s final lifespan.

“That number is much smaller compared to other innate traits such as body mass index, which ranges around 50 percent,” said emergency medicine doctor and longevity expert at Biograph, Michael Doney, quoting Prevention, Sunday (17/5/2026).

The remaining 45 percent comes from daily habits that can be controlled, such as diet, sleep patterns, and how often you exercise.

“If genetic inheritance is high, longevity genes can reveal the mechanisms of aging and provide information for treatment and public health,” said a longevity specialist and genetics expert at Parsley Health, Nisha Chellam, M.D.

“The hypothesis is that identical twins share 100 percent of their genetic material, and non-identical twins share 50 percent of their genetic material. So, if identical twins have similar ages, then genes must have an influence,” said Dr. Chellam.

Meanwhile, Dr. Doney explained that this method helps researchers reduce the influence of external factors, such as environment or lifestyle, so they can focus more on looking at the relationship between age and biological and genetic factors.

The filtered data is then compared with records of people aged 100 years and over in the United States to reduce the possibility of bias due to differences in research locations.

Dr. Chellam added that when external mortality factors such as accidents or environmental conditions are eliminated, the influence of inherited diseases in the family, such as heart disease, dementia, and cancer, becomes more apparent.

These findings further strengthen the suspicion that hereditary factors have a major role in a person’s longevity.

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