People who live to 100 appear to have a'superhuman' ability to avoid major illnesses, according to new research. Two large studies of older adults in Sweden have found that centenarians tend to develop fewer diseases, accumulate them more slowly, and in many cases avoid the most deadly age-related conditions altogether--despite living far longer than their peers. The work, published by an international research team, suggests that exceptional longevity is linked to a distinct pattern of ageing in which illness is delayed or even avoided entirely. The findings challenge the widely held belief that a longer life inevitably comes with more years of poor health. Researchers analysed decades of health records to compare people who reached 100 with those who died earlier but were born in the same years.

Why do some people live longer, healthier, and more active lives while others their same age struggle with lifelong chronic pain and suffer maladies up to their dying day--which comes much earlier than others? This basic longevity question has been nagging physicians for ages. The importance of lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise, stress, and epigenetic processes like lifestyle and exposure to environmental hazards have been called into account to explain this divergence, and now a team of researchers from Stanford's Cardiovascular Institute Division of Vascular Surgery and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging believes they found the answer. Rather than the biological age, they say a better predictor of health and longevity is a person's inflammation age. Aided by artificial intelligence and machine learning, the researchers have concluded that epigenetic effects of inflammation processes, particularly on the cardiovascular and neurological level, are connected with much of the morbidity and mortality associated with aging.

Here's some good news for the day: life expectancy is continuing to increase, and shows no sign of slowing down. More people than ever before are reaching the milestone of 100 years of age. In fact if the Queen is still sending out telegrams to centenarians, she will soon need an industrial size mail house to keep up with demand! Sure, there are pockets around the world – called bluezones – where the prevailing lifestyles have seen concentrations of the world's oldest people. These zones include Sardinia in Italy and Okinawa in Japan, with research suggesting climate, diet and family structures have helped driven this phenomena.