Nowadays, it seems like everyone is selling longevity, from supplements touting life-extending benefits to blood test subscription services that promise to lower your biological age.
On paper, this all sounds great and, unsurprisingly, the global longevity market—valued at $21.3 billion in 2024—is projected to almost triple over the next 10 years, according to data from Market Research Future. However, until we’re able to start doing in-depth scientific analysis on people who have actually achieved meaningfully longer-than-average lifespans, much of the hype around longevity remains theoretical.
Cue a breakthrough new study, published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine, which reveals the findings of a group of researchers who studied the world’s oldest living person. Before passing away last year at the age of 117, Maria Branyas Morera topped the list of known supercentenarians (people over the age of 110), and in 2023 she invited scientists to study her biology—and her lifestyle—to help determine what factors might have contributed to not only her impressive longevity, but also a surprising absence of age-related diseases.
“Maria was extremely old, but at the same time very healthy, and this is very unusual,” says Manel Esteller, MD, PhD, chairman of genetics at the University of Barcelona and researcher at The Josep Carreras Institute, who led the study. “We wanted to uncover clues about her healthy and extended lifespan.”
Interestingly, the research paints a picture that is as much about good genetics as it is about maintaining a healthy lifestyle. “It’s half and half,” Dr. Esteller says. “Half is genetics, and the other half is what we do with our lives—our behavior, what we eat, and whether we exercise or not.”
From diet and exercise to social activity, here’s everything Dr. Esteller told us about the lifestyle choices that might have enabled Branyas to live such a long and healthy life.
Read Dr. Esteller’s four takeaways from studying the lifestyle of the oldest person in the world.
