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Marker check · 2 questions

Family history

Twin studies put lifespan heritability around 20–25%, and having parents or grandparents who lived past 90 meaningfully raises your own odds. You can’t change this marker — it’s here to calibrate the estimate, and because a strong family history of specific diseases should sharpen your screening habits (see Preventive care).

The research

  • Herskind et al., Hum Genet 1996 — lifespan heritability ~25% (Danish twins)
  • van den Berg et al., Nat Commun 2019 — top-10% longest-lived ancestry effect