A RARE gene has been discovered that lets people live past 100 while making them half as likely to suffer from dementia. Experts hope by analysing rs72824905-G, existing in one in 100 Europeans, drugs can be found to end the disease.
Amsterdam’s University Medical Centre discovered the gene helps to regulate the brain’s immune system.
This appears to allow people to live longer as well as having a protective effect against multiple brain diseases.
For the research, elderly people aged 100 or older from 16 different populations were observed and studied in 60 different institutes throughout Europe and North and South America.
One of those with the gene is Mr van Duin from the Netherlands, who at the age of 102 is still in great mental health and even boasts of having a girlfriend.
Mr van Duin said: "A nephew of mine is 99, my sister was 92. My granddad was 96, his son also something like that, 96. Thus something really runs in the family.
Besides researching the lives and medical condition of elderly individuals such as Mr van Duin, the researchers also used data from the UK Biobank in Stockport.
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