Maria Branyas Morera, known to the world of science as Subject M116, died on August 19, 2024 at the age of 117. Not surprisingly, she has been the subject of considerable interest and investigation. Of course, everyone wants to live to 117 (don't they?), and so we want to know what her secret was. The most notable evaluation of her story was published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine, What were the takeaways? Well, two were that she stayed away from toxic people, and she ate a lot of yogurt. Apparently, a lot of yogurt. (Yogurt is, of course, good for the gut microbiome. And what's good for the gut is good for the brain.) The researchers said that they "performed a high-throughput multiomics study of the world’s oldest living person, interrogating her genome, transcriptome, metabolome, proteome, microbiome, and epigenome, comparing the results with larger matched cohorts." (Take that, you skeptics.)
Maria was actually born in the United States to Spanish parents, but her family returned to Spain when she was 8, where she grew up and lived out her life. Today, we think of Spain as a peaceful place, but it would have been racked by civil war, two world wars, the Spanish Flu, and then a terribly repressive government during the first half of her life. (Remember for whom the bell tolls ... it tolls for thee. (Apologies to Ernest Hemingway and John Donne.))
Not surprisingly, the findings of the Cell Reports study focused on both genetics and lifestyle. She allowed doctors to collect samples of her blood, saliva, urine, and stool and these were studied. These provided insights on aspects of her health, notably the health of her gut microbiome.
The researchers observed that she had genetics that favored a long life. Her lifestyle was what you would expect -- she was socially active (but not with toxic people), she didn't smoke, she didn't drink, and she got regular exercise. (Although I'm not sure how many jumping jacks she was doing at 116.) Regarding her diet, the researchers pointed out that she ate a lot of yogurt. They thought that the yogurt reduced inflammation, which helped extend her life.
In Catalonia, where her family originated and where she lived, the life expectancy for women is 86 years. So she sure beat that.
One thing that surprised researchers was the very short length of her telomeres. Telomeres are regions on the ends of chromosomes that shorten as you age. They protect the chromosomes, but they shorten as you age and may be associated with lifespan. Some research has gone into the hope that by preventing the telomeres from shortening, the folks that want to live to 117 and beyond can extend their lives. This finding suggests that is a false hope.
I'm not sure what all of this means for the folks that want to live to 117. In 2016, I was told I could expect to live to 85, although the way I feel today, I might go beyond that. That's good enough for me.
