A new study in the November issue of Journal of American Geriatrics Society revealed that parents who live to be 100 may pass on the "good genes" to their children. The study which is the first to examine the health of centenarian offspring, found that these children tended to live longer and were substantially less likely to develop diabetes or suffer a heart attack or stroke over four years.

The study on 600 U.S. adults included 440 men and women who had at least one parent who'd survived to age 100 or beyond, and 192 adults whose parents had lived an average life expectancy. At the start of the study, the average age of both the groups was 72 years. The researchers found that centenarian offspring had a 78 % lower risk for heart attacks, 83 % lower likelihood of stroke and an 86 % lower risk of developing diabetes mellitus. They also found that centenarian offspring were 81 % less likely to die than the reference group of similarly-aged patients during the follow-up period.

Researchers Emily R. Adams and colleagues at Boston University and Boston Medical Center said, "These findings reinforce the notion that there may be physiological reasons that longevity runs in families and that centenarian offspring are more likely to age in better cardiovascular health and with a lower mortality than their peers." They added that it seemed like children of centenarians tend to retain a "cardiovascular advantage" over their peers as they age.

The results are in tune with earlier research, which found that the delay or absence of cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular risk factors, including high blood pressure and diabetes, runs strongly in the families of centenarians, particularly amongst their children. The researchers wrote, "The current findings suggest that centenarian offspring are following in their parent's footsteps, avoiding some of the vascular morbidities afflicting their peers and, more importantly, being less likely to die over time."

Dellara F. Terry, co-author of the study said, "These advantages persisted over the several years of the study when they are compared to a similarly-aged group whose parents did not survive to very old age."