Until her death, in April 2025, Brazilian Inah Canabarro Lucas was the oldest person in the world. Lived 116 years
Brazilian supercentenarians are revealing hidden genetic and immune secrets that could redefine what it means to age — and survive — exceptionally.
Why do a small number of people live past the age of 110 while the majority never reach 100? Scientists have sought to answer this question for decades, but clear answers remain scarce.
In one published at the beginning of the month in the magazine Genomic Psychiatrygeneticist Mayana Zatz and colleagues at the Human Genome and Stem Cell Research Center at the University of São Paulo explore why Brazil could be one of the most important, but neglected, contexts for studying extreme human longevity.
The country’s very diverse population is home to millions of genetic variants absent from conventional databases, including rare changes associated with immune strength and cellular health.
Os Brazilian supercentenarians frequently maintain mental lucidity, survive serious infections and come from families where several members live beyond 100 years of age. Taken together, they reveal aging not as an inevitable decline, but as a form of biological resistance.
The article’s authors combine knowledge from their long-term national study of exceptionally long-lived individuals with recent discoveries in the biology of supercentenarians to explain why Brazil offers unique scientific opportunities.
Many large genomic databases are dominated by populations relatively homogeneousleaving important gaps with regard to mixed-race groups.
“This gap is especially limiting in longevity research, where admixed supercentenarians may have unique protective variantsinvisible in more homogeneous populations”, explains Mateus Vidigal de Castrofirst author of the article and researcher at the Human Genome and Stem Cell Research Center.
Brazil’s incomparable genetic diversity
Brazil’s population history distinguishes it from practically all other countries. THE Portuguese colonization started in 1500the forced migration of around 4 million enslaved Africans and the European and Japanese immigration vacancies produced what the authors describe as the richest genetic diversity of the world.
Initial genomic research involving more than 1000 Brazilians over the age of 60 revealed about 2 million genetic variants previously unknown.
Only among older Braziliansresearchers identified more than 2000 insertions of moving elements and more than 140 alleles HLA global genomic databases are absent.
A later study expanded this panorama even furtherhaving identified more than 8 million genetic variants not described in the entire Brazilian population, including more than 36,000 considered potentially harmful.
The investigation team built a rare and valuable groupthe. Your study includes more than 160 centenarians, including 20 supercentenarians validated, coming from different regions of Brazil with very varied social, cultural and environmental contexts.
Among the participants was the world until his death, on April 30, 2025, at the age of 116. The group also included the two oldest men in the world. One passed away last November at the age of 112, while the other is currently 113 years old.
What makes this group especially informative It’s not just your age. When researchers first contacted them, several Brazilian supercentenarians still maintained mental lucidity and were able to autonomously manage basic daily tasks.
Many spent most of their lives in deprived areaswith little access to modern healthcare. This allows scientists to study biological resistance that has developed largely without medical intervention.
One of the families analyzed in the study by Mayana Zatz and colagas provides a notable example of hereditary longevity. A 110-year-old woman in the group has nieces aged 100, 104 and 106making it one of the longest-lived families ever documented in Brazil. The oldest niece, now 106 years old, still participated in swimming competitions at age 100.
This pattern is consistent with findings from previous studies showing that centenarian brothers are between 5 and 17 times more likely to reach an extremely old age themselves.
Could families like this help separate genetic from environmental or epigenetic influences?
“Investigating these rare family clusters offers a rare window into the polygenic inheritance of resistance and may help disentangle the genetic and epigenetic contributions to extreme longevity,” notes Vidigal de Castro.
What Makes Supercentenarians Biologically Different
The article also brings together recent research on the biological characteristics that distinguish supercentenarians from the general population.
Your immune cells keepprotein recycling systems who function at levels similar to those of much younger people. Cellular cleaning processes remain active and efficienthelping to prevent the accumulation of damaged proteins.
Single-cell analyzes show a unusual expansion of cytotoxic CD4+ T cells that behave more like CD8+ immune cells. This immune profile is rarely seen in younger individuals.
A recent study of a 116-year-old American-Spanish supercentenarian identified rare or exclusive variantss in genes related to the immune system, such as HLA-DQB1, HLA-DRB5 and IL7R, along with variants linked to protein maintenance and genome stability.
The authors argue that immune aging in supercentenarians must be seen not as a general decline, but as a form of adaptation which preserves function.
Interestingly, unlike the American-Spanish supercentenarian woman, who followed a Mediterranean diet, there is no evidence of dietary restrictions in Brazilian supercentenarians.
One of more convincing demonstrations of resistance occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Three Brazilian supercentenarians from the group survived the infection in 2020, before vaccines were available.
Laboratory analyzes showed strong IgG and antibody responses neutralizing agents against SARS-CoV-2, together with proteins related to the immune system and metabolites linked to early host defense.
How people over the age of 110 were able to mount effective immune responses to a completely new virus that has proven deadly to millions of younger individuals remains a fundamental question.
The authors suggest that preserved immune function, intact protein maintenance systems and general physiological stability Together, they make supercentenarians powerful models for studying resistance.
Supercentenarians offer more than examples of unusually long lives. Demonstrate resistance, adaptability and resiliencecharacteristics that can be as important as longevity itself.
Instead of simply enduring old agethese individuals seem actively counteract many biological characteristics of aging, offering clues that could improve quality of life as populations age.
“International longevity and genomics consortia should expand recruitment to include ancestrally diverse and mixed populationslike that of Brazil, or provide financial support for genomic, immunological and longitudinal studies that deepen scientific knowledge and improve equity in global health research”, concludes Mayana Zatz.
