Centenarians’ Children Have Favorable Health Outcomes in China. Effects of Genetic Inherence and Its Interactions with Environment on Healthy Aging

Huashuai Chen, Peking University
Xiaoming Shi, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC)
Liu Yuzhi, Peking University

We present a comparative analysis of the health outcomes and health risk factors between 417 centenarians’ children who are also elderly themselves and their peers with comparable gender, age and other socioeconomic characteristics living in a variety of areas. We test two hypotheses: H1: The children of centenarians are healthier than their peers due to genetic heritability; H2: The interactions between genetic propensity and social, behavioral, and community environmental factors also play important roles in determining health outcomes at old ages. The preliminary results indicate that, controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, childhood conditions, adulthood SES, family/social support and health practice, the children of centenarians have significantly better health outcomes measured by IADL, depression symptom, cognitive ability, number of chronic diseases, self-rated health and self-rated life satisfaction. The paper presents additional findings concerning the genetic-environmental interaction.