Only a tiny slice of Switzerland’s population makes it past 100 years old – about 0.02 percent. That rarity raises a simple question: Do people who reach 100 have measurable biological traits that set them apart from everyone else?
A team working on the SWISS100 project, the first large Swiss research effort focused specifically on centenarians, suggests the answer may be yes.
Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the University of Lausanne (UNIL) compared blood profiles from centenarians with those of people in their 80s and then with adults aged 30 to 60.
Across a set of 37 proteins, the centenarians looked surprisingly “young,” especially when it came to markers tied to oxidative stress.
Breaking down exceptional aging
SWISS100 is designed as a broad attempt to understand exceptional longevity from multiple angles, not just biology. Led by Daniela Jopp, a professor at UNIL, it combines sociology, psychology, medicine, and biology.
The biological strand was directed by Karl-Heinz Krause, professor emeritus at UNIGE’s Faculty of Medicine, and focused on molecular signatures in the blood.
The team compared three groups: 39 centenarians aged 100 to 105 (about 85 percent women), 59 octogenarians, and 40 younger adults aged 30 to 60.
Krause notes that including people in their 80s wasn’t just a bonus comparison. It helped the team tease apart what “normal” aging looks like versus what seems different in people who reach 100.
“The octogenarians allow a more fine-grained analysis of how certain blood markers evolve over a lifetime, and help to distinguish normal aging from the exceptional aging of centenarians,” he explained.
The standout molecular patterns
The researchers measured 724 proteins in blood serum. They focused heavily on inflammatory and cardiovascular markers, since both are closely tied to disease risk and lifespan. Of those 724 proteins, 37 emerged as particularly striking.
“In our centenarians, the profiles of these 37 proteins are closer to those of the youngest group than to those of octogenarians,” said lead author Flavien Delhaes, a researcher at UNIGE.
He points out that these 37 proteins represent about five percent of the proteins measured. That small fraction hints at something subtle but important: Centenarians don’t avoid aging altogether, but certain biological processes appear to slow down in key places.
Centenarian show less cellular stress
The most consistent differences involved proteins linked to oxidative stress, a process widely suspected to accelerate aging.
Free radicals drive oxidative stress. Chronic inflammation produces them, and aging mitochondria generate even more as they lose efficiency.
The centenarians showed notably low levels of five proteins associated with oxidative stress. That’s interesting on its own. But the next finding is even more surprising: They also had significantly lower levels of antioxidant proteins than typical older adults.
“Do centenarians produce fewer free radicals, or do they have a more powerful antioxidant defense?” Krause asked.
“The answer is very clear: Centenarians have significantly lower levels of antioxidant proteins than the standard geriatric population.”
“At first glance, this seems counterintuitive, but in reality, it indicates that since oxidative stress levels are significantly lower in our centenarians, they have less need to produce antioxidant proteins to defend against it.”
In other words, they don’t look “protected” because they’re pumping out more antioxidant defenses. They look protected because the underlying stress appears lower in the first place.
Inflammation stays in check
Oxidative stress wasn’t the only area where centenarians looked different. The study also flagged proteins involved in regulating the extracellular matrix – basically the structural scaffolding and “cement” that holds tissues together.
Some of these proteins showed expression levels in centenarians that looked closer to younger adults.
The researchers also found signals that may relate to protection from tumor development, though the article presents this more cautiously as a possible role rather than a proven mechanism.
Inflammation and metabolism stood out too. In typical aging, several proteins involved in fat metabolism rise sharply with age.
In centenarians, those increases were much more muted. A major inflammatory protein, interleukin-1 alpha, was also lower in the centenarian group compared with the standard older population.
Together, these patterns point toward a body environment that is less inflamed and less metabolically strained – the kind of internal state that would likely reduce the risk of many chronic diseases.
Insulin, stability, and longevity
One particularly interesting marker involved DPP-4, a protein that breaks down GLP-1. GLP-1 is a hormone that boosts insulin secretion and is the basis for several newer drugs used to treat diabetes and obesity.
In centenarians, DPP-4 levels remained well preserved. And the researchers suggest that might actually be beneficial.
“By degrading GLP-1, DPP-4 helps maintain relatively low insulin levels, which could protect them against hyperinsulinism and metabolic syndrome,” Delhaes said.
“This is also a counterintuitive mechanism, suggesting that centenarians maintain good glucose balance without needing to produce large amounts of insulin.”
The idea here is that centenarians may achieve metabolic stability not through pushing the system harder, but through keeping it efficient and steady.
Lessons to live passed 100
The researchers stress that the work is not a “longevity recipe” and that the findings don’t suddenly make aging optional. They suggest that people may live longer when key systems – oxidative stress, inflammation, tissue maintenance, and metabolic regulation – deteriorate more slowly.
In the longer term, this kind of molecular map could help shape therapies aimed at reducing frailty in older adults.
For now, the authors land on something more practical: Lifestyle still matters a lot, because genetics explains only part of why some people live exceptionally long lives.
They estimate the genetic share of longevity at about 25 percent, which leaves plenty of room for everyday choices to influence how aging unfolds. Nutrition, physical activity, and social connection all show up as important levers.
They even give concrete examples. Eating fruit in the morning, they note, can reduce oxidative stress in the blood across the day.
Physical activity may help keep the extracellular matrix in a more “youthful” state. Avoiding excess weight supports healthier metabolism – closer to the stable metabolic patterns seen in centenarians.
The big takeaway is not that centenarians are magically immune to aging. The body appears to ease some of aging’s most damaging pressures, a shift researchers aim to use to limit disease and frailty.
The study is published in the journal Aging Cell.
—–
Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.
Check us out on EarthSnap, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.
—–