Senior citizens may have inherited more than their parents’ quirky personalities.
The children of parents who lived to 100 years or older have been found to be healthier and have a much lower risk for conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, the New York Times reports.
A new study done at Boston University School of Medicine found children of centenarians were 78 per cent less likely to have heart attacks and 86 per cent less likely to develop diabetes, according to the article.
However, the article also stated that a parent who lived longer than others is not a free pass from other conditions such as dementia, cancer and osteoporosis.
"It could be there are health-related behaviors they have learned from their parents.
It’s also possible it’s genes, or the absence of bad genes, they inherited from their parents," Dr Dellara F Terry, lead author of the paper, told the Times.
It’s also possible more people are living longer thanks to healthy living, though this is proving to be a double-edged sword.
There is an ongoing effort to change the legal retirement age in UK of 65, because some say it’s a form of age discrimination.
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