“We found that the offspring of nonagenarians who had at least 1 nonagenarian sibling had lower levels of vitamin D than controls, independent of possible confounding factors and SNPs [single nucleotide polymorphisms] associated with vitamin D levels,” write the authors. “We also found that the offspring had a lower frequency of common genetic variants in the CYP2R1 gene; a common genetic variant of this gene predisposes people to high vitamin D levels.
These findings support an association between low vitamin D levels and familial longevity.” They postulate that offspring of nonagenarians might have more of a protein that is hypothesized to be an “aging suppressor” protein. More research is needed to understand the link between lower vitamin D levels, genetic variants and familial longevity.
Of course, correlation is not causation. For now, I think I’ll continue to supplement.
For what it’s worth, my dad died at fifty-five, a third of a century ago, in large part due to criminal dietary advice (OK, maybe that’s a little too strong — they probably knew no better) and my mother at sixty-eight to a massive heart attack in the night, in her sleep. At least for her, it was fast. And in both cases they were overweight smokers, a product of their generation.
Here’s an intersection of two of my favorite topics — the heavy hand of the state in regulating speech, and paleolithic diets, from George Will. And good for the Institute for Justice.
Well, everything went according to plan. Though from a pain standpoint, it’s likely to get worse before it gets better, because they shot up the area with a local, and I’ll probably be unhappy when it wears off (I do have decent meds, though). But at least for now, I’m ambulatory, up and down stairs, and can sit at the computer.
It was probably good to get this out of the way in front of a three-day weekend…
[Friday mid-morning update]
Just to end all the speculation in comments, it was not an “@n@l spelunking” (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I had to patch up (literally) an inguinal hernia on the right side. I was trying to avoid TMI, but…