What causes some few people in the world to reach extreme old age? (the world record holders)?

What causes some few people to be able to live to a very extreme old age? What other factors play in besides genetic background and do the genetics really matter much? For exampe: One of the world's longevity record holders was the late Jeanne Louise Calment of France who was born in 1875 and died in 1997. She long outlived all of her close family members and none of her family members lived nearly as long as she did as far as I know. She had two siblings who died before she was born and she had a daughter and grandson who both died when they were 36 years old. Therefore I don't think her living to be 122 is due that much to her genetics. She kept a healthy lifestyle but then again other people keep healthy too and don't live to be 122. So what could be the cause of her being able to live till such an extreme old age?|||actually, i just heard something on the radio recently that said that they found a gene that they are quite sure decides whether or not you will live to a very old age (like you mean) or not. it could be that at some point she developed a mutation in that specific gene but her family didn't, so she lived a long time but they didn't (obviously, because if they had a regular version of the gene or a version that would make them live shorter than average lives, they wouldn't live as long as her and they didn't). so back then they obviously didn't know about the gene, but this new information does seem to make sense. mutations are often thought of as changes for the worse, but sometimes they can lead to advantageous things (in this case living longer--maybe it didn't feel like it was better to her, but in evolutionary sense it was better).





try googling it and see what you find.|||Eating and sleeping on a regular schedule, and luck. Genes play a minor part, especially in explaining the difference between people who get to, say, 95 and those who get to, say, 115|||New studies seem to indicate a gene that causes high levels of the good colesterol and also larger particles of it.