In mathematical terms, the centenarians’ genes have bought them a phase shift in time—that is, their entire lifespan and healthspan curve has been shifted a decade or two (or three!) to the right. Not only do they live longer, but these are people who have been healthier than their peers, and biologically younger than them, for virtually their entire lives. When they were sixty, their coronary arteries were as healthy as those of thirty-five-year-olds. At eighty-five, they likely looked and felt and functioned as if they were in their sixties. They seemed like people a generation younger than
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