Cent anni!

If I take after my mother, I’ll live to be 81.  If I take after my father, I’m dead already. Ditto for both my grandfathers. If I take after my grandmother Wolf, I’ll make it to 78. If I take after my grandmother Rogers (nee Trainor), I’ll be within spitting distance of 97.

Nanny’s side of the family – the Trainors – are definitely the ones to take after if you want to live long. Her brother Pat and her sister Roseanne both lived until their late 90’s. Roseanne may even have hit 100.

Cent anni – or, if the auto-translator’s got it right - céad bliain. (No hundert jahren on the German side of the house, I’m afraid.)

One hundred years!

Now, I don’t wake up in the morning thinking that I want to live that long. But – if I’m still with it and still a bit spry; if I can still read at least a large-type book; if there are still books; if I’m not broke and living on cat food; if at least some of the people I care about are still around; and if (and this is a big IF) the world hasn’t completely gone to hell by then – sure, why not?

But if I had to guess at what age I’ll shuffle off this mortal coil, I’d put it between 85 and 90.  Good, but not great.  Just a few more years above par for the industrial world these days, which, frankly, I’ve awarded to myself because I am just so, so, so above average.

Presumably, as long as my death isn’t accidental, I’ll decide at the time whether enough is enough.

But I won’t be getting my DNA checked just yet to see whether I’ve got what it takes to hit the century mark.

First off, you need to have your genome “done”. And, while I wouldn’t mind finding out if I was Brian Boru’s great-great-great-granddaughter, or the first cousin of a bonobo, 50 million time removed, it’s just not worth spending a few thousand bucks to find out.

Maybe when it gets down to the point where you can buy it off the shelf at CVS for $14 bucks, or from the ladies’ room vending machine that sells tampons, mouth spray, and condoms. Until then….

So, no genetic sequence, no longevity forecast.

Not yet, anyway.

No doubt there’ll be some point in time when we’re required to actually produce our longevity forecast for some reason or another. That long-term care facility that’ll take the proceeds of your house sale and let you live there 4-EVAH. Not so fast, young old lady. We only plan on you’re living five more years, thank you.

Nonetheless, I was interested in the article in the WSJ the other day that talked about the Boston University discovery of ‘a genetic signature of longevity,’ which will soon have a free test to go along with it.

Genetic signature, writ by that good old moving finger of life.

Not that the signature guarantees anything, mind you.

One could still get run down by a texting SUV driver. Or even succumb to some pedestrian virus or bacterium. Still, the test will let you know whether you’ve got the goods, i.e., the constitution, to keep on keepin’ on.

The researchers, who studied more than 1,000 people over the age of 100, identified a set of 150 unique genetic markers that, taken together, are linked to extreme longevity. They acknowledged they didn't know all the genes involved, nor their exact function in extending old age.

Will figuring out if you have the Fab 150 be just TMI?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Sure, it could change your behavior – eat, drink, and be merry; after all, there’s no tomorrow. And your planning: can’t spend a dime, I need to make sure I have enough to last 20 years longer than everyone else.

But having this kind of information might not be an unalloyed joy.

No one knows the complete prescription for a healthy long life. But genes that help control cellular responses to famine, drought and other survival stresses may play a key role in staving off the diseases and chronic ailments of aging, research suggests.

Okay. I do know that half of my great, great grandparents survived the Irish potato famine. In fact, they survived it so well that half of my great-grandparents didn’t even bother to get on the boat as emmies until several decades later. So I may have the famine thing going for me.

By the way, there’s a cutesie new name for elderly folks who are in good health. They’re now known as the “wellderly.” And if you’re going to live a long time, that’s sure what you want to be. As opposed to lying strapped down in a hospital bed, non compos de mentis. (Although if you’re non compos, the being strapped down might not matter to you.)

In order to get to be wellderly, however, you have to follow a healthy lifestyle. That genetic signature only starts mattering once you’ve at least made it to reasonable old age.

Once thing they’ll never find– not just yet, at least; they’ll have to create it, first – is the immortality gene.

I may feel differently about this as I start to metaphorically circle the metaphorical drain, but for now I give that one a hearty old raspberry.

I wanna live forever? No way!

At this moment in time, I don’t even want to know if I stand a good chance of making it to 100.