Heritability of intrinsic human life span is about 50%
by XzetaU8 on 2/1/2026, 12:13:22 PM
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz1187
Comments
by: nerdralph
There's a lot of genes that impact lifespan, both good and bad. For example my father has hereditary hemochromatosis due to 2 copies of the HFE C282Y mutation. He was diagnosed in his 50's, so I'd expect the damage it did to his body to impact lifespan.<p>In my case I don't have it (I'm just a genetic carrier). If I did have the genotype and took the necessary dietary measures to avoid the phenotype, then it likely wouldn't impact lifespan.<p>On one hand you can argue a heritable disease like HHC has an impact on lifespan, but with genetic testing and treatment you can argue it doesn't impact lifespan (or it's impact is significantly mitigated).
2/3/2026, 5:24:50 PM
by: Enginerrrd
In case anyone was curious like me: the standard deviation of lifespan is ~12-15 years in developed countries.<p>So environmental effects, sleep, diet, lifestyle, etc (I.e. modifiable factors) maybe account for half of that, so like 6-7.5 years of variance. Which… sounds about right to me.
2/3/2026, 3:25:34 PM
by: emp17344
Keep in mind this research is based on correcting twin study heritability estimates for confounding effects. However, new research shows that heritability estimates derived from twin studies are themselves dramatically inflated: <a href="https://open.substack.com/pub/theinfinitesimal/p/the-missing-heritability-question?utm_source=direct&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web" rel="nofollow">https://open.substack.com/pub/theinfinitesimal/p/the-missing...</a>
2/3/2026, 3:29:20 PM
by: c-fe
How is heritabiltity of life span useful if by the time the lifespan becomes known (eg at 80yrs old) the inheritance is not possible anymore (eg menopause)?
2/3/2026, 4:00:52 PM
by: sinenomine
This finding rectified my mental model of longevity after a long, perplexing period where longevity was estimated to be much less heritable than expected when comparing to other studied traits.
2/3/2026, 3:43:06 PM
by: moi2388
Wait. They studied twins, removed accidents etc. But wouldn’t this lead to overestimation of heritability due to shared environment?
2/3/2026, 3:36:19 PM
by: pfdietz
Seemingly due to reduction in extrinsic factors affecting lifespan.
2/3/2026, 4:07:03 PM
by: JoeAltmaier
Rats. I have ancestors that died at 97, others at 81. Some even younger. So, no telling.
2/3/2026, 3:39:14 PM
by: MichaelRo
There's also some wisdom in that if you make kids later in life, you pass them the genes to survive (with 50% probability it seems) up to that age.<p>So if you're in the kind of family that dies of cancer at 30, and make kids at 25, perspectives don't look great.<p>Now, not to these people shouldn't make kids but perhaps, choose a spouse whose family dies on average at 60+?<p>Marry "up", not "down" :)
2/3/2026, 5:14:58 PM
by: logicallee
tangentially, readers may be interested in this paper: <a href="https://stateofutopia.com/papers/1/evolving-brains-cull-long-inference-times.html" rel="nofollow">https://stateofutopia.com/papers/1/evolving-brains-cull-long...</a><p>(you can reproduce its results yourself in a few minutes).
2/3/2026, 3:32:02 PM
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2/3/2026, 5:24:45 PM