Healthy ageing is often framed as a product of lifestyle: diet, exercise, and sleep. But new research suggests that genetics plays a substantial role in determining how well people age, accounting for up to a quarter of the differences in physical and mental function later in life.
A study from the University of Adelaide has found that genetic predisposition contributes between 19.5 and 25.2 percent of the variation in what researchers call “intrinsic capacity,” a key measure of healthy ageing.
