Ecuadorean Villagers May Hold Secret to Longevity

[Judi Lynn]

Ecuadorean Villagers May Hold Secret to Longevity
By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: February 16, 2011

People living in remote villages in Ecuador have a mutation that some biologists say may throw light on human longevity and ways to increase it.

The villagers are very small, generally less than three and a half feet tall, and have a rare condition known as Laron syndrome or Laron-type dwarfism. They are probably the descendants of conversos, Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal who were forced to convert to Christianity in the 1490s but were nonetheless persecuted in the Inquisition. They are also almost completely free of two age-related diseases, cancer and diabetes.

A group of 99 villagers with Laron syndrome has been studied for 24 years by Dr. Jaime Guevara-Aguirre, an Ecuadorean physician and diabetes specialist. He first discovered them when traveling on horseback to a roadless mountain village. Most such villages are inhabited by Indians, but these were Europeans, with Spanish surnames typical of conversos.

As Dr. Guevara-Aguirre accumulated health data on his patients, he noticed a remarkable pattern: Though cancer was frequent among people who did not have the Laron mutation, those who did have it almost never got cancer. And they never developed diabetes, even though many were obese, which often brings on the condition.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/science/17longevity.html?_r=1&ref=science