Abstract
The Black Swan Theory was described by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book “The Black Swan”. This theory refers to “high-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare events beyond the realm of normal expectations”. According to Taleb’s criteria, a Black Swan Event is a surprise, it has a major impact and after the fact, the event is rationalized by hindsight, as if it had been expected. For most of human history centenarians were a rare and unpredictable phenomenon. The improvements of the social-environmental conditions, of medical care, and the quality of life caused a general improvement of the health status of the population and a consequent reduction of the overall morbidity and mortality, resulting in an overall increase of life expectancy. The study of centenarians and supercentenarians had the objective to consider this black swan and to evaluate the health, welfare, social and economic consequences of this phenomenon.
Highlights
The term “Black Swan” comes from the 17th century European belief that the existence of a black swan was impossible
[89] In recent years the extensive genotypisation of centenarians led to study polymorphisms which are claimed to be able to affect individual’s cancer susceptibility, namely those located in the anti-oncogene p53, in the oncogene HRAS1, in asset of genes involved in carcinogens metabolism, i.e. cytochrome P450 oxidases (CYP) and glutathione transferases (GST), in a gene whose mutations are risk factor for breast cancer (BRCA1) and in a gene whose activity is a potential risk factor for prostate cancer (SRD5A2)
[41] it is difficult to interpret the net difference in the prevalence of cancer in extreme longevity: in the Okinawa Centenarian Study (OCS) [22], cancer is absent, while in the New England Centenarian Study (NECS) [27], it is present in 25% of the supercentenarians, all of them were previously treated, and none of them were active
Summary
The term “Black Swan” comes from the 17th century European belief that the existence of a black swan was impossible. ApoJ is a gene which appears to play an important role in aging, apoptosis and cancer but whose role is still unclear [88] In cancer cells, this gene confers cytoprotection by inhibiting apoptosis, there are reports indicating a pro-apoptotic function of ApoJ in other tumor-derived cell lines [89] In recent years the extensive genotypisation of centenarians led to study polymorphisms which are claimed to be able to affect individual’s cancer susceptibility, namely those located in the anti-oncogene p53, in the oncogene HRAS1, in asset of genes involved in carcinogens metabolism, i.e. cytochrome P450 oxidases (CYP) and glutathione transferases (GST), in a gene whose mutations are risk factor for breast cancer (BRCA1) and in a gene whose activity is a potential risk factor for prostate cancer (SRD5A2) [41] it is difficult to interpret the net difference in the prevalence of cancer in extreme longevity: in the Okinawa Centenarian Study (OCS) [22], cancer is absent, while in the New England Centenarian Study (NECS) [27], it is present in 25% of the supercentenarians, all of them were previously treated, and none of them were active. In elderly subjects practicing regularly moderate exercise training, some aspects of immunosenescence are attenuated or improved, both innate immunity and acquired immunity, as the reduction of memory cells and the increase of naïve T cells [94,95] increase further the production of primary antibody response [96]
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