Abstract
The Family Longevity Selection Score (FLoSS) was used to select families for the Long Life Family Study (LLFS) but has never been validated in other populations. The goal of this paper is to validate how well the FLoSS-based selection procedure works in an independent dataset. In this paper, we computed FLoSS using the lifespan data of 234,155 individuals from a large comprehensive genealogically-based resource, the Utah Population Database (UPDB), born between 1779 and 1910 with mortality follow-up through 2012–2013. Computations of FLoSS in a specific year (1980) confirmed the survival advantage of the “exceptional” sibships (defined by LLFS FLoSS threshold, FLoSS ≥ 7). We found that the subsample of the UPDB participants born after 1900 who were from the “exceptional” sibships had survival curves similar to that of the US participants from the LLFS probands' generation. Comparisons between the offspring of parents with “exceptional” and “ordinary” survival showed the survival advantage of the “exceptional” offspring. Investigators seeking to explain the extent genetics and environment contribute to exceptional survival will benefit from the use of exceptionally long-lived individuals and their relatives. Appropriate ranking of families by survival exceptionality and their availability for the purposes of providing genetic and phenotypic data is critical for selecting participants into such studies. This study validated the FLoSS as selection criteria in family longevity studies using UPDB.
Highlights
Exceptional survival is a combined outcome of many factors such as genetics, life style, and environmental exposures
The Family Longevity Selection Score (FLoSS) computation procedure was applied to the UPDBAll sample to identify families with exceptional FLoSS (FLoSS ≥ 7)
There were 799 families with 5,684 individuals selected in the resulting Utah Population Database (UPDB)-FLoSS sample
Summary
Exceptional survival is a combined outcome of many factors such as genetics, life style, and environmental exposures. Studying exceptionally long-lived individuals and their relatives in family longevity studies can help explain the extent that genetics and environment contribute to this trait. Selecting participants into such studies can be challenging because exceptional survivors represent. Sebastiani et al [1] developed the Family Longevity Selection Score (FLoSS) This score was used to select the families for the Long Life Family Study (LLFS). It takes into account both exceptionality of family members’ survival and the presence of very old living family members. The selection procedure assumes that FLoSS generated from scores reflecting exceptional survival of individual family members will identify “exceptional” families. There is no “direct” way to test whether the resulting LLFS sample has better survival in relation to a general population
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