THE SECRET OF LONGEVITY OF KOREAN CENTENARIANS

The Korean Centenarian Study has been successfully carried out through the collaboration of medical, genetic, psychological, nutritional, ecological, economic, family, social and anthropologic experts. Genetic traits of the Korean centenarians are unique. Gender ratio of centenarians is rather biased to female, and not uniformly but regionally localized. Male centenarians are better off functionally. Centenarians with outdoor activities showed higher levels of serum albumin, as compared to the sedentary centenarians. The proportion of centenarians who scored high in dietary diversity was higher in mountainous areas. Based on the integration of these variables, a new model for human longevity is proposed, “Park’s Temple Model for Human Longevity”, consisting of fixed variables, personal variables, and the social variables. Therefore, this compensating, balancing, and comprehensive model for human longevity may provide a tool to explain the mechanism of human longevity and contribute to analyze the dynamic changes of population longevity.