Introduction:

prevalence of longevity in open population has increased in the last hundred years. There are coincidences in the literature on the importance of various factors related to lifestyle as elements that favour longevity.

Objective:

to demonstrate the influence of genetic and environmental factors on the longevity phenotype.

Methods:

178 individuals from Santa Clara municipality were studied: 86 longevous people aged 80 years and over and 92 non-longevous ones aged less than 80 years. An instrument for collecting genealogical information on longevity antecedents and favorable genetic and environmental factors was applied to all of them. Tetrachoric contingency tables were prepared for the association analysis. This association was evaluated using the Mantel-Haenszel chi-square test, as well as the Cramer's V test to measure the magnitude of association; an odds ratio and a 95% confidence interval were calculated when the significance level was p<0.05.

Results:

the associations were significant for the following variables: not-smoking and not-drinking alcohol, not suffering from respiratory diseases, having a normal weight body mass index and a longevous mother, as well as being female. The highest odds ratios were achieved in two factors: not suffering from respiratory diseases and not drinking alcohol. The strongest association was with maternal longevity (V Cramer=0.234).

Conclusions:

the genetic and environmental factors that were consistently associated with longevity indicated that there are factors that favour longevity in the studied individuals.