Abstract
Educational attainment is associated with many health outcomes, including longevity. It is also known to be substantially heritable. Here, we used data from three large genetic epidemiology cohort studies (Generation Scotland,n =∼17,000; UK Biobank,n= ∼115,000; and the Estonian Biobank,n= ∼6,000) to test whether education-linked genetic variants can predict lifespan length. We did so by using cohort members’ polygenic profile score for education to predict their parents’ longevity. Across the three cohorts, meta-analysis showed that a 1 SD higher polygenic education score was associated with ∼2.7% lower mortality risk for both mothers (totalndeaths= 79,702) and ∼2.4% lower risk for fathers (totalndeaths= 97,630). On average, the parents of offspring in the upper third of the polygenic score distribution lived 0.55 y longer compared with those of offspring in the lower third. Overall, these results indicate that the genetic contributions to educational attainment are useful in the prediction of human longevity.
Funder
Chief Scientist Office
Scottish Funding Council
Research Councils UK
Estonian Ministry of Science and Education
European Regional Development Fund
FP7
Publisher
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Cited by
107 articles.
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