By John Stark
The idea is as old as humanity：Learn from your elders．There's wisdom born of age．Maybe that's why， when they decided to see if they could crack the code of healthy aging，Thomas T．Perls，and Margery Silver， went right to the top：Some of the oldest people in America．Though they were looking at frail bodies and wrinkled faces，Perls and Silver quickly realized they were seeing something else：the healthiest people in America． After all，why are they centenarians？Because they don't get sick．Now，through a comprehensive study of what has helped America's healthiest people live such long， healthy lives，Perls and Silver believe they can help extend the health of all of us．
As a healthy（so far）boomer，I want to see what the researchers have seen，perhaps to glimpse my own future． At Silver's suggestion，I call Catherine McCaig，one of the research subjects．She tells me that if I want to meet her，I'd better come soon．Seeing as she's 104years old， born the century before last，I hurry to her apartment in southern Massachusetts，where she lives by herself．As it turns out，McCaig wasn't referring to her time left on Earth，but to her travel plans．She's about to leave on a train trip to San Francisco，where she plans to see the town．“I love to travel，”she says．“If I had the money， that's all I'd do．”
Though McCaig's Irish eyes are the faded color of distance，her mind is completely in focus．In the course of my visit，she advocates a boycott of gasoline as a protest against rising prices，recounts James Joyce's vision of hell，and scolds TV chef Emeril Lagasse for not properly preheating his oven（McCaig should know，having been
a hospital cook for many years）．Active in volunteer
work，McCaig shows me afghan squares that she's knit- ting as part of a national project to provide blankets for the homeless．When I tell her I hadn't heard about this， she says，“Everybody's doing it．Catch up with the times．”
If you think McCaig is some kind of superwoman， you're probably right．Except for some hearing loss，she has bypassed and outlived the diseases that were supposed to have killed her，like cancer，diabetes，and coronary disease．But if you think this centenarian's an anomaly， then you're as wrong as the medical world has been up until the last few years．Of the 169centenarians whom Perls，Silver，and their staff have studied，nearly all of them had bodies up through their early to mid-90s that overwhelmingly defy what science knows about aging． Colds are rare，as are cavities and broken bones．
Based at Beth Israel Deaconess and Harvard Medical School in Boston，the New England Centenarian Study（NECS）has already yielded some surprising results． Like the fact that women who have children past 40are more likely to live to 100．Or the theory that the gap in longevity between men and women might be explained by women's low levels of iron．Or that family ties are critical to longevity，even among people without families．The idea behind the data is an idea so simple it was revolutionary：Study healthy people．“Up until10years ago，most medical training was in hospitals，so all the old people that doctors saw were very sick and frail，” says the youthful，39-year-old Perls，chief of the division of gerontology at Beth Israel Deaconess and an assistant professor at Harvard．“Like most other physicians，I had a very jaded view of who the elderly are． This idea that the older you get the sicker you get had been very strongly ingrained in me．”All that thinking went out the window after Perls began interning at a rehabilitation center for the aged outside Boston in the early 1990s． There he met people like Celia Bloom，who at 103was giving piano recitals，and Ed Fisher，who at 102was still working as a tailor．“They were never in their rooms，” recalls Perls．“I had to make appointments to see them．”
As a result，NECS is the most comprehensive study of the extremely old ever undertaken．Every aspect of McCaig's life（and the lives of scores of other participants），both physical and mental，from the time of her birth until now，is being scrutinized．What NECS wants to know is：What do McCaig and her ilk have that most people don't？Where amid the complex stew of our genes， lifestyle，and environment are the keys to keeping us healthy for as long as possible？
Even if the researchers answer that question，it doesn't mean that someday people will live significantly longer．Although he admits he is searching（successfully）for the so-called aging genes，Perls refuses to contribute to all the millennium hype about future generations doubling and tripling their life spans．NECS' mission isn't to turn people into Methuselahs，he says．“I'm not looking for the fountain of youth，but the fountain of aging well．”He terms this concept“compression of morbidity．”
“The vast majority of centenarians have lived 90％to 95％of their lives in incredible health，compressing the time that they are sick to the very end of their lives，”he says．“If we could all live the vast majority of our natural life spans in excellent health and then have this relatively sudden decline and die—that would be Utopia．”
