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Estimates of the Heritability of Human Longevity Are Substantially Inflated due to Assortative Mating

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Ruby, J Graham, Wright, Kevin M, Rand, Kristin A, Kermany, Amir, Noto, Keith, Curtis, Don, Varner, Neal, Garrigan, Daniel +6 more·2018·Genetics
DOI 10.1534/genetics.118.301613PMC PMC6218226
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Abstract

Here, Ruby et al. analyze an unprecedented amount of public family tree data from Ancestry and determine that the heritability of human longevity was well below 10%, lower than the widely-held belief that lifespan... Human life span is a phenotype that integrates many aspects of health and environment into a single ultimate quantity: the elapsed time between birth and death. Though it is widely believed that long life runs in families for genetic reasons, estimates of life span “heritability” are consistently low (∼15–30%). Here, we used pedigree data from Ancestry public trees, including hundreds of millions of historical persons, to estimate the heritability of human longevity. Although “nominal heritability” estimates based on correlations among genetic relatives agreed with prior literature, the majority of that correlation was also captured by correlations among nongenetic (in-law) relatives, suggestive of highly assortative mating around life span-influencing factors (genetic and/or environmental). We used structural equation modeling to account for assortative mating, and concluded that the true heritability of human longevity for birth cohorts across the 1800s and early 1900s was well below 10%, and that it has been generally overestimated due to the effect of assortative mating.

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  • Genetic factors account for only 15-40% of lifespan variability.

    “While genetic factors account for only 15–40% of lifespan variability [28,29,30,31,32], environmental exposures—including access to green spaces—play a dominant role in shaping aging trajectories.”

    From The Power of Environment: A Comprehensive Review of the Exposome's Role in Healthy Aging, Longevity, and Preventive Medicine-Lessons from Blue Zones and Cilento (2025) · cites this paper as [29]

    The Discussion ('The heritability of human longevity is far less than previously estimated') identifies roughly 15–30% as earlier estimates, not the paper’s conclusion. It gives the authors’ upper-bound estimate as less than 10%, contrary to the attributed 15–40% range. (LLM, conf=0.89)

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  • Environmental exposures-including access to green spaces-play a dominant role in shaping aging trajectories.

    “While genetic factors account for only 15–40% of lifespan variability [28,29,30,31,32], environmental exposures—including access to green spaces—play a dominant role in shaping aging trajectories.”

    From The Power of Environment: A Comprehensive Review of the Exposome's Role in Healthy Aging, Longevity, and Preventive Medicine-Lessons from Blue Zones and Cilento (2025) · cites this paper as [29]

    The citation is attached to the claim that genetics accounts for 15–40% of lifespan variability, not to the following statement about green spaces. The Discussion (“The heritability of human longevity is far less than previously estimated”; page unavailable) reports earlier estimates around 15–30% but says they were inflated. The paper’s own estimate is below 10%. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Ruby, J. G., Wright, K. M., Rand, K. A., Kermany, A., Noto, K., Curtis, D., Varner, N., Garrigan, D., Slinkov, D., Dorfman, I., Granka, J. M., Byrnes, J., Myres, N., & Ball, C.
Affiliations
  • Calico Life Sciences (US)
  • Ancestry , San Francisco, California 94107
  • Ancestry , Lehi, Utah 84043
Corresponding author
  • Ruby, J Graham
  • Ball, Catherine
ORCID
Venue
Genetics
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2018-10-31
Volume
210
Issue
3
Pages
1109-1124
ISSN
  • 0016-6731 (ISSN-L)
  • 1943-2631
DOI
10.1534/genetics.118.301613
PMC
PMC6218226
OpenAlex
W2900137720
Cited by
263
References
6
Citations by year
2026: 14 · 2025: 30 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 61 · 2021: 64 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 2
FWCI
17.90
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model (vor)
Locations
  • Genetics (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock
  • Social Sciences › Demography › Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management
Keywords
heritability of longevity, human lifespan, assortative mating, pedigree analysis, genetic correlation, structural equation modeling, Ancestry.com
MeSH terms
Female, Humans, Longevity, Male, Models, Genetic, Pedigree, Reproduction

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