Tom Perls at Boston Medical Center and his colleagues conducted a study of more than 1000 centenarians, which has discovered that there may be 150 genes that can determine the longevity of a person.

The 150 newly identified genes may be used soon in genetic testing kits.

The New England Centenarian study will be taken as assistance by the researchers to project a person’s life and the accuracy can be near to 77%, as published in Thursday's online edition of the journal Science.

But some other scientists like Winifred Rossi believe that it’s not the only factor to predict longevity, but there are some environmental factors too that do the same.

Caloric restriction i. e. less intake of calories is also believed to be lengthening the life span. Since 1930s, researchers have been studying that eating less calories generally makes animals live longer, as due to this the body shuts down many physiological functions and turns into a conservative maintenance mode, preventing the body from suffering many adverse effects and delay the ageing process.

Pérez-López FR and colleagues of Universidad de Zaragoza in Spain found people who followed Mediterranean diet or a similar diet were 10 to 20 percent less likely to die of heart disease, cancer or any other cause and tended to have longer life.

A diet used by people including many centenarians in Okinawa, may play a role in the longevity enjoyed by the people, as reported by Willcox D. C. and colleagues from Okinawa International University in Japan in the Aug 2009.

Those who do not carry the longevity genes may still benefit from following a healthy lifestyle.