Elite populations living to 105-110 likely have a weak inflammatory response, which helps them avoid succumbing to age-related diseases like atherosclerosis and Alzheimer's.

“And therefore, evolution has not taken the trouble to improve the precision of the inflammatory response so as to discriminate between things that the inflammatory response can actually help with, namely the elimination of infections, and things that the inflammatory response actually exacerbates, namely the accumulation of damage that is not an infection, like oxidized cholesterol, or whatever. So that means that, yes, it's likely that, it's no surprise to us, that when you look at a very, very elite population, the population that live to 105, 110, then they will overwhelmingly have a weak inflammatory response, because that is the only way that they will have been able not to succumb at the age of 80 or 90 to atherosclerosis or Alzheimer's, which are definitely driven partly by the inflammatory response.”