The extraordinary lifespan of Maria Branyas Morera, who died last year at the age of 117, was shaped by both genetic resilience and a simple lifestyle that included daily yogurts, a report published in Nature says.

The findings are based on a detailed analysis of her genes, metabolism and gut microbiome. Branyas, who died on 19 August 2024, had been officially recognised as the world’s oldest living person during her final year. That recognition drew the attention of ageing researchers eager to understand what made her unique.

“We wanted to learn from her particular case to benefit other people,” says Manel Esteller, a physician specializing in genetics at the University of Barcelona, quoted by Nature.

“She was a very humble person,” Esteller recalls. “She said: ‘My only merit is that I’m alive.’”

Branyas spent her last years in the small Catalonian town of Olot, where she enjoyed reading, playing with dogs and spending time with her two daughters, both in their nineties. Over several visits, Esteller’s team collected blood, saliva, urine and stool samples, mapping her genetic and metabolic signatures against those of women of different ages from the same region.

One of the team’s most striking findings was that Branyas had extremely short telomeres, protective DNA caps that typically shrink with age and are often linked to illness. Yet she showed no such diseases. “This is telling us that the loss of telomeres is not necessarily associated with disease, it’s simply associated with being old,” Esteller explains.

Other scientists say the research is important, but note the limitations of drawing conclusions from a single person. “It would be interesting to compare the findings with supercentenarians in other populations,” Nature quotes Mayana Zatz, a geneticist at the University of São Paulo who studies healthy ageing.

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