Maria Branyas lived to 117, but scientists who examined her body after years of extraordinary longevity found something that was not as simple as having a "young" body.
Some parts of her biology looked exactly as old as expected. Others appeared surprisingly well preserved.
Researchers examined Branyas's genetics, immune system, metabolism, epigenetic changes, and gut microbiome and found this unusual mixture of extreme biological aging alongside features associated with healthier aging. The results offer a rare glimpse into what happens inside someone who reaches an age very few humans ever do.
Her Body Showed Clear Signs of Extreme Aging
Branyas was born in 1907 and died in August 2024 at 117 years and 168 days. She was the world's oldest verified living person at the time of her death.
Her extraordinary age made her an unusually valuable subject for researchers studying longevity. Rather than looking at just one aspect of her health, scientists examined several biological systems to see whether they had aged at the same pace.
Some findings left little doubt that her body had undergone more than a century of biological wear.
Her telomeres, protective structures at the ends of chromosomes that generally become shorter as cells divide, were extremely short. Her immune system also carried signs of advanced age, including changes in B cells, which help the body produce antibodies.
Yet those findings did not tell the whole story.
Some Biological Clocks Said She Was Younger
When researchers looked at epigenetic changes, the picture became more surprising.
Epigenetics refers to chemical changes that help control which genes are switched on or off. Scientists can use some of these changes to estimate a person's biological age, which does not always match the number of years they have lived.
Several of Branyas's epigenetic measurements suggested a biological age younger than her chronological age.
That did not mean her entire body was biologically young. Her very short telomeres showed the opposite. Instead, the results suggested that different parts of the aging process can move at different speeds.
Her immune system provided another example.
Although it showed signs of aging, Branyas had relatively low levels of inflammation. Chronic, low-grade inflammation tends to increase with age and has been linked to many age-related diseases.
For someone who had lived to 117, that combination was unusual.
Her Gut Bacteria Also Stood Out
The researchers then found another possible piece of the puzzle in an unexpected place: her gut.
Branyas's gut microbiome, the community of microorganisms living in the digestive tract, contained abundant Bifidobacterium. These bacteria are commonly associated with a healthy gut environment.
Her genetic profile also contained variants that researchers associated with protection against cardiovascular and neurological disease.
None of these findings can explain her lifespan on its own. A person does not reach 117 simply because they have a particular gut bacterium or a certain genetic variant.
But the collection of findings gave researchers something more useful than a single "longevity gene."
It showed that extreme old age can involve a complicated balance between biological damage and protective mechanisms.
She Was Not Simply Aging More Slowly
That may be the most important detail in Branyas's case.
Her biology did not look uniformly young. Her chromosomes showed extensive age-related change, while other measurements suggested that some systems had retained characteristics associated with younger biological function.
This matters because aging and age-related disease are closely connected, but they are not identical.
Getting older increases the risk of conditions such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and dementia. Yet some people reach very advanced ages without developing many of the illnesses that normally become more common later in life.
Branyas allowed researchers to examine that distinction in unusual detail.
Instead of asking only why her body aged so slowly, they could ask a more specific question: what allowed some parts of her biology to remain resilient despite everything else that came with 117 years of life?
Her Lifestyle Was Only One Piece of the Picture
Branyas had previously described habits including a Mediterranean-style diet, regular social contact, and a relatively calm lifestyle.
Those details are interesting, but they cannot be treated as the explanation for her longevity.
The study examined one exceptionally long-lived person, so it cannot establish that any particular food, habit or genetic feature caused her to live so long.
That is also why the researchers' findings are more useful as clues than as a recipe for reaching 117.
Her biology suggests that exceptional longevity may depend on several protective features working together while ordinary signs of aging continue to accumulate.
The Mystery Is What Kept Her Healthy
Scientists studying supercentenarians are ultimately interested in more than extending the number of years a person lives.
They want to understand why some people remain relatively healthy for much longer than expected and whether any of those protective mechanisms can be reproduced in others.
Branyas's biology does not provide a single answer. Instead, it presents something more complicated: a body that clearly carried the molecular marks of extreme age, while some of its regulatory, metabolic, immune, and microbial features remained unexpectedly resilient.
At 117, she had not escaped aging. The more revealing question is why aging appeared to affect different parts of her biology so differently.
