The guiding principal of the study is that centenarians are a select group of people who have a history of aging slowly and who have either markedly delayed or entirely escaped diseases normally associated with aging, such as, Alzheimer's Disease, cancer, stroke, and heart disease.

The study is made up of 3 components:

1. Populations genetics, discovering familial patterns relating to extreme longevity.
   
2. Careful annual examinations of centenarians followed by post-mortem autopsies in part, to define what is "normal or disease-free aging." A special emphasis is placed on understanding the aging of the brain.
   
3. Molecular genetics, searching for both nuclear and mitochondrial longevity enabling genes among centenarian sibling pairs, centenarian members of families highly clustered for longevity and random centenarian subjects in comparison to younger controls or controls predisposed to premature mortality.
   

Click here to go to The New England Centenarian Study's website.