DNA may reveal secret of a long life

It’s not only Mrs De Low who is being studied: 100 centenarians, including 14 Australians, have contributed cells to the Archon Genomics X Prize, part of a worldwide push towards personalised genetic medicine.

The idea is to identify the genome for healthy longevity and increase the health span of ageing people.

While researchers believe that genetic make-up contributes about 30 per cent to a long and healthy life — the rest being due to lifestyle — Mrs De Low reckons she doesn’t know anything about that.

‘‘Don’t ask me why I’ve lived so long; my brothers and sisters were all brought up the same way as I was — on three meals a day,’’ Mrs De Low said.

‘‘When I was young there was always a big pot of porridge on the stove for breakfast and the smell of bacon and eggs wafting through the house. It was lovely.’’

The baby of a family of six children, Mrs De Low had her second birthday on the ship which brought the family from England.

‘‘It was November 1912, the year the Titanic sank — we could have been hit by an iceberg too, but luckily our ship went around the Cape of Good Hope,’’ she said.

She has lived longer than all her siblings. The nearest to reach old age was a sister who died at 93; the other sister died at 80 and the three boys barely made it to 60.

She didn’t do any sport until her 30s, when she took up tennis.

At 50, the year she learnt to drive, Mrs De Low took up table tennis, ‘‘the fastest game in the world’’, and which she still plays at least three times a week. Her sitting room is full of trophies and medals along with a number of landscapes from her painting days.

She wouldn’t mind painting again, she says, but her eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be.

Mrs De Low’s biggest grievance at the moment is her car, which ‘‘sits in the yard, full of petrol’’, while she is not allowed to drive it.

‘‘I’ve still got my licence and I was driving it up to 18 months ago,’’ she said. ‘‘I fainted one day when I wasn’t driving and the specialist told me not to drive any more; now I have to beg for a lift to table tennis.’’

But there has been sorrow too. Her daughter Jean, a primary school principal, died of breast cancer in 1983, aged 49, followed by Dorothy’s husband Albert 15 months later.

‘‘I’m still dealing with it. I think about Jean all the time, especially when I can’t sleep,’’ she said.

‘‘I think of her when she was little and the things she used to say, but I try to look on the bright side.’’

Although she has a Facebook page (‘‘my son would have done that for me’’), Mrs De Low prefers to communicate via the post.

‘‘I write a lot of letters, I write to nieces and nephews scattered all over the place and I wrote to a cousin in England yesterday,’’ 

she said.

And she likes to read every bit of the Leader, although she wishes there was a large print version.

Mrs De Low has lived in the same Hurstville house for 72 years and has no intention of going anywhere else. Her son Peter and his family keep an eye on her.

What do you think is the secret to a long, healthy life?