Morbidity profiles and lifetime health of Australian centenarians

To examine the lifetime prevalence and initial onset of diseases among centenarians.

In this descriptive study, we administered structured questionnaires by interview to 188 centenarians and asked about the presence and timing of 14 common age-related diseases.

The most common conditions were ocular disease (70%), arthritis (58%) and hypertension (40%). Average age at disease onset was 80 years, and average number of comorbidities was 3. Participants were characterised into three morbidity profiles - survivors (46%), delayers (34%) and escapers (19%). No participants had a diagnosis of dementia or osteoporosis before age 80 years.

Relative to the general population, a select sample of Australian centenarians reported lower rates of chronic conditions, with many escaping osteoporosis, dementia, cardiovascular disease, respiratory illnesses, cancers, anxiety and depression. Increasing age is correlated with increasing morbidity but a few centenarians reached 100 years of age without disease.