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The journey to unlocking this incredible secret began not in a gleaming modern lab, but with a colossal, decades-long undertaking in Sweden. Researchers embarked on an audacious mission, analyzing a staggering 44,637 individuals from Stockholm County, drawing on a vast treasure trove of clinical lab results. This wasn’t a short-term snapshot; it was a deep dive into history, tracking participants born between 1893 and 1920, who had routine blood tests performed between 1985 and 1996, back when many of them were still in their 60s and 70s. The patience required for such an endeavor is almost as remarkable as the findings themselves. For up to 35 long years, these individuals were meticulously followed, their lives, deaths, and health recorded in national registers. Of this immense cohort, a select few, 1,224 to be precise, defied the odds and celebrated their 100th birthday, a testament to resilience and perhaps, a hidden biological advantage. The real question wasn’t just *who* lived the longest, but whether the secrets to their extraordinary longevity were already visible, decades earlier, in a few drops of blood. The answer, as it turns out, is more complex and astonishing than anyone dared to imagine.
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