Compatible with results from several epidemiological studies [8, 9, 31], we demonstrated that the B2 allele of

the significance of LPL genotype. In the present study multiple regression analysis revealed that determinants of HDL-C concentration are quite different between cen- tenarians and controls, suggesting that the relationship between LPL polymorphisms and lipid levels could be modulated by environmental factors as previously de- scribed by Wang et al. [12]. It is possible that the LPL genotype has dual function on lipid metabolism in rela- tion to middle or old age.

ods in evaluating overall efficacy of reverse cholesterol transport is required to investigate what combination of candidate gene polymorphisms could be optimum for human longevity.

Acknowledgements We sincerely thank the centenarians and their family members for their time and assistance. We could not have carried out this study without their kind cooperation. This study was partially supported by a grant from the Ministry of Health and Welfare for the Scientific Research Project for Lon- gevity and a grant for studying the sociomedical background of centenarians (Principal investigator, Nobuyoshi Hirose) as well as aid for research from Keio Health Consulting Center. We wish to thank to Dr. Mitsuru Murata, Keio University School of Medicine, for his assistance in statistical analysis.

background of Tangier disease [33, 34, 35, 36], ABCA1 is proposed to play an important role in the first step in reverse cholesterol transport that stimulates cholesterol and phospholipid efflux to apolipoprotein A1 from cell surface. Recently Clee et al. [16]. identified 16 single- nucleotide polymorphisms in the ABCA1 gene, and among them, R219K K allele was associated with lower triglyceride, higher HDL-C, and lower CAD risk in Eu- ropean population. We observed no significant associa- tion between R219K polymorphism and longevity in Japanese centenarians, although the result did not contra- dict the possible contribution of ABCA1 gene polymor- phisms to longevity. Nakamura et al. [36] recently re- ported 162 single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the ABCA1 gene in Japanese population, the functional ef- fects of which should be investigated in the future.

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