Association of IL-10 promoter polymorphisms with longevity was previously shown in two studies. Lio and colleagues first reported that the frequency of the IL-10 (cid:1)1082 G/G genotype was increased in centenarian men, but not in centenarian women, compared with control participants aged <60 years old. No difference was found between centenarians and controls for the (cid:1)819 T/C and (cid:1)592 A/C genotype distributions. As several functional studies suggested a relation between IL-10 (cid:1)1082 GG and AG genotypes with a higher production of IL-10, the data indicated that IL-10, a major anti-inflammatory cytokine, could be involved in successful aging. In another study, haplotypes (GCC, ACC, ATA) were compared betweenInterleukin-gene promoter region polymorphisms and type diabetes age-at-onset. Hum Immunol. ; : Turner DM, Williams DM, Sankaran D, Lazarus M, Sinnott PJ, Hutchinson IV. An investigation of polymorphism in the interleukin-gene promoter. Eur J Immunogenet. ; : Ito M, Takahashi H, Fuse K, et al. Polymorphisms of tumor necrosis factor-alpha and interleukin-genes in Japanese patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. Jpn Heart J. ; : Hirata H, Okayama N, Naito K, et al. Association of a haplotype of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)- and MMP-polymorphisms with renal cell carcinoma. Carcinogenesis. ; : Warle MC, Farhan A, Metselaar HJ, et al. Are cytokine gene polymorphisms related to in vitro cytokine production profiles? Liver Transpl. ; : Temple SE, Lim E, Cheong KY, et al. Alleles carried at positions and of the IL promoter affect transcription following stimulation of peripheral blood cells with Streptococcus pneumoniae. Immunogenetics. ; : Lin MT, Storer B, Martin PJ, et al. Relation of an interleukin-promoter polymorphism to graft-versus-host disease and survival after hematopoietic-cell transplantation. N Engl J Med. ; : This study aims to investigate the association between aging and the genetic polymorphisms of cytokines to reveal whether the association is population-specific. This work was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Encouragement of Scientists) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan. Address correspondence to Yuji Hinoda, MD, PhD, Department of Clinical Laboratory Science, Yamaguchi University School of Medicine, 1-1-1, Minami-Kogushi, Ube, Yamaguchi 755-8505, Japan. E-mail: hinoda@yamaguchi-u.ac.jp from http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/ at McMaster University Library on March 25, 2015 REFERENCES De Benedictis G, Tan Q, Jeune B, et al. Recent advances in human gene-longevity association studies. Mech Ageing Dev. ; : Krabbe KS, Pedersen M, Bruunsgaard H. Inflammatory mediators in the elderly. Exp Gerontol. ; : Finch CE, Crimmins EM. Inflammatory exposure and historical changes in human life-spans. Science. ; : Jacobs EJ, Rodriguez C, Mondul AM, et al. A large cohort study of aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and prostate cancer incidence. J Natl Cancer Inst. ; : Longo VD, Finch CE. Evolutionary medicine: from dwarf model systems to healthy centenarians? Science. ; : Lio D, Scola L, Crivello A, et al. Inflammation, genetics, and longevity: further studies on the protective effects in men of IL--promoter SNP and its interaction with TNF-a - promoter SNP. J Med Genet. ; : Combarros O, Llorca J, Sanchez-Guerra M, Infante J, Berciano J. Age-dependent association between interleukin-A () genetic polymorphism and sporadic Alzheimer's disease. A meta-analysis. J Neurol. ; : Lio D, Scola L, Crivello A, et al. Gender-specific association between () IL-promoter polymorphism and longevity. Genes Immun. ; : Naumova E, Mihaylova A, Ivanova M, Michailova S, Penkova K, Baltadjieva D. Immunological markers contributing to successful aging in Bulgarians. Exp Gerontol. ; : Lio D, Scola L, Crivello A, et al. Allele frequencies of Tf single nucleotide polymorphism at the first intron of interferon-gamma gene in a group of Italian centenarians. Exp Gerontol. ; : Carrieri G, Marzi E, Olivieri F, et al. The G/C polymorphism of transforming growth factor beta is associated with human longevity: a study in Italian centenarians. Aging Cell. ; : Medley TL, Kingwell BA, Gatzka CD, Pillay P, Cole TJ. Matrix metalloproteinase-genotype contributes to age-related aortic stiffening through modulation of gene and protein expression. Circ Res. ; : Ross OA, Curran MD, Rea IM, et al. HLA haplotypes and TNF polymorphism do not associate with longevity in the Irish. Mech Ageing Dev. ; : Wang XY, Hurme M, Jylha M