"People who make it to 100 aren’t just long-living, they tend to avoid serious illness until the final chapter of their lives. His participants’ medical histories suggest there are three broad categories of a centenarian. Around 43 percent are ‘delayers’ who don’t exhibit age-related diseases until they reach their eighties. Another 42 percent are ‘survivors’ who live with chronic disease from their 60s and 70s but it doesn’t kill them. The remaining 15 percent or so are ‘escapers’ - those with no clinically demonstrable disease at 100 years and over."