GOESSEL, Kan. — It’s one of the puzzles of medical science: Why do some people age faster than others?
Is it genes or behavior? Nature or nurture?
A study of Mennonites in Kansas and Nebraska has helped to prove what one might expect. It’s both.
And it seems that certain Anabaptists make good subjects for scientific study. In a separate research project, Mennonites and Amish are helping to discover the causes of bipolar disorder.
Two researchers spoke May 21 at Alexanderwohl Mennonite Church about how Amish and Mennonites who can trace long lines of European ancestry are useful for research on aging and mental health. They tend to have big families, keep extensive genealogical records and practice good health habits.
Michael Crawford, a professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas, described how he studied one Mennonite community — descendants of Alexanderwohl immigrants who migrated from Ukraine to Kansas in 1874.
Alexanderwohl is one of the oldest Mennonite congregations in the world, dating to the 1600s in Prussia, congregational historian Brian Stucky said.
In the 1970s, Crawford did a study in Abkhazia, a region in Georgia on the Black Sea, where the people were known for their supposed longevity.
“But it turned out they weren’t that old at all. They were exaggerating,” he told the Alexanderwohl audience of about 170 people. “Why should I go to Abkhazia to study people who claimed to be old? Why not study Mennonites instead?”
In 1980-81, Crawford enlisted 1,200 volunteers from three locations — Goessel, with its three congregations, Alexanderwohl, Tabor and Goessel; a Church of God in Christ, Mennonite (Holdeman) congregation, Meridian, near Hesston; and Henderson, Neb., the home of other descendants of the 1874 migration.
“We measured the heck out of you guys,” Crawford said, recalling the tests of hand-eye coordination, trunk flexibility and lung function.
Average life expectancy in the families they studied was 86 for women and 82 for men, compared to the U.S. average of 82 for women and 77 for men.
The study of biological and environmental factors in aging showed each had a nearly equal influence, Crawford said in an interview. Neither genes nor lifestyle was a clear winner.
Crawford wrote a book on the findings, Different Seasons: Biological Aging Among Mennonites of the Midwestern United States.
Mental-health research
Francis McMahon, chief of the human genetics branch of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., talked about researching the genetics of mental-health problems such as depression and bipolar disorder.
For about eight years, the NIH has been conducting an Amish-Mennonite Bipolar Genetics Study across the country.
“We don’t think mental illness is any more common among Mennonites than anyone else,” he said. “You’re probably close to average.”
As with the aging study, it’s the big families with accurate genealogical records that researchers like.
McMahon asked Crawford to help NIH make more connections in Kansas.
NIH researchers are seeking to identify genes that contribute to bipolar disorder. They interview people with the condition and their relatives and study their genetic histories.
“Every family is a unique experiment of nature,” he said.
Researchers are just beginning to learn how genes influence mental illness. In the past 10 years, he said, scientists have gone from knowing no genes that contribute to mental illness to identifying many. They’ve discovered more than 100 genes linked to psychotic disorders, five to anxiety disorders and 25 to mood disorders. There probably are many more.
“It’s not one gene leading to one illness but many genes interacting and also being influenced by life events,” McMahon said.
About 10 percent of the population suffers a mood disorder such as major depression. This increases to 25 percent among close relatives of those with a mood disorder.
“Depression is one of the hardest mental illnesses to study, because you can be depressed due to anything from a broken heart to a broken brain,” he said.
NIH researchers continue to seek Mennonites and Amish for the bipolar study. Interested people can inquire by email at bipolargenes@mail.nih.gov or at nimh.nih.gov/JoinAStudy.
“We will not be able to explain your illness in most cases, but you will help our understanding of mental illness so that we can help future generations,” he said.
Have a comment on this story? Write to the editors. Include your full name, city and state. Selected comments will be edited for publication in print or online.