According to reports, smoking, drinking and eating junk food will not impede you from having a prolonged life as long as you have the right genes.

Also, a study of hundreds of centenarians found that they were as likely to have vices as other people and in several cases involved in them more, as some of them smoked for 85 years, others had over two packets of cigarettes a day and exercised less than their short-lived counterparts, though they had fewer tendencies to become obese.

However, in the study by the American researchers, nearly 500 men and women between 95 and 109 years old were questioned in terms of how they had lived their lives, and the results were compared with the response of a second group of the study participants who were born during the same period, though they had a normal short life.

They discovered that those who lived long had possibly smoked, drank and dieted less than those who had a healthy lifestyle.

Moreover, researcher Nir Barzilai, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, stated: “This study suggests centenarians may possess additional longevity genes that help to buffer them against the harmful effects of an unhealthy lifestyle”.