*4.1. Ethics Statement*

All IMECS participants gave their informed consent for inclusion prior to participation and blood collection. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of Clinical Trials Department, Ministry of Health, Israel (project 109-2014) and by the Institutional Review Board at the Rambam Health Care Center in Haifa, Israel (project RMB 0312-14). Any person over 95 years of age was included in the study with the exclusion of persons cognitively unable to sign informed consent and cognitively impaired persons with no legal guardian. For the offspring group, people with one or more parent outliving the age of 95, either alive or deceased at the time of recruitment, and cognitively able to sign informed consent were included. For the control group any person in the range of 50–90 years of age both of whose parents did not reach 95 years of age and cognitively able to sign informed consent were included.
