Ms Ferguson also stressed that health professionals are often reluctant to talk frankly with expectant mothers about behaviours, such as smoking and having anunhealthydiet, which can put unborn children at risk.
But excited researchers say that apo E is rapidly emerging as the first-found of a set of mysterious genes that roughly determine how long a person will live, provided he or she escapes an "unnatural" death from bacteria and viruses, war, accidents, unhealthydiet, smoking or other environmental happenstance.