Our Living Treasures

Elizabeth Kaledin On The Earth's Supercentarians

(CBS)  Jerry Friedman has photographed 62 supercentenarians: people who have lived 110 years and beyond. There are only about four or five hundred of them in the world today.

Friedman says they are treasures, largely ignored.

"They're basically disenfranchised," Friedman tells CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Kaledin. "They're a group of people who, for the most part, are largely ignored by this culture."

Looking at Friedman's work – portraits of supercentarians – you see faces with deep crevices, bearing witness to stories of long lives and strong characters.

One of those faces is 110-year-old Tony Pierro, who lived through two World Wars, quit smoking at 60, took his last drink at age 100 and even today, takes no medication.

According to his nephew Rick, who takes care of him, Tony walks every day – an exercise regimen in excess of that maintained by many Americans, generations younger.

How does he do it?

"Genetics clearly plays a role," says Dr. Tom Perls of Boston University Medical School, who is a specialist in care of the elderly. "Tony Pierro's parents lived well into their nineties. His kid brother is 96. But this group has other traits in common: faith, the ability to cope with stress, healthy diets."

Perls is studying this small subset, the oldest of the old, to find out how they got there.

"We collect a tremendous amount of data about their environment, their behavior, their family, and then we also collect their blood for DNA."

Perls is not searching for the Fountain of Youth but he is hoping his research will shed light on the mysteries of aging healthily and gracefully.

"It's the fountain of aging well," says Perls. "Which I think is a much more realistic... [a] very enabling, positive view of aging."