Ageing is super – just ask Emma Mazzenga

You’re 92, a widow, lonely and finding it hard to get out and about.

Surely it’s time to put your feet up and live out your final years with a quiet dignity. As a mountain of research shows, that’s the stereotypical view of a nonagenarian.

But not for Emma Maria Mazzenga, world-record sprinter from Padua in Italy.  She really is 92 and was widowed many years ago but in early 2025 she broke a long-standing world record for the 200 metres. Dissatisfied with her time of 54.47 seconds, she wants to go faster and, given her attitude, she probably will.

More importantly, this little Italian woman is having a wonderful life. She lives alone, likes a beer, has a lot of friends, trains most days and is hungry for more success.

Mazzenga is a superager, a class of people discovered in the last year or two who have the faculties – brain, bone and muscle -- of those half their age. A term coined by researchers at Northwestern University’s Mesulam Centre for Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease, superagers have, to put it in layman’s terms, unique brains with “a slower rate of atrophy”.

Here's a definition from Northwestern geriatrician Lee Lindquist: “A superager is someone age 80 or older who exhibits cognitive function that is comparable to an average person who is middle-aged.” Without getting too technical, normally ageing adults lose roughly 2.24 per cent of their brain’s volume every year while superagers lost just over one percent.

But why is this the case? We still don’t know for sure but in the meantime the behaviour of superagers provides a few clues. First, they exercise, which boosts the intake of that wonderful healing thing called oxygen.

Second, they thrash their brains, for instance by playing an instrument, learning a language or doing actual paid work. (There’s nothing like remuneration to cheer a person up.) To put it more soberly, superagers are said to challenge themselves.

Third, they are “social butterflies”, in Dr. Lindquist’s words. Apparently, it’s possible to measure gregariousness – superagers have more neurons called von economos that indicate a tendency towards sociability. In fact, four to five times more of these neurons than other eighty year-olds. 

And finally, they indulge themselves. An occasional glass of the good stuff is typical superager behaviour.

When this research came out in mid-2025, experts in the enormous field of ageing were shocked and amazed. A psychiatry professor described it as “earth-shattering” because it blows apart long-standing assumptions about the ageing process.

The findings emerged from a 25-year study of nearly 300 superagers and from brain autopsies. (Even superagers have to die eventually.) Funnily enough, these people didn’t appear to have fewer medical problems than the norm. What makes the difference is their sociability and outside activities, what psychiatrists call “endorsing extraversion”.

It’s also very obvious that they’re optimistic, whether by nature or by design, and they’re resilient. In fact that’s exactly what Emma Mazzenga says; in a long life she’s had to rise above a lot of ups and downs.

Perhaps that’s the superagers’ secret.