India, Dec. 20 -- It is usually believed that aged people die of "old age" or "natural causes." But new studies show this is not true. Even healthy centenarians usually die from specific diseases, especially heart problems.

Scientists Maryam Keshavarz and Dan Ehninger from the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases reviewed 2,410 autopsies to understand the reasons behind the deaths. Their findings, published in Genomic Psychiatry, highlight that these people died of specific diseases and not the generalised ageing process.

In 2,410 autopsies studied, heart attacks caused 39 per cent of the deaths, while 38 per cent died due to heart and lung failure and 17.9 per cent because of strokes.

In people over 85 who died outside hospita...