Ozzy Osbourne’s genes may explain his survival, say scientists

NEW YORK - Scientists have claimed that Ozzy Osbourne’s several genetic mutations are the likely reason he didn’t die from drugs and alcohol abuse.

Some of them “we’ve never seen before,” said geneticist Nathaniel Pearson, who was part of the team that sequenced the hard-partying rocker’s DNA for Massachusetts lab Knome Inc.

“I’ve always said that at the end of the world there will be roaches, Ozzy and Keith Richards,” the New York Daily News quoted the Prince of Darkness’ wife Sharon Osbourne as saying.

“He’s going to outlive us all. That fascinated me - how can his body endure so much.”

The 61-year-old “Black Sabbath” singer is as famous for his colossal intake as he is for his voice. He once said he did LSD every day for two years and he drank booze like water.

No surprisingly, many of the anomalies scientists discovered had to do with how he processes drugs and alcohol.

“He has an increased predisposition for alcohol dependence of something like six times higher,” Knome co-founder Jorge Conde told ABCNews.com.

“He also had a slight increased risk for cocaine addiction but he dismissed that. He said that if anyone has done as much cocaine as he had, they would have been hooked.”

Osbourne also has a more than double chance of suffering hallucinations from smoking marijuana-although since he generally mixed drugs he didn’t know if pot was the cause.

Ozzy said he was skeptical of the study at first, but gave in.

“I was curious,” he said.

Given the swimming pools of booze I’ve guzzled over the years - not to mention all the cocaine, morphine, sleeping pills, cough syrup, LSD, Rohypnol, you name it - there is really no plausible medical reason why I should be alive,” he wrote in a column for the Sunday Times of London.

Osbourne does have a noticeable Parkinson’s-like tremor and some deafness. (ANI)