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Supercentenarians facts.


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#1 VictorBjoerk

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Posted 18 December 2008 - 01:13 AM


The oldest person ever to live independently was Annie Jennings who reached the age of 115 while still living in her own flat independently until her death.

Charlotte Hughes was also very impressive,she lived on her own until 114 before she moved to a nursing home dying at 115.

Some more ages that currently living supercentenarians have lived on their own

Neva Morris=Independent until 100
Gertrude Baines=Independent until 105
Mary Josephine Ray=Independent until 107
Olivia Patricia Thomas=Independent until 109
Henry Allingham=Independent until 106 (in his own flat with caretaker until 109)
Aarne Arvonen=Independent until 108
Leila Denmark=Independent until 106
Annie Butler=Independent at 111 (oldest independently living human)

(Living in a nursing home isn't equal to being frail since for example Walter Breuning has not been "independent" but lived in a nursing home since he was only 83 and is still in good health at 112)



Most supercentenarians have been very small,here are some heights.

1.Jeanne Calment 4'11
2.Sarah Knauss 4'7
3.Marie-Louise Meilleur 4'11
4.Christian Mortensen 5'3½
5.Tomoji Tanabe 4'9
6.Giovanni Frau 4'10
7.Edna Parker 5'0
8.Beatrice Farve 4'7
9.Clara Huhn 5'2
10. The big exception is Julie Bertrand who was 5'8 ( so apparently a woman of average height can live to 115.)

A disproportionate amount of the people having reached 115 have been childless (7 of 21) and only 2 have been men.


As for Lifestyle advice to live really long


1.Jeanne Calment=Olive oil,chocolate, port wine, Foie Gras (regarding smoking she didn't start until she moved into the nursing home and only 1 cigarette a day after dinner)

2. Sarah Knauss=Chocolate, potato chips, pretzels.

3. Marie-Louise Meilleur= vegetarian, hard work.

4. Hendrikje Van Andel=Herrings, Avocaat( a drink)

5.Edna Parker= Lard, meat

6. Christian Mortensen= Vegetarian( drank enormous quantities of water)

7. Tomoji Tanabe=Miso soup,fish,vegetables

8.Maria de Jesus= Fish instead of meat, warm milk with sugar, rice pudding

#2 DukeNukem

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Posted 18 December 2008 - 01:20 AM

The shortness of these people is interesting, something I never knew about before. The first thought that comes to mind is that they have below normal IGF-1, probably lifelong.

Edited by DukeNukem, 18 December 2008 - 01:20 AM.


#3 VictorBjoerk

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Posted 18 December 2008 - 01:39 AM

The shortness of these people is interesting, something I never knew about before. The first thought that comes to mind is that they have below normal IGF-1, probably lifelong.



Yes when I see pictures of the small very healthy Tomoji Tanabe who already has outlived the average life expectancy by more than 40% I immediately begin thinking of him as the human "yoda mouse" experiment.

However, if you are young but have grown to a normal adult height, wouldn't you still experience a lot of the longevity benefits these people have genetically/environmental-related by restricting protein intake?

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#4 forever freedom

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Posted 18 December 2008 - 02:42 AM

I'm not female and i'm tall... i don't like these facts :)
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#5 VictorBjoerk

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Posted 18 December 2008 - 08:06 PM

In the CR way it is said that a moderate protein intake is good for lowering igf levels, is this to switch on some kind of longevity gene expression metabolic pathway?

#6 Mind

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Posted 18 December 2008 - 10:09 PM

Mark has mentioned before that many of the centenarians in the U.S. were "dirt poor" during a good portion of their life, having lived through the great depression and periods of limited food supply. Their shortness is likely genetic, but I wonder if some of them were forced into CR during their adolescent years and did not grow as tall as if they had adequate "growth" nutrition. Just pure speculation. Aren't some of the longest lived experimental mice on CR quite small?
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#7 MichaelGR

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Posted 24 December 2008 - 05:58 PM

Is that height at death or maximum height during lifetime? People tend to get shorter as they age..

#8 Neal

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Posted 24 December 2008 - 11:10 PM

How did you find the heights of Sarah Knauss, Marie-Louise Meilleur, and Christian Mortensen, and such?

And I recall Ernest Pusey to be 5'6" and 131 pounds.

Edna Parker was 72 pounds and some months later, down to 70 pounds.

Jeanne Calment was 88 pounds and 4'8".

Also, Jeanne Calment's IMDB site says she's 4'11". But at that time, they might be in reference to her at 114 when she starred in that movie. Could she have shrunk from 4'11" to 4'8" in 5 years? (To 119.)

Shigechiyo Izumi was 4'7" and 94 pounds.

Also, does anyone know how many inches the average person shrinks from when they were young?

I heard the taller, the more your height shrink. Which sounds somewhat plausible.

#9 VictorBjoerk

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Posted 24 December 2008 - 11:57 PM

People shrink due to osteoporosis or compresssion of ligaments in their span. The Average shrinkage is not more than 1 max 2 inches or so if they do not develop osteoporosis and resulting kyphosis or whatever. Why would you shrink more if you are taller?
Jeanne Calment was 4'11 and 82 pounds at 121 as reported by swedish magazines, a few years earlier she was 99 pounds but I don't know how old she was then.
She was not able to stand up after 115 as far as I've understood, so she never "stood" 4'8. She doesn't look that small in pictures either.
The heights of Christian Mortensen and others can be found among other facts in old magazines/medical documents etc if anyone wants bothering to go through them.

#10 Neal

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Posted 25 December 2008 - 12:13 AM

Okay thank you.

Jeanne Calment had an accident in January 1990 at 114 years 11 months and broke her hip. And stopped walking from them.

Maybe that affected her height.

Actually, her book says she was 4 foot 6, which is even shorter. Weird.

The 3 authors - I guess we can ask them. 1 of them is Jean-Marie Robine, whom Robert Young personally knows and whom I personally know (Robert Young). I might ask around.

Neal Conroy.

#11 Neal

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Posted 25 December 2008 - 01:18 AM

The oldest person ever to live independently was Annie Jennings who reached the age of 115 while still living in her own flat independently until her death.

Charlotte Hughes was also very impressive,she lived on her own until 114 before she moved to a nursing home dying at 115.

Some more ages that currently living supercentenarians have lived on their own

Neva Morris=Independent until 100
Gertrude Baines=Independent until 105
Mary Josephine Ray=Independent until 107
Olivia Patricia Thomas=Independent until 109
Henry Allingham=Independent until 106 (in his own flat with caretaker until 109)
Aarne Arvonen=Independent until 108
Leila Denmark=Independent until 106
Annie Butler=Independent at 111 (oldest independently living human)

(Living in a nursing home isn't equal to being frail since for example Walter Breuning has not been "independent" but lived in a nursing home since he was only 83 and is still in good health at 112)

Also let's not forget:

102 - Edna Parker.
104 years 5 months - Mitoyo Kawate.
105 - Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper.
106 - Marie Brémont.
107 - Eva Morris, Marie-Louise Meilleur.
109 and 11 months - Jeanne Calment.
110 - Sarah Knauss, Florence Knapp.

1 source for M. L. Meilleur is 100 and another, 107.. The 100 listing the year as 1980.

And I think we also have an age for Tane Ikai too.

Neal Conroy.


#12 VictorBjoerk

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Posted 25 December 2008 - 03:40 AM

Neal:Are you a supercentenarian tracker? As you seem to know a lot I have a few questions out of curiosity.

1.Jeanne Calment was reported as being mentally sharp until the end, but why was she placed under guardianship shortly before 122? Did she show signs of dementia during her last year or what was the reason? What was the cause of her death? Did she show any signs of illness or just die in her sleep?

2. Do you know anything about Kama Chinen? The oldest woman currently living in Japan, there seems to be no information at all about her.

3. There is a photo on www.grg.org of Jeanne Calment in sunglasses with a Clapboard, it is said to be the last photograph of her, when was it taken and why since Jeanne was placed under guardianship at 122 and not allowed to interact with media then.

This photo

Posted Image


4.Are there any photos of Tane Ikai? I've never seen any, are there any medical documents regarding her autopsy? She is the oldest person ever on earth having been autopsied. Doesn't seem to be anything known about that woman.

5. Are there any photos or information about Lucy Hannah?Never seen any.Nothing found about her through internet either.

6.There have been news paper articles about Jeanne Calment since she turned 110 every year. Where can you access them? would be interesting to read about her health status at 110 etc.

#13 Neal

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Posted 25 December 2008 - 04:42 AM

Neal:Are you a supercentenarian tracker? As you seem to know a lot I have a few questions out of curiosity.

1.Jeanne Calment was reported as being mentally sharp until the end, but why was she placed under guardianship shortly before 122? Did she show signs of dementia during her last year or what was the reason? What was the cause of her death? Did she show any signs of illness or just die in her sleep?

Well she was sort of deaf and blind so...

And she died at a 10:45 a.m. so I certainly hope she wasn't sleeping.

They kind of decided she had enough of media.

2. Do you know anything about Kama Chinen? The oldest woman currently living in Japan, there seems to be no information at all about her.

3. There is a photo on www.grg.org of Jeanne Calment in sunglasses with a Clapboard, it is said to be the last photograph of her, when was it taken and why since Jeanne was placed under guardianship at 122 and not allowed to interact with media then.

This photo

Posted Image

Kama Chinen no, and I do assume photos of Jeanne Calment were taken at her 122nd birthday party, but not after, so that was probably it.

4.Are there any photos of Tane Ikai? I've never seen any, are there any medical documents regarding her autopsy? She is the oldest person ever on earth having been autopsied. Doesn't seem to be anything known about that woman.

5. Are there any photos or information about Lucy Hannah?Never seen any.Nothing found about her through internet either.

Well I guess you're aware of both their Wikipedia articles. Lucy Hannah had escaped to the North and Tane Ikai died of kidney failure. Ikai suffered a stroke at 99 and 113, and bedridden since.

6.There have been news paper articles about Jeanne Calment since she turned 110 every year. Where can you access them? would be interesting to read about her health status at 110 etc.

At 110 she made taxi trips to visit her grandson in his grave.

And we know of her cooking accident in her kitchen a month before moving in the retirement community.

If they're not on the Internet then I don't know about them. Athough 1 of my life goals is to visit her nursing home in Arles (I heard they made her unit into a museum on her).

Edited by Neal, 25 December 2008 - 04:42 AM.


#14 niner

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Posted 25 December 2008 - 05:39 AM

Mark has mentioned before that many of the centenarians in the U.S. were "dirt poor" during a good portion of their life, having lived through the great depression and periods of limited food supply. Their shortness is likely genetic, but I wonder if some of them were forced into CR during their adolescent years and did not grow as tall as if they had adequate "growth" nutrition. Just pure speculation. Aren't some of the longest lived experimental mice on CR quite small?

Mind, I think that's a pretty reasonable speculation. I was in a building in England that was something like 700 years old. The ceiling height was laughably low. I'm not tall, but I was ducking left and right. I have a feeling that if most any of us could jump in a time machine and go back even a few hundred years, we would be considered to be giants. (Then when we whipped out our ipods, they would think we were gods... but I digress.) I think that it's only relatively recently that nutrition in the industrialized world has allowed us to reach our full genetic height. Does anyone know what average heights look like in chronically malnourished parts of the modern world? While I certainly wouldn't rule out a genetic explanation like low igf-1, low protein diets would provide a de facto methionine restriction, for example, and might encourage longevity in the right genetic context while at the same time suppressing growth.

#15 Siamese

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Posted 26 December 2008 - 02:59 AM

Thought I'd just mention that although someone may be living on their own, these people will almost certainly have carers to help them with their daily routines. Low height could mean a whole variety of things, so I don't think it makes sense to point the finger at one protein. I'd expect it to be more to do with diet, and don't forget that we shouldn't be comparing these heights to people of today, but of people from their birth years.

#16 Mind

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Posted 21 July 2009 - 07:25 PM

Number of centenarians expected to reach 6 million by 2050

Once virtually nonexistent, the world's population of centenarians is projected to reach nearly 6 million by midcentury. That's pushing the median age toward 50 in many developed nations and challenging views of what it means to be old and middle-age.

The number of centenarians already has jumped from an estimated few thousand in 1950 to more than 340,000 worldwide today, with the highest concentrations in the United States and Japan, according to the latest Census Bureau figures and a report being released today by the National Institute on Aging.

Their numbers are projected to grow at more than 20 times the rates of the total population by 2050, making them the fastest- growing age segment.

Demographers attribute this boom to decades of medical advances and improved diets, which have reduced heart disease and stroke. Genetics and lifestyle also play a factor. So, too, do doctors who are more willing to aggressively treat the health problems of people once considered too old for such care.



#17 forever freedom

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Posted 21 July 2009 - 08:26 PM

Number of centenarians expected to reach 6 million by 2050



That's very good. The older the population the more likely we'll see more effort towards anti aging research and treatment. People will need to retire later, though. If one wants to retire sooner than he'll have to accumulate his own money to live off the interest paid on it.

#18 robert122

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Posted 25 July 2009 - 10:45 PM

Actually Walter Breuning does NOT live in a nursing home...he lives in a "retirement home"...Rainbow Retirement Home. It's sort of like "assisted living."

#19 niner

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Posted 26 July 2009 - 12:01 AM

Number of centenarians expected to reach 6 million by 2050

I hope there are more than 6 million of them by then. Otherwise that will mean things aren't progressing as well as I'd like on the anti-aging front.

#20 brokenportal

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Posted 18 January 2010 - 07:18 PM

I found this picture connected here when I did a google search for imminst. So good job on continueing to link key pictures and words like this up in imminst. Be sure to title your pictures when you save them as often as you can with things like "unlimited lifespans Calment 122" etc...

Born in 1875? Damn, looking at this picture it makes me feel like we are watching a heavy weight fighter with 122 consecutive titles just before she went down. Taken down with dirty tactics. Its kind of like letting a guy sneak in with a sword to fight Mohammed Ali and letting them get away with it.

I just looked it up, Congress passed a civil rights bill mandating equal rights in public places in 1875. Custer was defeated at little bighorn in '76. There were only 38 states. Ulyses S. Grant was president. Wild Bill Hickok was shot and killed in '76. Churchill was born the year before she was. Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone in '76. The light bulb was invented in '78. Wow, the list goes on.

#21 Florent Berthet

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Posted 09 April 2013 - 10:31 AM

Resurrecting old thread. Here is a nice list of common habits and traits of supercentenarians (from this forum).

"The lifestyle traits, especially their diets, vary significantly, and here is a short list of the trends that I saw most frequently:

1: Genetics - Nearly every person who lives a long, long time, has a family in which several others also lived a long, long time.
2: Disposition - Almost all of them were kind, optimistic, relaxed, patient, etc. Angry, bitter people that worry a lot tend to die young even if they have otherwise healthy habits, while those with more relaxed dispositions tend to live longer even if they have habits typically regarded as unhealthy.
3: Small portions - How much they ate seemed to be more important that what they ate. Though this was not a trait they all shared, it was common enough to be noticeable. People who tend to not eat until they are full, whether by choice or geographic/social limitations, tend to live longer. Those who frequently splurge do not.
4: Sex - For various reasons, both social and biological, women tend to live longer.
5: Active - They were not fitness fanatics, nor were they sedentary. They were simply active, meaning they were usually out doing something.
6: Small - Not obese, not well built (as in muscular), not tall on average. Small, thin, unbuilt people seem to live longer.

The one thing I did not see a trend on was diet, with possibly one exception. Most of these people ate lots of fish. Other than that, their diets were all over the place. A few were vegetarian, some lived off pork.

But here is the unorganized list I mashed together as I went through various sites and some dietary and other notes I jotted down. Note that there are only so many from the United States because it was easier to find reliable information on them. There were plenty listed from other countries, but finding info on their dietary (and other) habits was a bit difficult.

Christian Mortensen (United States)
115
“Friends, a good cigar, drinking lots of good water, no alcohol, staying positive and lots of singing will keep you alive for a long time.”
• Drank boiled water, vegetarian

George Francis
112
Credited his longevity to nature, and enjoyed a rich diet of pork, eggs, milk and lard. Gave up smoking cigars at the age of 75.

Walter Breuning (United States)
114
•Two meals per day. Big breakfast, hearty lunch, no evening meal, snacked on fruit instead. Drank lots of water plus a cup and a half of coffee with breakfast and one cup with lunch.
•Got up at 6:15 am and had breakfast at 7:30 am, and then exercised.
“We’re all going to die. Some people are scared of dying. Never be afraid to die. Because you’re born to die.”

Yukichi Chuganji (Japan)
114
•Hated vegetables, but enjoyed regular meals of beef, pork, chicken, rice, miso soup and milk. Chewed caramels as a treat. Drank alcohol moderately.
•Optimist

Jeanne Louise Calment (France)
122
•Attributed her longevity to olive oil. Added it to nearly every food she ate and also rubbed it onto her skin.
•Drank port wine frequently
•1 kilo of chocolate every week
•Took up fencing at age 85
•Smoked until the age of 117, unspecified source says no more than 2 cigarettes per day.

Sarah Knauss (United States)
119
•Milk chocolate turtles, cashews, and potato chips
•Described as being a “sweet lady.” Her daughter said nothing fazed her, and that was why she lived so long.

Tane Ikai (Japan)
116
•Diet often consisted of only three bowls of rice porridge a day

Kamato Hongo (Japan)
116
•Fish, rice, pork, occasional snacks of brown sugar. Drinks green tea, sometimes coffee, herb wine.

Anna Eliza Williams (UK)
114
•Strict no-pill policy and a meat and vegetable diet

Jiroemon Kimura (Japan)
114 (and still living)
•Small portions

Joan Riudavets (Spain)
114
•Olive oil, tomatoes, fish, bread
•guitar, singing, football
•unofficial record for oldest biker, still riding a bike at age 110

Maria de Jesus (Portugal)
115
•Pescetarian, rice pudding, ice cream, never smoked nor drank alcohol nor coffee.

Eva Morris (UK)
114
•Attributed her longevity to whisky and boiled onions.

Christina **** (Australia)
114
“had an interest in her music and food, particularly chocolate cake, and all her family; she was very much a family oriented person,” her daughter said

Fred Hale (United States)
113
•Credited his longevity to bee pollen and honey and the occasional nip of whiskey
•Oldest registered beekeeper ever

Tomoji Tanabe (Japan)
113
•Fried shrimp, daily glass of milk, no booze, lots of vegetables, big meals.
“I tell you, I am happy.”"

#22 Mind

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Posted 09 April 2013 - 05:09 PM

Sadly, the number of supercentenarians is in steady decline.




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