All about super–long-livers - in the book “Supercentenarians”
The secrets of longevity have always worried mankind and scientists as well. How to live longer, what are the hidden resources of the human body in this regard, what is the maximum life expectancy inherent in our genes? The best minds fought in search of answers to these questions. Studying the secrets of longevity, researchers even came up with a special term for the age group of the planet's population, which celebrated its 110th birthday - "supercentenarians" (supercentenarians), but the secrets of supercentenarians have not been completely solved. However, it is precisely established that women are significantly ahead of men in terms of the number of people who have met their 110th birthday.
German scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in the city of Rostock have collected and analyzed, perhaps, the largest amount of information about the super-long-livers of the Earth to date. Moreover, the researchers were interested not only in dry figures, but also in the details of the life of the longevity record holders, their statements and advice. The result of many years of work was the book “Supercentenarians".
Over 10 years of research, researchers have found more than 600 people aged 110 years and older in 15 countries. Of this number of centenarians, almost 20 lived to the age of 115 years or more.
Representatives of the fair sex are leading, as sports commentators would say, by a significant margin: according to the latest generalized data, among those who have reached the 115-year milestone, 90% are women.
Most of the super-long-livers were found in the USA: 309 women and 32 men. But the record among women still belongs to the Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122. Among men, the record holder is Chris Mortensen, who was born in Denmark, but spent the last years of his life in the USA – Mortensen lived 115 years. Black American Betty Wilson also set a kind of record – at the age of 114, she had her gallbladder removed, after which she lived for more than a year.
And the record for the number of "ordinary" centenarians (without the prefix "super-"), that is, those whose age has exceeded 100 years, is firmly held by Japan. There are more than 28,000 such people there. And in Japan, the majority of centenarians are also women (more than 85%). That's where scientists from Rostock should recover for the "secrets of longevity" – after all, in 1963 there were only 153 people in Japan who exchanged the second hundred, in 1981 their number reached 1,000, and in 1998 – already 10,000 people.
The collection of articles “Supercentenarians” in pdf format can be downloaded from the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research website.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of "Health of Ukraine"09.06.2010