Oldest person

[FartinMowler]

Lately I keep seeing "Oldest person" articles and wondered why is it lately that I'm seeing these? I thought we are doomed with pollution and everything that can harm us and still people are living longer.

BOSTON (Reuters) - A Connecticut woman born to former slaves in the decades following the U.S. Civil War has become the world's oldest person, at 114, according to Guinness World Records.
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Emma Faust Tillman, born near Greensboro, North Carolina, on November 22, 1892, became the world's oldest person on Wednesday, following the death of Emiliano Mercado del Toro, of Puerto Rico, Guinness said on its Web site.

Longevity is common in Tillman's family. Though none of her 23 siblings have matched her 114 years, three sisters and a brother lived past 100, her great-nephew John Stewart Jr., said on Thursday.

"At 114, she's lived a good, honorable, straight life," said Stewart, who is 76. "Her comment is always, 'If you want to know about longevity and why I lived so long, ask the man upstairs."'

Tillman, who lives in the Hartford, Connecticut, nursing home she moved to at the age of 110, was not available for an interview.

"Sometimes, she doesn't feel like talking," Stewart said. "But when you're 114, you can call your own shots."

Tillman never smoked, drank or wore eyeglasses, Stewart said.

Karen Chadderton, administrator of the Riverside Health and Rehabilitation Center, where Tillman lives, said until a few months ago Tillman spent much of her time caring for an ailing roommate more than 20 years her junior, who has since died.

"About a month ago, she started feeling less energetic," said Chadderton. "During the morning she has energy, she's up and about, in a wheelchair, but in the afternoon, once she goes to sleep, she doesn't want to be bothered."

According to the International Committee on Supercentenarians, there are currently 86 people aged 110 or older alive in the world today. Eighty of them are women.

The world's next-oldest resident is Japan's Yone Minagawa, born in 1893, according to the ICS. Guinness World Records said it is still investigating that claim.

[Pub Lover]

Nutrition, Record keeping, Mass communication.

Plus History is a lie!

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

Actually, genetics is more at the core of longevity than any other elements. No amount of modern medicine or nutrition will let you live longer if you don't have a clean genetic table.

[kahljorn]

lol

it's weird to think of it that way because that means ten people could've been you know.. the... thing... i dont know. but ten times 100 equals 1000!

[FartinMowler]

Being high doesn't make you live longer Kahl

[kahljorn]

i haven't done any drugs for at least a week

[Pub Lover]

Originally Posted by J. Tithonus Pednaud

Actually, genetics is more at the core of longevity than any other elements. No amount of modern medicine or nutrition will let you live longer if you don't have a clean genetic table.

True, but the best genetics on the planet won't have you living to 50 if you only eat once a week & that was after the dogs got at it.

Also, if no one wrote down when I was born, I wouldn't know. I'd just be some old man not knowing if I was 80 or 217.

Plus even if I knew I was 50 giga-tonnes of years old, with out someway of telling alot of people it really quickly, I'd be dead before they all found out.

[FartinMowler]

I'm waiting for 118 year old Viagra victim dies of Blue balls :/ or "He almost made it to 120 but someone greased the pole"

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

Originally Posted by Pub Lover

True, but the best genetics on the planet won't have you living to 50 if you only eat once a week & that was after the dogs got at it.

Also very true, but it remains a fact that longevity can be breed, with fertility being a trade off...sort of Mother Nature's natural solution to over population.

[kahljorn]

yea... I remember watching this show about human super powers and one of them was how if an organism doesn't breed until very very late in life they can potentially spread a gene that mother nature turns on that allows your children to live longer. Basically it tricks your body because the only purpose of being alive is to create more life, so if you aren't creating more life it thinks you need longer to create it. They did some experiment with house flies or something and got them to live for up to 16 days, which is apparantly pretty old for a fly.

So the career woman is supposed to be good in that regard.

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

That's right. The theory was first put forward and researched by Alexander Graham Bell - modern estimates put the heritability of longevity between 20 and 50 percent.

The fruit fly selective breeding experiments began in the 80's and within 10 generations the average lifespan on the test groups increased by 30%. In human terms, that would place the current average of 78 to just over 100.

The studies continued and at 50 generations, the lifespan had doubled. Not only were the flies longer lived, they were more hardy as well. They required less food and water and were much more resistant to extremes in habitat.

Of course, they were also fat, lethargic and lazy and completely stopped reproducing naturally.

[kahljorn]

I saw it on the science channel on probably the best show I've ever seen. It was cool because the next day they had something on super technology and one of the technologies was this car they were building in sweeden or somewhere. It was basically a car that ran on air, it had a fan that was powered by gas so it required something like 10% as much gas. Of course, if you got in a car accident you'd probably die...
they also had a segment on super strength and some other shit ;/

they also had stuff on space travel and how nearly impossible it would be without either some type of Freezinghibernation(cant recall the name at the moment, the walt disney thing) or people who would be willing to travel in space for hundreds of years, make new generations and die while in space.

[zeldasbiggestfan]

In my English book there is an extremely old author who died at the age of 123 (or around there, definately not in the teens though). About 1800 to 1923 it said.

[J. Tithonus Pednaud]

Unlikely...

The oldest documented person in history was Jeanne Calment of France, she was aged 122. The next oldest was a Japanese man named Izumi at 120, but his records are pretty hazy. Most think he actually took over the identity of his older brother at some point.

Kahljorn, you are probably thinking of the hydrogen car prototypes from Toyodo and GM.

[Jeanette X]

My great-grandpa lived to be 103.

He saw the Red Sox the World Series win in 1917, and waited the rest of his life for them to win again, and he never got see it happen.