Long life has always attracted the attention of mankind. Recall at least attempts to create a philosopher's stone, one of the functions of which was to become immortality. Yes, and in modern times there are a lot of diets, recommendations about life and numerous pseudo-secrets that supposedly allow a person to live longer than his fellow tribesmen. However, no one has been able to guarantee a longer life span , which is why people are curious about those who still succeeded.
Let's define in terms
First of all, you need to figure out who to attribute to the category of “Long-livers of the planet”. The most common definition is those whose age has exceeded 90 years. In this case, there are quite a lot of these people. Only in Russia there are about 350 thousand. Some sources propose considering those who have already celebrated their centenary to be long-livers. And this is also not a record - there are almost seven thousand of these among Russians.
The second difficulty: whom to believe and how to verify. Anyone can claim that he was hit, say, 150, and do it quite convincingly if he knows the history of his native land quite well. So the long-livers of the planet are conditionally divided into two groups: verified (that is, those whose age has been documented) and presumptive - those who cannot accurately prove their date of birth.
And the third problem: to choose the winner from those who are still alive, or to take into account all those who have crossed the mark of 110 years? Indeed, many long-livers of the planet, whose list is not so short, still managed to die.
Official record holder
The proven winner, who survived until 2012, was the Georgian Hvichava, who did not reach the age of 133 a little. Documents confirming her birth in 1880 were recognized as genuine, so this oldest man (woman) was awarded an entry in the Guinness Book of Records and received the appropriate certificate. It is noteworthy that Khvichava kept her mind alive until the last day. Despite the fact that her entire working experience was connected with agriculture, she was always interested in cutting-edge innovations: shortly before her death, she wanted her relatives to teach her how to communicate with a computer. We can say that at the moment it is the oldest long-lived planet. No one has beaten the record for the duration of earthly existence.
Second winner
And this is also a woman. She died even earlier than Khvichava, in 1997, but until that time she confidently held the primacy. This time, the former oldest man was born in France, five years earlier than the Georgian, but, alas, she died, nine years before reaching the next record. Her life span was limited to 122 and a half years. The name of Jeanne Kalman in the list of “Long-livers of the Planet” was also marked by an irrepressible sense of humor, demonstrated until the last day. In addition, the Frenchwoman was just a volcano of energy: at 85 she started fencing seriously, at 100 she was fond of cycling, and almost professionally.
Most common age
In the summer of 2013, another of those called the long-livers of the planet died. He lived to be 115 years old, a Japanese from Kamiukawa named Jiroemon Kimura. He received the winner in 2012 due to the fact that older people with evidence of their age were not left in the world. Recipes of centenarians, it must be said, are diverse. If for Zhanna it was cheerfulness and activity, then for Kimura, first of all, a moderate and balanced diet.
By the way, the previous record holder lived for the same number of years (115) - Christian Mortensen, a Danish by birth and an American in citizenship. His contribution to the recipes of long-livers is the lack of red meat, a large number of fish, optimism, friends and singing.
115 years, apparently, is the most popular age among long-living. Puerto Rican del Toro also reached out to these years and was also among the champions. But so far no one has reached this milestone, so now Tomoji Tanabe, born in 1895, is considered to be the oldest again. However, before the cherished date he was left with not so much.
general Statistics
It is noteworthy that there are much more long-lived women than men. So, in 2007, 84 people were officially registered in the world, who were over 110 years old, of whom only nine are males.
Those who are over 100, but less than 110 years old in the world are almost two hundred thousand, and the sex ratio is again not in favor of men, although not so depressing.
Japan and the mountainous countries give a lot of centenarians, including Abkhazia, Georgia, Circassia, and Azerbaijan. In Karachayevsk, even a club was created under the name "Society of Centennial Anniversaries", which includes eight members, the youngest of whom is 104 years old. And in Japan, those over 100 have more than 28 thousand, and this figure is growing every year.
Informal centenarians
However, so far we have listed those who, without any doubt, managed to prove their age. This list does not include other "very-most" - long-livers of the planet who did not have the opportunity to prove it for very objective reasons: wars, destroyed churches with newborn records, small villages where there weren’t any literate ones ... However, the probability of matching their declared age real is very high. Therefore, it is still worth mentioning the Hungarians of Petridge and Zortai, who lived 186 and 185 years, respectively, the Ossetian Tense Abzive, who reached 180, the Albanian Hanzher, who died at the age of 170 and the Pakistani Sayyad Mabud, who only did not reach 160.
Absolute record
If you do not demand from the applicant for the title absolutely accurate evidence, then the oldest long-lived planet has definitely been established. The record belongs to a Chinese man named Lee Ching-Yun, who died in 1933. He considered the year of his birth 1736, that is, at the time of his death, he was 197 years old. However, this age was disproved, and, oddly enough, in a big way. University professor Wu Changshin discovered documents showing the birth of Lee back in 1677. Moreover, reliable, documented data on the congratulations of this man by the Chinese emperor were preserved, and they related to his anniversaries of 150 and 200 years. Such a double confirmation needs painstaking research, so that it has not yet been proven, but it will not refute the title of Lee in the category “Livers of the Planet”.
Mysterious country
However, this is not the only and not the biggest mystery regarding the life span of individual representatives of humanity. For decades, the mystery of the Indian Hunza tribe has been haunting scientists. Its members are not sick, do not suffer from caries, have excellent eyesight and have been living for more than 110 years without exception. And this despite the fact that neighboring tribes have a complete set of all modern (and even forgotten by civilization) diseases, and the average old age does not even reach 60. Hunza has its own recipes for long-livers: meat - only on holidays, vegetables - raw, and very a lot of fruits. The main thing in these principles of nutrition is never to retreat from them. Even in the spring, in the absence of fresh fruit, they do not shy away from the chosen path. Instead of breakfast-lunch-dinner in these difficult months, the Hunza drink a glass of fruit juice harvested last summer once a day.
Perhaps the reasons for the longevity and relative external youth of this people include their habit of swimming in icy water, as well as extreme physical activity. As a result, hunza women and over 60 give birth to healthy, viable offspring. The researchers also noted the high natural cheerfulness of the Hunza, who attribute a significant part of their longevity to it.
Scientists have not found out why some people live longer than others. There is no applicable longevity for all recipes: someone did not indulge in bad habits, someone ate only fish or fruit, someone led an active life, and someone allowed himself to be lazy ... The only common feature among all centenarians is optimism and cheerfulness. Maybe this is the cherished philosopher's stone?