Pseudo-paleo diet, World's oldest woman

[GRiM]

World's oldest person Emma Morano dies at 117
The world's oldest person has died in Italy at the age of 117, reports say.
Emma Morano was born on 29 November 1899 in the Piedmont region of Italy. She was officially the last person born in the 1800s still living.
She had attributed her longevity to her genetics and a diet of three eggs a day, two of them raw.
Ms Morano was the oldest of eight siblings, all of whom she has outlived. She died at her home in the northern city of Verbania.
Her life not only spanned three centuries but also survived an abusive marriage, the loss of her only son, two World Wars and more than 90 Italian governments.'Good genes and eggs'Ms Morano had admitted that her longevity was partly down to genetics: her mother reached 91 and several sisters reached their centenary.
But it was also down to a rather unusual diet of three eggs - two raw - each day for more than 90 years.
It was a regime she took up as a young woman, after the doctor diagnosed her with anaemia shortly after World War One.
She had cut down to just two eggs a day, and a few biscuits recently.
Her doctor of 27 years, Carlo Bava, had told AFP news agency that she rarely ate vegetables or fruit.
"When I met her, she ate three eggs per day, two raw in the morning and then an omelette at noon, and chicken at dinner."'I didn't want to be dominated'Ms Morano also credited her longevity to her decision, in 1938, to kick out her husband - a year after her baby boy died at just six months old.
The marriage had never been healthy, she said. She had been in love with a boy who was killed during World War One, and had no interest in marrying someone else.

But, she told La Stampa newspaper in an interview when she was a spritely 112 that she was left with little choice.
"He told me: 'If you're lucky you marry me, or I'll kill you'. I was 26 years old. I got married."
Eventually, it became too much. Though they separated in 1938, they remained married until he died in 1978. Ms Morano, who worked until she was 75, chose never to marry again.
"I didn't want to be dominated by anyone," she told the New York Times.

She had only taken on a full-time carer a couple of years ago - but had not left her small two-room apartment for 20 years.
According to the US-based Gerontology Research Group (GRG), the world's oldest human being is now Jamaican Violet Brown, who was born on March 10, 1900.

 

[Il Matto]

Thank you for posting this GRiM,

Perhaps Ms Morano's longevity could be partly attributed to her eating habits, even if they appear quite monotonous when taken as reported! But as Ms Morano suggested herself, she had 'good genes' - I wonder how important that is.

The detail that really stands out to me though is the fact that Ms Morano clearly had the courage and strength of will to end an abusive marriage, acknowledging that it had never been healthy.

"He told me: 'If you're lucky you marry me, or I'll kill you'

:O

I know that we can't verify that statement, but if we hypothetically accept its accuracy and what it suggests about her husband, then clearly Ms Morano was able to extricate herself from what would likely have been an enormously draining relationship with a predator. I wonder to what degree the act of no longer being a source of nourishment did not only for Ms Morano's emotional health, but also her physical health..

Speculative, I know!

 

[Yupo]

Wonderful story, thanks so much for sharing!

Slightly off topic here, but this concerns vegetable oils and aging. I saw this interesting answer to question on Quora about 'old folks' odor'.

What makes an old person have a distinct old person smell?
Steve Harris
Steve Harris, works at Critical Care Research
Written Apr 4

Omega -7 rancidity has been mentioned. This is a free radical process that happens with all polyunsaturated fats in oxygen (famously in paint thinner).

In the plant oil industry it's dealt with by adding radical scavengers like vitamin E, but often these are stripped out of commercial oils.

People who take megadose vitamin E (more than 400 IU a day) secrete enough E in their body oils to inhibit this process and cut some of the odor. No, it does not make up for good personal hygiene, but it adds. The vitamin E used needs to be in the free tocopherol not tococpheryl acetate form for thus trick to work. Otherwise you can buy the cheapest product at Costco.

It works on younger people, too.

I have had a lifelong aversion to eggs (long story, *sigh*). I recently ate one. Not so bad! I'm inspired to make eggs more of a habit.

 

[GRiM]

"He told me: 'If you're lucky you marry me, or I'll kill you'

:O
(...)
Speculative, I know!

I was thinking the same. The psychological aspects of life is clearly connected to the physical aspects too.

 

[WIN 52]

Don't forget the bacon and all the oil. You can cook the eggs in the oil and eat it all.

 

[Galaxia2002]

I suppose she found the right foods that fitted her metabolism and genetics, and had a relatively manageable stress in her life.

 

[Palinurus]

As these things go, they've found another oldest person immediately -- also a woman, also 117 years old (from March 10, 1900) and still alive:

Meet the New Oldest Person in the World

Maya Rhodan
8:30 AM ET

A 117-year-old Jamaican woman has earned the title of the oldest person in the world.

Violet Brown once told her local paper, the Jamaica Gleaner, that the secret to her long life is a tenet found in the Bible's Old Testament: "Honor your mother and father so your days may be long," Brown said in 2010.

She also avoids rum, but eats everything she wants except for chicken and pork. USA Today reports "Aunt V," as her friends and family call her, also partakes in "fish and mutton and sometimes she will have cow foot."

Brown, who was born in 1900, told the Gleaner she still made her bed every morning, enjoyed reading and typing, and remained fiercely committed to her Baptist faith. "I love the Church," she told the local paper.

Brown captured the title of the oldest known living person following the death of Emma Morano of Italy. Morano was the last person known to have been born in the 1800s; she died on April 16 at age 117, according to CNN.

Source: _http://time.com/4742127/violet-brown-oldest-person-world/

(hyperlinks, twitter page and video omitted).