LIVING for a century is not much to boast about these days. Those who reach their 100th birthday are being eclipsed by an elite band of the extremely aged: the supercentenarians.
To join the supercentenarian club you must live to 110. Not surprisingly, there are only a handful of members: 66 at the moment, compared with around 200,000 centenarians. The number has risen sharply since the mid-1960s. Before then, there had only ever been three whose ages could be validated.
The all-time record breaker, a French woman called Jeanne-Louise Calment, died in 1997 aged 122. Hers was an incredible feat of longevity, breaking the record by five years. The majority of supercentenarians are aged between 110 and 113, and hardly any survive to 115. The oldest person alive today is 116-year-old Maria Capovilla of Ecuador, who is the last recognised survivor of the 1880s.
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Validating the ages of people this old can be a problem. As the Guinness World Records has stated: 鈥淣o single subject is more obscured by vanity, deceit, falsehood and deliberate fraud than the extremes of human longevity.鈥� Many claims to have lived to 110 turn out to be false. But the lack of reliable records also means that the actual number of supercentenarians alive today could be as high as 450.
So how do you improve your chances of reaching 110? Every supercentenarian swears by their own personal elixir of youth. For Calment it was port wine, a diet rich in olive oil and a sense of humour. It certainly helps to be female. Of the 66 supercentenarians alive today 59 are women. Having the right start in life is crucial too. A study of Germany鈥檚 semi-centenarians (those who have reached 105) showed that those born in December had a notable advantage, while those born in June were least likely to make it. It is all to do with the nutritional state of the mother during pregnancy and the first year of the baby鈥檚 life.
鈥淣o subject is more obscured by vanity than longevity鈥�
This could also be why first-borns are more likely than their siblings to live long. Meanwhile, research on supercentenarians in the US shows that children who grew up in rural areas, with literate, home-owning parents, had a greater chance of reaching 110 compared with others of their generation 鈥� presumably because this sort of environment provided a healthier start in life.
Why does the supercentenarian club appear to be growing? The main factor is probably the improvements in sanitation, medicine and nutrition in the 20th century. What we don鈥檛 know is whether the key is mainly genetic, environmental, or a combination of the two. Perhaps the best advice is to keep drinking the port.
