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World’s oldest person ever smoked cigarettes

By on April 3, 2015
misao okawa

Misao Okawa on her 117th birthday (March 5, 2015)

The world’s oldest person Misao Okawa has died on Wednesday at the age of 117.
The Guiness World Record title holder who celebrated her 117th birthday on March 5, 2015 ‘had stopped eating in the last 10 days’ according to an employee at the nursing home where she had lived since 1997. Okawa died in her sleep on April 1, 2015. Although she said last year that sushi and sleep were what made her live so long, this year (on her 117th birthday), she jokingly remarked (when the media asked her the same question), “I wonder about that too.”

 

 

Gertrude Weaver

Gertrude Weaver becomes the oldest living person in the world succeeding Misao Okawa

After Misao Okawa’s demise, the Guinness World Record title now belongs to Gertrude Weaver a 116-year old African-American woman from Arkansas according to the Gerontology Research Group that keeps track of centenarians.

Her secret to longevity: “Trusting in the Lord, hard work and loving everybody.”Weaver added a fourth factor when she told Time magazine that trying to do your best is another factor adding “Just do what you can, and if we can’t, we can’t” or, in other words, “Kindness”.

 

 

 

Jean Louis Calment

Jean Louise Calment

But Misao Okawa was not the oldest person ever according to the Guiness World Records. The real record-breaker was Jeanne Louise Calment, a French supercentenarian from Arles in the South of France who lived up to 122 years and 164 days. Calment was born in 1875, years before the iconic Eiffel towers was built and had seen 2 world wars. Calment was from a middle class family. She did fencing at age 85 and rode her bicycle until her 100th birthday.  The famous World Guinness record breaker reportedly smoked no more than 2 cigarettes a day up to age 117.  Her claim to fame was Vincent Van Gogh’s famous visit in 1988 which brought a throng of media reporters to her home. Her secret to longevity and lucid old age: an olive-oil-rich diet, port wine, chocolate and being a calm person. Calment died at age 122 on August 4, 1997.

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