The 100 club

It's not enough to make it to 100 these days. Supercentenarians are pushing the age boundaries, but in the week when the world's oldest living person, and one of England's oldest people, both died, what kept them alive so long remains something of a mystery.

Its promise of immortality might be hard to resist, but if one were to prepare an elixir of life from the recipe books of those who have lived into extreme old age, death itself might appear more tempting.

Dutchwoman Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, who died this week at 115 after becoming the oldest living person in the world, attributed her longevity to a diet of pickled herrings.

The oldest person ever, Jeanne Louise Calment, who passed away in 1997 aged 122, enjoyed a daily glass of port, while Hanna Barysevich, of Belarus, one of several unofficial "oldest living people", has sung the virtues of gherkins, pork fat and vodka.

In Japan, Kamato Hongo, who lived to 116, recommended green tea and the odd cup of herb wine. And Britain's oldest survivor, Lucy Victoria d'Abreu, 113, champions a "customary sun-downer of brandy and ginger ale".

But while such home-spun recipes don't cut any ice with scientists, there's no doubt Ms d'Abreu is a member of a very select club indeed - the supercentenarians.

The term applies to anyone older than 110 and, according to the US Gerontology Research Group, there are 68 supercentenarians in the world today. None of them were born in the UK - Ms d'Abreu was born in India.

Extreme old age has always fascinated us - from Biblical stories of Noah (500 when he had his first son) and Methuselah, who chalked up 969 years, to Jonathan Swift's Struldbruggs - a race of immortal beings in Gulliver's Travels.

In the case of today's record holders, some of our intrigue is based on the sheer sweep of history these people have witnessed.

Florence Reeves, who died at 111 this week after becoming one of the oldest people in England, was 20 when World War I broke out, middle-aged at the outbreak of WWII and retired before Elvis Presley even charted.

But our intrigue is also aroused by self-interest, says Ian Philp, a professor of health care of elderly people.

"We all have an interest in our own mortality. We all want to live long, healthy lives."

Yet no one knows exactly why a sprinkling of people live to such extreme ages.

There's uncertainty in the academic world whether there is anything unique about people who live to be over 90, more especially 100," says Mr Philp, the government's director or older people's services. "But the evidence is that, yes, they are a bit unique."

That uniqueness is slowly wearing off. More and more people are hitting the 100 mark these days - there are about 6,000 in the UK.

Yet it seems extreme old age has been around longer than we might think. Even 100 years ago, a handful of people lived to be centenarians.

"The records from earlier periods are often unreliable so we can't be entirely sure but there have been people living into their 80s and 90s since at least the Greek civilisation," says Professor Tom Kirkwood, an authority on genetics and ageing.

The growth in centenarianism reflects the huge leaps in life expectancy made in the West during the past century. In Roman times the average life span was just 22 (mainly because of the appalling rate of infant mortality), by 1800 it was 40 years, 1900 around the late 40s and today it hovers around the mid-to-late 70s.

Yet scientists believe 120 or so remains a stubborn limit beyond which the human body cannot live without some serious - and so far unknown - genetic intervention. At the moment, genetics accounts for about 15% of what determines life span.

"It's a bit like the world record for the mile," says Mr Kirkwood. "Once it was thought that no one could run a mile in under four minutes. Roger Bannister proved that wrong.

"The current world record can always be broken, but it's highly unlikely we'll see anyone run the mile in two minutes."

Sooner or later - and always by about 120 - ageing gets the better of us. It's a sobering thought that by the age of 30 the body is in a downward spiral.

It seems anyone with ambitions to make it to supercentenarian status can do little more than follow the advice we pretty much know already - eat healthily, exercise, don't smoke, limit alcohol intake and maintain strong social networks.

Genetic make up also helps, as does good luck.

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