Secrets to longevity from some of the world's oldest people
What’s the secret to a long life? Maybe it’s living right and being nice. Maybe it’s bacon and honey. If anyone knows, it's these people who’ve made it to age 100 and beyond.
Eat eggs and cookies
When Emma Moran died in 2017 at age 117, she was the oldest person in the world. The year before her death, she offered this diet advice: "I eat two eggs a day, and that's it. And cookies."
Be kind
American Gertrude Weaver was 116 when she died in 2015. Before her death, she told Time magazine her secret to a long life: “Kindness. Treat people right and be nice to other people the way you want them to be nice to you. The Lord blessed me, I think, because I’m good to my family and good to my children and grandchildren. And I feed them.”
George Burns
Actor and comedian George Burns was 100 when he died in 1996. He had this to say about growing old: "By the time you're 80 years old you've learned everything. You only have to remember it."
Eat ‘delicious things’
Misao Okawa was 117 when she died in 2015 in Japan. Before her death, she told an interviewer: “Eating delicious things is a key to my longevity.”
Follow the Ten Commandments
Violet Brown was 117 when she died in Jamaica in 2017. "Honor your mother and father so your days may be long," she once said when asked about her secret to a long life.
No gossip, junk food
Besse Cooper was 116 when she died in Georgia in 2012. Her secrets? "I mind my own business," she reportedly said. "And I don't eat junk food."
Bacon!
Susannah Mushatt Jones was 116 when she died in 2016 in Brooklyn. Her niece told the New York Post her “health food” routine: “She’ll eat bacon all day long.”
Honey, bee pollen
Fred Hale Sr., was still shoveling snow off his roof at 103 and driving at 108. He died in November 2004 at age 113. A Boston Red Sox fan, he was one of the few Sox fans able see the team win titles 86 years apart, in 1918 and 2004. He was a veteran beekeeper, and insisted on consuming a daily regimen of a teaspoonful of honey and bee pollen. Although he never smoked and rarely drank alcohol, he did sometimes wash the honey down with a breakfast nip of whiskey.
Magic potion?
Reg Dean lived to 110 and was Britain’s oldest man at the time of his death in 2013. He once told an interviewer that his long life could be due to a mysterious potion that a doctor in Bombay gave him when he was young. "He said 'if you drink this you will live forever' – and this is the result," he said.
A woman who celebrated her 107th birthday on Wednesday shared her secret to living a long life: stay single.