The secret to living to 110 was, don’t register your death.
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@jaakdefour Thanks. Of course this is true. My grandmother died at 106 after a stupid fall broke her hip. (She leaned on a door that wasn’t closed) She certainly could have lived longer. But 14 years longer to get to 120? She would have had to avoid a lot of chances to fall down.
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That is a fantastic article, jaakdefour. I got into a huge fight on another site a few years ago, for essentially pointing out exactly these issues with the whole centennarian research field, statistics and the blue zone hype. Color me deeply sceptical of all these claims. The famous Jeanne Calment 122 case is not as rock solid as one might like either. Well documented supercentenarians (those 110 and older) are vanishingly rare. Long lived populations too – the closer you look, the worse they come off. One of the go to long lived populations is Japan and they are one of the worst, based on my deep dive into the topic – terrible record systems (i.e. design), record availability (wars and destruction including natural disasters) and remarkable pension fraud levels. And people usually think that Japan data is reliable, not like Thailand – yet the truth is, Japanese data is terrible. Good, reliable data on populations is rare in the extreme – Sweden being one such unicorn.
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I was in a skilled nursing facility (SNF) in Seattle in the 90’s. SNF’s are where people go that do require a higher level of care than a “nursing home”.
All the residents were Japanese. They had a list posted at one of the nursing station of the ages and 6 were indicated to be over 100 out of about 120 residents, many more in their 90’s. I was quite amazed as I’ve been in over 200 SNF’s and never saw a list like that. I did start asking about ages as I visited other SNF’s. None came close.
From what you have posted I’m now less amazed 