Wall Street Journal: 110 Birthday Candles

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

The never was fat is in the below.

Cheers, Al Pater.

This Exclusive Club Has One Requirement: 110 Birthday Candles

Gerontology Sleuths Search For 'Supercentenarians'; Disproving False

Claims

By JEFFREY ZASLOW

Wall Street Journal, February 25, 2005; Page A1

SEAL BEACH, Calif. -- n Higgins can recite the alphabet

backwards, a skill she says her father taught her in the 1890s. She

clearly recalls her first train trip, which she dates to 1895, and her

first barnstorming airplane ride in 1923.

Her memories are marvelous, but can she prove she's really 111 years

244 days old?

It turns out she can, which for investigators at the nonprofit

Gerontology Research Group makes her a real find -- what they call " a

validated supercentenarian. " To join this club, one must be 110 or

older. As of today, there are 61 documented living members in the

world.

GRG's 40 volunteers -- a loose, international network of demographers,

gerontologists, epidemiologists and self-styled " hobbyists " -- are

dedicated to verifying the ages of the world's oldest people, and to

learning the secrets of their longevity. But to do so, they must

contend with dishonest schemers, governments that gleefully support

false claims and what researchers call " the invisible barrier of 115. "

[L. Coles]

Because almost no one who reaches age 114 ever sees 115, the group is

skeptical of any claims to ages higher than that. GRG investigators

dismiss a man now being celebrated in Cuba who says he is 124 but who

has no documents. A woman in the Caribbean island nation of Dominica

supposedly was 128 when she died in 2003. Her ripe old age was " a

falsehood perpetrated by the tourism industry there, " says GRG

co-founder L. Coles, a physician and stem-cell researcher at

UCLA's Geffen School of Medicine, where GRG is based. GRG counts

just 12 undisputed cases of people ever reaching 115.

Meanwhile, a land man named Coates got national publicity

last year before he died, allegedly at 114. He turned out to be a mere

92. " We had so much information that he was lying, " says Young,

GRG's senior claims investigator. " He was listed as eight years old in

the 1920 Census and 18 in the 1930 Census. "

Ms. Higgins, however, is the real thing, the GRG says. Birth and

marriage certificates show she was born on June 26, 1893. A sharp,

lucid and remarkably healthy woman, she lives with a caregiver in the

Leisure World retirement community here. She has grandchildren older

than many fellow residents are. She accounts for her longevity by

saying, " I never had enough money to engage in riotous living. "

That's a typical explanation among her ancient peers, says Dr. Coles.

" None of the supercentenarians know why they lived so long, but they

feel compelled to give answers that are funny and satisfying. " Earlier

this month, Dr. Coles visited Ms. Higgins, in part to ask permission

to help conduct her autopsy when she dies. Her 82-year-old son,

Horace, said that would be OK.

The 14-year-old GRG, which the " Guinness World Records Book " now

relies on to confirm longevity records, counts 55 women and six men

over age 110 world-wide and suspects 200 more are unaccounted for.

U.S. Census figures show about 50,000 Americans are over age 100, with

1,388 over 110. Many respondents to the Census are wishful thinkers,

impostors, pranksters, or younger folks still cashing their late

grandparents' Social Security checks, the GRG says. " We ask people

their ages and take them at their word, " says a Census spokesman.

[n Higgins]

Some old people (and their families) exaggerate ages for attention or

publicity. Old people often feel ignored and discarded, says GRG's Mr.

Young, a 30-year-old former Census worker. " But if you say you're 120

in a small village, suddenly, people pay attention. "

....

The oldest human ever certified was a French woman who died at age 122

in 1997. Details on real and fraudulent supercentenarians, past and

present, are updated weekly at www.grg.org1.

Having spent four decades studying aging issues, Dr. Coles, 63, is

among those who see 115 as a barrier that almost nobody can cross.

Since 2001, a dozen 114-year-olds died before turning 115. " We've seen

it in every culture and civilization we track, " says Dr. Coles.

According to the GRG, the oldest person alive today -- a woman in the

Netherlands -- is 114 years 241 days old.

By accumulating data on supercentenarians, GRG researchers have found

many shared characteristics. Though these people are usually hard of

hearing and nearly blind, with very thin skin and limited senses of

smell and taste, most of them rarely saw a doctor before age 90.

Throughout their lives, most made no conscious effort to eat

nutritiously, exercise or avoid drinking and smoking. None were fat at

any time in their lives. Almost all had long-lived relatives,

suggesting that the secret is in their genes, not their lifestyle.

Families of supercentenarians, and their doctors, often resist

allowing autopsies. " She died of old age, " they say. " What more do you

need to know? "

" Plenty, " argues Dr. Coles. He recently conducted an autopsy of a

woman who died at 112. " I held her heart in my hands, her brain in my

hands, " he says. " We looked at every organ under a microscope. " The

autopsy showed she likely died of a chemical imbalance in her immune

system. Dr. Coles believes that if doctors find answers about

superlongevity, the pharmaceutical industry will develop drugs to help

the oldest of us survive longer.

At age 111, Ms. Higgins fits the supercentenarian profile. She was

never fat, rarely went to doctors (she takes no medications now), and

her dad lived to 101.

At 102, she self-published a book about her life as a farm girl,

amateur singer and early widow. Just this month, from her wheelchair,

she was guest speaker at the Leisure World Kiwanis Club.