On 18th the Guinness Book of World Records presented a certificate to Tomoji Tanabe of Japan for being the oldest man on earth since January this year. He celebrated his 112th birthday on Tuesday.
Tomoji heads the list of nearly 30,000 centenarians in Japan, the largest population of theirs in any one country. In the last 10 years the number of Japanese living beyond 100 years has gone up by almost 4 times.
So what’s the secret of such extraordinarily long life span of average Japanese? The TOI news report (Sep 19) says that the Japanese feel the main reason of lengthy life is their healthy diet of rice and fish.
Ah fish! Veggies may see red in this revelation. Let them.
Tomoji is however not the oldest living person in Japan. At least 3 women precede him. The oldest among them is Tsuneyo Toyonaga who is now 113 years old. In fact in the list of list of 83 known living supercentenarians, which are persons aged 110 years or more, 75 are females and 8 males.
The oldest person on earth is US-based 114 years old Edna Parker who was born on April 20, 1893. See her picture below – she still has a flock of hair [image source].
Coming back to Tomoji, when asked how long he wished to live, he replied without hesitation, “For infinity!” Now, that’s called the spirit. It’s not only amazing, it also holds lesson for us, the lesser mortals.
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