We all want to know the secret for a long life. Man has struggled with this since the beginning of time. Though our life expectancy has increased over the last several decades, especially in the more developed countries, how can we live longer? https://www.youtube.com/embed/x7_ByWcH6NQ
The World’s Oldest Person
At the end of November in 1899, Emma Martina Luigia Morano was born in the Piedmont Region of Italy. She was the first of eight children from Giovanni and Matilde.
Her lively brown eyes got to see three different centuries of crucial events… two World Wars, 90 Italian governments, and so many others.
When she died in 2017, she was 117 years and 132 days old. She outlived all of her siblings, however one of them, Angela Morano lived to 102 years old. We can say she had the “longevity” gene in her. (1)
A Liberated Woman
Emma was in love and engaged to a boy who went to war and never came back. After her heart broke from losing the love of her life, marriage was not on her mind. Until Giovanni Martinuzzi forced her to marry him, he threatened to kill her. Thus, at 26 years of age Emma was trapped in an abusive relationship. Years later she would also experience the death of her 6-month-old son.
Although she separated from her abusive husband, she didn’t get a divorce and was officially married until 1978, when he died. After her separation, she kept working until she was 75 years old, and did not marry again. She attributes her long life to that. In her words “I didn’t want to be dominated by anyone.” (2)
It’s What You Eat
Emma, the world’s oldest person, also attributed her long life to her particular diet. When in her 20’s, Emma had a close encounter with anemia. Her doctor at the time told her that she needed to eat 3 eggs a day, to keep healthy. She followed this diet regime until the end of her days.
Emma ate 2 raw eggs with some biscuits followed by a cooked egg, later on. Carlo Bavaria, Emma’s doctor in the last 27 years of her life, said about his supercentenarian patient “She has always eaten very few vegetables, very little fruit,” (3)
The Healthy Egg
Nowadays, hardly any physician would advise you to eat three eggs daily. Their main concern would likely be cholesterol levels. An egg contains 212mg of cholesterol, more than half of the recommended daily amount. However, our livers produce less cholesterol when we eat eggs. Some studies have shown no effect on the cholesterol levels of people that consume eggs, but the stigma persists. More cholesterol in your diet does not necessarily mean more cholesterol in your blood.
Eggs are a great source of vitamins A, B5, B12, phosphorus, selenium, and folate. With only 77 calories, 5 grams of fat, and 6 grams of protein, some consider eggs a superfood. The world’s oldest person will agree.
Our Search for Longevity
Signs of our fascination with the idea of prolonging our lives to the point that cases like Emma are not rare but the norm is everywhere. From research studies to films like Ad Vitam. A futuristic French drama on Netflix where everyone gets to live way past 100 years old. However, it is far from utopia. They face problems like retraining people after spending more than two “career lives” in the same position. Youth rebelling because they think prolonging life goes against nature. The problem of people still reproducing, and many more. (4)
The question is who wants to live 1,000 years? (5)
