News - Should we take health tips from world’s oldest people?

The death of the world’s oldest person, Maria Branyas Morera, at the age of 117 might cause many to ponder the secrets of an exceptionally long life, but scientists say it could be best to avoid taking advice on longevity from centenarians themselves, The Guardian reports. According to the Guinness World Records website, Branyas believed her longevity stemmed from “order, tranquility, good connection with family and friends, contact with nature, emotional stability, no worries, no regrets, lots of positivity and staying away from toxic people.” However, Richard Faragher, a professor of biogerontology at the University of Brighton, said that in reality scientists were still trying to work out why some people lived beyond the age of 100. Faragher said there were two main theories and they were not mutually exclusive. The first, he said, was that some individuals were essentially just lucky. In other words, just because centenarians had certain habits, it did not mean those habits were driving their longevity – an error in logic known as “survivorship bias.” The second theory, he said, was that centenarians had specific genetic features that equipped them to live a longer life – in other words they were rendered more robust as a result of their genetics. Faragher said both theories, however, resulted in the same warning: “Never, ever take health and lifestyle tips from a centenarian.” “What you see with most centenarians most of the time—and these are generalizations—is that they don’t take much exercise. Quite often, their diets are rather unhealthy. This flies in the face of a lot of epidemiological evidence we have on how to extend your healthy life expectancy," he added.