When a supercentenarian dies, and ends up on the pages of newspapers around the world, there is immediately another supercentenarian ready to take his place in the primacy of the longest-lived individuals in the world. It happened just in recent days when the news of the disappearance of Andrew sweatthe 118-year-old French nun (she was about to turn 119) who held the primacy of super elderly, a new miss longevity immediately entered the rankings, namely Maria Branyas Morera, 115 years old, Spanish born in the United States who lives in a retirement home in Olot. “She has never gone to the hospital, she has never broken her bones, she is fine, she has no pain,” explained the 78-year-old daughter. Her secret? “Genetics”.
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Yet on this universe of age titans there are those who wanted to know more, to the point of founding in 1990, in Los Angeles, what has since become the highest authority on research on supercentenarians, or the Gerontology Research Group . In this non-profit scientific organization a team of researchers is responsible for studying and identifying people who have passed the 110th year of age, so that they can be entered into a database. “Almost every day there is a new supercentenarian, considering the 365 days of a year and the 300 people who are about to exceed 110 years that make up the world‘s population of verified centenarians”, explains the director of the Supercentenarian Research and Database section enthusiastically. of the Grg. Which, ironically, it’s called Robert and surname ago Young, young. “Our monitoring system started in 1997 with the death of Jeanne Calment, 122 years old. Since then we continue to receive new cases almost every week. Of course, not many come to the venerable age of Calment: the Frenchwoman, known for being the longest-lived person history has known, spent her life in Arles where she met the painter in person Vincent Van Goghstarted fencing – at 85 – and gave up smoking at the age of 118.
Perhaps sooner or later there will be another Jeanne, but at the moment the number of supercentenarians in the world should be around 1,000 individuals (but the GRG is not able to verify the authenticity of all, especially due to the absence of certificates by birth) and the oldest is only 115 years old. «These are data that we are able to obtain thanks to various sources, both public and private. Among these there are also the data provided by individual countries, although most of our information comes from the “GRG correspondents” who are responsible for finding the various cases in their countries of origin (in Italy there are three, ed). On our site there is also a “Contact Us” button, with which we invite users to send us their reports», explains Young.
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Not all cases are then validated because to enter the ranking of the research group, which on the subject is also the main source of Guinness World Records, the Guinness Book of Records, it is necessary to produce various documents such as «an original proof of birth, documents testifying life in middle age and finally a recent identity document», adds Young. Same story also with regard to death. “Deaths are usually verified by the family, or by contacts close to the family, or by the nursing homes where they live. The death certificates and articles that speak of the disappearance must then be produced. All this work makes it possible to draw up the list from which, when one of the super elders dies, to bring out the name of the newly elected one. Or rather of the newly elected. At the moment in the first eight positions there are only women. And four of these are Japanese. The others, in addition to the Spanish Branyas Morera, are two Americans and a Brazilian.
The first Italian person on the list is also a woman: Herculaneum Sunday, 112 years old, lives in Pesaro. “As far as the gender gap is concerned, biologically speaking, women age 3% more slowly than men – clarifies Young -. Speaking of old age, then, about 95% of people over the age of 115 are female. Among the members of the Gerontology Research Group there are about 500 people including some of the world‘s leading scientists in the field of aging. Don’t call them hunters of eternal life though, theirs isn’t a “business,” warns Young. And don’t even ask them to reveal the secrets of supercentenarians, because that is the main purpose of their research: to understand why some people live so much longer than others. The answer? Yes, it’s genetics.