<p class="source"><span>Al Bello/Getty Images</span></p><p>Jeanne Calment, the French woman who holds the record for the longest verified lifespan, died in 1997 <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3309876/">at 122 years old</a>.</p><p>Few people, of course, ever become supercentenarians - 110 years old or older - and even fewer hit 115.</p><p>So few people have exceeded that age, in fact, that a group of researchers <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/human-lifespan-aging-limit-2016-10">published an analysis</a> in the journal Nature last year arguing that the human species' lifespan plateaus around 115.</p><p>But a number of scientists are now rebutting that analysis with five separate commentaries <a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v546/n7660/index.html#bca">published in Nature on June 28</a>.</p><p>The authors of these pieces argue that the original analysis relied on statistics that were incomplete or analyzed in a way that led to a false conclusion. They suggest two alternatives: We either don't have enough data to know if the human lifespan has a limit, or the plateau is closer to 125 than 115.</p><p>"The available data are limited, there aren't that many supercentenarians," <a href="http://publichealth.ku.dk/staff/?pure=en%2Fpersons%2Fmaarten-pieter-rozing(19c14f95-9637-4946-9cf5-a3b2743a620e).html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Maarten Pieter Rozing</a>, a professor at the University of Copenhagen who co-authored <a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v546/n7660/full/nature22788.html">one commentary</a>, <a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/49758/title/Evidence-for-Human-Lifespan-Limit-Contested/">told The Scientist</a>. "And I think there are no strong arguments that show there is a decline [in the rate at which lifespans are increasing]."</p><h2>Why some think life ends at 115</h2><p>Life expectancy has crept up fairly steadily over the past 150 years or so. But Xiao Dong, Brandon Milholland, and Jan Vijg, the authors of the original analysis, argue that comparing the life expectancy of supercentenarians to the age at which they died can reveal the natural limit of the human lifespan.</p><p class="source"><span>iStock</span></p><p>The scientists used two datasets based on supercentenarians from the US, UK, Japan, and France. The first set covered deaths from 1968 to 1994 - a period when the maximum age was inching up. But in the next dataset, from 1995 to 2006, the age seemed to plateau (exceptions like Calment aside).</p><p>Life expectancy, however, rose throughout both time periods. The scientists therefore concluded that because humans' maximum age didn't keep rising with life expectancy, it appeared a limit had been reached.</p><p>Even if we were to cure various diseases like cancer or Alzheimer's, those scientists still claimed that humans would probably be unlikely to live past 115. And they put the chances of a person live past 125 at less than 1 in 10,000.</p><p class="source"><span>David Gray/Reuters</span></p><h2>Limit or illusion?</h2><p>The authors of the recent rebuttals say that because there are so few supercentenarians out there, the number of deaths for this age group between 1995 and 2006 is too small to yield reliable conclusions. There just haven't been enough supercentenarians to really pinpoint a maximum age.</p><p>As people live longer, it's likely that more will push past that supposed limit, the authors of the rebuttals argue - it'll just take time to get there.</p><p>"[T]he idea of a set limit to human longevity is not strongly supported by what is being discovered about the biology of ageing," Rozing and his co-authors wrote in their <a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v546/n7660/full/nature22788.html">commentary</a>. "The continuing increase in human life expectancy that has occurred over recent decades was unforeseen. It provides evidence for greater malleability of human ageing than was originally thought."</p><p>Over the span of human history, many of the lifespan increases we've seen would have been unimaginable at some point. Those living 200 years ago, for example, would have thought it was crazy that people could regularly live to be 80. Yet here we are.</p><p>Rozing told <a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/49758/title/Evidence-for-Human-Lifespan-Limit-Contested/">The Scientist</a> that there's an easy way to find out whose hypothesis is correct about the maximum lifespan.</p><p>"[W]e can just wait and see who's right," he said.</p>            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/footage-worlds-oldest-shark-2016-8">Scientists just discovered the world's oldest shark, and it's ancient</a></h3>                                    Please enable Javascript to watch this video

Scientists are questioning the idea that the human lifespan has a limit

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo</span></p><p class="caption">Emma Morano, thought to be the world's oldest person and the last to be born in the 1800s, blows candles during her 117th birthday in Verbania, northern Italy November 29, 2016.</p></div><p></p></div></div>The oldest woman alive celebrated her 117th birthday in November 2016.</p><p>Emma Murano, who lives in Verbania, Italy, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/emma-morano-is-the-oldest-woman-in-the-world-at-117-years-old-2016-11" target="_blank">gave an unusual reason for her long life</a>, stating that "being single" was the reason she has stayed alive for so long.</p><p>The <a href="http://www.grg.org/Adams/TableE.html" target="_blank">Gerontology Research Group</a> in Los Angeles - which records the ages of the world's oldest people - claims that there are currently just 46 supercentenarians - people who have lived past 110 - in the world.</p><p>While many of the world's oldest people live in Japan, supercentenarians live all over the world, from Italy to Jamaica.</p><p>Whether it's a healthy diet or a relaxed view of the world they have to thank, the oldest people on earth all have their secrets to longevity.</p><p>We've listed the secrets to long life according to five of the oldest people in the world. From eating raw eggs to following the Ten Commandments, this is how five supercentenarians stay young, ranked by their age:</p>

These are the secrets to long life, according to 5 of the oldest people in the world

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Lucas Jackson/Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Susannah Mushatt Jones (seated), known as "Miss Susie" celebrates her 116th birthday.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>This morning, we read that the oldest woman in the world, Susannah Mushatt Jones, age 116, <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/12/this-brooklyn-woman-is-the-worlds-oldest-person.html#">eats four strips of bacon every morning</a>.</p><p>This, coupled with <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/new-jersey-woman-110-credits-longevity-miller-high-life-article-1.2313905">a June report</a> that supercentenarian Agnes Fenton, age 110, credits her age to three bottles of Miller Light everyday made us realize that <strong>we might consider changing some things up.</strong></p><p>Maybe we should be eating less kale and quinoa and more whiskey and ice cream.</p><p>Here is what to eat and drink for longevity, according to the oldest people in the world.</p><h2> </h2>

Here's what the oldest people in the world eat and drink every day

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Susannah Mushatt Jones <a href="http://m.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/brooklyn-susannah-mushatt-jones-world-oldest-age-115-article-1.2263761">became the world's oldest person on Wednesday</a>. She has loved bacon for more than a century. Jones is 115 years old, and the meat is the first thing to disappear from her plate every morning. The eggs go next.</p><p>Last month, we arrived five minutes late for breakfast in Jones' home, a sunbathed one-bedroom in the Vandalia Houses, a public-housing facility for seniors in the Canarsie neighborhood on the southern edge of Brooklyn, New York. She'd already dispensed with the bacon and was tackling the grits. Jones is blind, and partially deaf, but with steady, fervent hands, she searched her plate for morsels and shoveled them into her mouth.</p><h3><strong>Watch <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/breakfast-second-oldest-person-born-1800s-2015-5">a video of our breakfast with Jones here</a>. </strong></h3><p>The routine is the same each day for Jones. When she finishes the grits, she unwraps five sticks of Doublemint gum and tosses the papers on the floor beside her slippers. She likes to chew them all at once because, as her caretaker explained, "they're making them so flimsy now." The oversize armchair engulfs her as she leans back to sleep.</p><p>As the oldest person in the world, Jones is <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/04/07/three-people-still-alive-who-were-born-in-the-1800s/25400939/">one of two verified people remaining who were born in the 1800s</a>. She's one of about 40 supercentenarians, or people who lived past their 110th birthday.</p><p>Her age has earned her something of a celebrity status. When we entered her building, other residents spotted our cameras and immediately asked if we were there to see Jones, or "Miss Susie" as she's known among family and friends. A newspaper clipping about Jones hangs in the lobby, and her room is decorated with cards she's received from notable well-wishers over the years, including President Barack Obama (whom she voted for in 2008), former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and children from local schools.</p><p>While Jones' feats of longevity aren't entirely unparalleled (a Frenchwoman once lived to be 122, the longest confirmed human lifespan on record), her nearly perfect bill of health has amazed doctors and family for more than a decade. We met with Jones and her niece, Lois Judge, to find out what it takes to be a supercentenarian.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>A long way from Lowndes County</h2><p>Jones doesn't look a day over 100. The Lowndes County, Alabama, native has smooth, soft skin, like peach fuzz. Patches of light brown hair cover her head, while whiskers pepper her chin. Her frame is small - maybe 5 foot, 90 pounds - a far cry from the sturdy woman she was in her youth. Still, the most prominent giveaway of Jones' age is a cloudy left eye. Glaucoma took her sight 15 years ago.</p><p>But the moment Cecily Freser, her live-in caretaker of more than 12 years, clears the breakfast plate from her lap, Jones nosedives into a pillow resting on the recliner's arm. She sleeps most of the day, with the radio or a daytime-TV game show playing in the background, though she probably can't hear it. These days, Jones mainly responds to the voices of her family members and friends.</p><p>"Sometimes she'll ask a question," Freser said, "and sometimes she'll laugh to herself. She'll say, 'I was thinking about something someone did long, long ago."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Born July 6, 1899, Jones grew up the third oldest of 11 children in the Alabama countryside, about an hour southwest of Montgomery. Her parents worked as sharecroppers. After graduating from high school in 1922 (she's kept the class roster over the years), she was accepted to the Tuskegee Institute's teaching program. However, her family couldn't afford to send her. A year later, she hopped a train to New York City.</p><p>Jones found work as a nanny for wealthy white families, and she traveled the country with them, from New Jersey, Vermont, California, and Mexico to Westchester, New York. Some of the children she helped raise have stayed in touch with her family over the years and visited her at the apartment in Brooklyn. Jones never had children of her own, though she was married briefly to a man named Henry Jones, and took great pride in the kin she cared for professionally. She roomed with the families, and on days off, stayed with friends in an apartment at 145th Street in Harlem, New York.</p><p>Throughout her life, Jones lived simply: no parties, smoking, or alcohol. Her greatest indulgence was lace lingerie from Bloomingdale's, with which she <a href="http://time.com/2873247/second-oldest-american-115-birthday/">reportedly</a> startled her doctors when she sported it during an EKG appointment years ago.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Jones had no trouble spending money on her family, however. At Christmas, she gifted pill boxes of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters to the young ones. She loved to bake cakes for company. And Jones used her salary to send her nieces to college and to provide scholarships for other Alabama students, so they would not be prevented from attending college as she was.</p><p>Judge, her niece, still has the cashmere sweater adorned with pearls that Jones sent her while she was away at school. Dressing well provided a crucial source of pride for Jones, who grew up as an African-American woman in the segregated South. She once returned to Alabama for the funeral of a family member. When she stepped off the platform in Calhoun, a predominantly white area, the bystanders gawked at her outfit: a jacket, hat, gloves, and bag on her arm.</p><p>"They said, 'Who is this important person getting off the train?' She felt so proud," Judge said, having heard her aunt tell the story over and over. "But of course, who was there to pick her up but someone with a wagon and a mule?"</p><p>In 1965, Jones joined the family at Mushatt Farms in Alabama, where they raised cattle and horses, and stayed 10 years. She loved the countryside and would have gladly lived out her 50-plus-year retirement there. But as more relatives migrated north, her growing dependency on them forced her to follow.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>One in 7 million</h2><p>Jones represents a very rare slice of the demographic pie. Supercentenarians occur at a rate of about <a href="http://www.bumc.bu.edu/centenarian/overview/">one in 7 million people</a>. In the US, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cms/posts/one%20in%20every%204,500%20centenarians">roughly a dozen of every 4,500 centenarians</a>, or people who reach the age of 100, will live past their 110th birthday.</p><p>A surprising majority, like Jones, are in great shape. According to the <a href="http://www.bumc.bu.edu/centenarian/">Boston School of Medicine-New England Centenarian Study</a>, a leading center for longevity research, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3309876/">69%</a> of supercentenarians show no signs of age-related diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, dementia, and stroke, at age 100 or later. Another study found <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2895458/">41%</a> of supercentenarians require minimal or no assistance in activities of daily life, such as feeding, bathing, and getting in and out of bed.</p><p>Jones' daily regimen is simple. Every morning with a glass of water and cranberry juice, she takes a multivitamin and a blood-pressure medication. She sees the doctor just four times a year for "maintenance," Judge said. Along with chewing gum and her breakfasts, Judge said Jones' diet largely consists of fruits. She never complains of pain. To the bewilderment of her physicians and family members, Jones even appears to be "reverse aging." Over the last four years, her hair changed from gray to brown and softened. When she was 96, she grew a tooth - not a wisdom tooth, not an impacted tooth, but a new tooth - in her lower jaw. She's a medical marvel.</p><p>For decades, researchers have engaged in a modern-day space race to identify the common thread among supercentenarians that allows them to live so healthily, so long. Jones checks off a few boxes.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>The genetic jackpot for long-lasting life</h2><p>Jones is a woman, and that counts for something. About 90% of supercentenarians are female. The New England Centenarian Study suggests that <a href="http://www.bumc.bu.edu/centenarian/overview/">women may biologically fare better</a> than men when age-related diseases manifest, meaning they hold on longer despite illness.</p><p>In her heyday, she never abused alcohol or drugs. Even coffee was too strong for her tastes.</p><p>Most important, Jones has good genes. Her niece Judge told us that, according to the US Census, Jones' grandmother lived to be 117.</p><p>The research is inconclusive, but it suggests that supercentenarians have ingrained protective mechanisms - basically a complicated web of genes - that help them avoid age-related diseases and delay cognitive and functional decline.</p><p>George Church of Harvard Medical School <a href="http://io9.com/why-supercentenarians-hold-the-key-to-extended-life-1493906536">explained it best in an interview with io9</a>'s George Dvorsky:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"To appreciate why it's so extremely rare to live to 107 and beyond you need to think about it this way. It may take several genes to help protect a person from various forms of cancer. You can have all of those genes, but still die early of cardiovascular disease. If you have genes that protect you from the many forms of CVD, you may nevertheless still die early from cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, and so on. <strong>So a person likely needs numerous protective genes in every major category of disease risk</strong>, in order to sidestep these typical longevity landmines."</p><p>As researchers scramble to pinpoint the winning DNA combination, Jones sticks with her routine.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Strength in family</h2><p>According to Judge, Jones partially attributed her longevity to family. She never had children or a husband of her own, but she still had a large family around her to provide comfort, contact, and a support system.</p><p>For the past 30 years, Jones has lived in her apartment in the Vandalia Houses. Her nieces and nephews visit every Sunday, and she will call out any one of them who misses a week. Though she can't see them, she recognizes their voices and the ways they interact with her; one likes to tap her on the head, for instance. Judge knows it's possible one of them will live to be 115 years old, although she hopes it's not her.</p><p>"I don't think I would have the support that she has," Judge said. "She's had good people with her."</p><p>Still, the apartment doesn't feel like home to Jones. "She wants to go back to Alabama, that's her main thing [these days]," Judge said, quoting her aunt's refrain, "'I want to go home, I want to go home.'"</p><p>They try to remind her that the family no longer lives at the farm, with seven Mushatts residing nearby. Brooklyn is her home now. Jones will often reply, "'No, this is not what you call home."</p><p>Then she goes back to sleep, where her family likes to think she returns to Alabama.</p><p> </p><p><em>This post was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/we-just-had-breakfast-with-supercentenarian-susannah-mushatt-jones-2015-5">originally published on May 20, 2015</a>. </em></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/breakfast-second-oldest-person-born-1800s-2015-5">We spent a lovely morning with the second-oldest person in the world</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="FjdjM3dTqNgAH_9HmnTo2ef5NfwWETPz" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

The oldest person in the world told us her secrets to a long life

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table no-rightrail"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Susannah Mushatt Jones has loved bacon for more than a century. She is 115-years-old and the meat is the first thing to disappear from her plate every morning, followed by eggs.</p><p>We arrived five minutes late for breakfast in Jones' home, a sunbathed one-bedroom in the Vandalia Houses, a public housing facility for seniors in the Canarsie neighborhood on the southern edge of Brooklyn, New York. She already dispensed with the bacon and was tackling the grits. Jones is blind (and partially deaf), but with steady, fervent hands, she searched her plate for morsels and shoveled them into her mouth.</p><p>The routine is the same each day for Jones. When she finishes the grits, she unwraps five sticks of Doublemint gum and tosses the papers on the floor beside her slippers. She likes to chew them all at once because, as her caretaker explained, "they're making them so flimsy now." The oversized armchair engulfs her as she leans back to sleep.</p><p>At 115, Jones is the second oldest person in the world. She is <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/04/07/three-people-still-alive-who-were-born-in-the-1800s/25400939/">one of three verified people remaining who were born in the 1800s</a>, and one of about 40 supercentenarians, or people who lived past their 110th birthday.</p><p>Her age has earned her something of a celebrity status. When we entered her building, other residents spotted our cameras and immediately asked if we we there to see Jones, or "Miss Susie" as she's known among family and friends. A newspaper clipping about Jones hangs in the lobby, and her room is decorated with cards she's received from notable well-wishers over the years including President Barack Obama (who she voted for in 2008), former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and children from local schools. </p><p>While Jones' feats of longevity aren't entirely unparalleled (a Frenchwoman once lived to be 122, the longest confirmed human lifespan on record), her nearly perfect bill of health has amazed doctors and family for more than a decade. We met with Jones and her niece, Lois Judge, to find out what it takes to be a supercentenarian.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table no-rightrail"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>A long way from Lowndes County</h2><p>Jones doesn't look a day over 100. The Lowndes County, Alabama, native has smooth, soft skin like peach fuzz. Patches of light brown hair cover her head, while whiskers pepper her chin. Her frame is small - maybe 5 foot, 90 pounds - a far cry from the sturdy woman she was in her youth. Still, the most prominent giveaway of Jones' age is a cloudy left eye. Glaucoma took her sight 15 years ago.</p><p>But the moment Cecily Freser, her live-in caretaker of more than 12 years, clears the breakfast plate from her lap, Jones nosedives into a pillow resting on the recliner's arm. She sleeps most of the day, with the radio or a daytime TV game show playing in the background, though she probably can't hear it. These days, Jones mainly responds to the voices of her family members and friends.</p><p>"Sometimes she'll ask a question," Freser explained, "and sometimes she'll laugh to herself. She'll say, 'I was thinking about something someone did long, long ago."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table no-rightrail"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Born July 6, 1899, Jones grew up the third oldest of 11 children in the Alabama countryside, about an hour southwest of Montgomery. Her parents worked as sharecroppers. After graduating from high school in 1922 (she's kept the class roster over the years), she was accepted to the Tuskegee Institute's teaching program. However, her family couldn't afford to send her. A year later, she hopped a train to New York City.</p><p>Jones found work as a nanny for wealthy white families, and she traveled the country with them, from New Jersey, Vermont, California, and Mexico to Westchester, New York. Some of the children she helped raise have stayed in touch with her family over the years and visited her at the apartment in Brooklyn. Jones never had children of her own, though she was married briefly to a man named Henry Jones, and took great pride in the kin she cared for professionally. She roomed with the families, and on days off, stayed with friends in an apartment at 145th Street in Harlem, New York.</p><p>Throughout her life, Jones lived simply: no parties, smoking, or alcohol. Her greatest indulgence was lace lingerie from Bloomingdale's, with which she <a href="http://time.com/2873247/second-oldest-american-115-birthday/">reportedly</a> startled her doctors when she sported it during an EKG appointment years ago.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table no-rightrail"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Jones had no trouble spending money on her family, however. At Christmas, she gifted pill boxes of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters to the young ones. She loved to bake cakes for company. And Jones used her salary to send her nieces to college and to provide scholarships for other Alabama students, so they would not be prevented from attending college as she was.</p><p>Her niece Judge still has the cashmere sweater adorned with pearls that Jones sent her while she was away at school. Dressing well provided a crucial source of pride for Jones, who grew up as an African American woman in the segregated south. She once returned to Alabama for the funeral of a family member. When she stepped off the platform in Calhoun, a predominantly white area, the bystanders gawked at her outfit: a jacket, hat, gloves, and bag on her arm.</p><p>"They said, 'Who is this important person getting off the train?' She felt so proud," Judge said, having heard her aunt tell the story over and over. "But of course, who was there to pick her up but someone with a wagon and a mule?"</p><p>In 1965, Jones joined the family at Mushatt Farms in Alabama, where they raised cattle and horses, and stayed 10 years. She loved the countryside and would have gladly lived out her 50-plus-year retirement there. But as more relatives migrated north, her growing dependency on them forced her to follow.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table no-rightrail"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>One in seven million</h2><p>Jones represents a very rare slice of the demographic pie. Supercentenarians occur at a rate of about <a href="http://www.bumc.bu.edu/centenarian/overview/">one in seven million people</a>. In the US, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cms/posts/one%20in%20every%204,500%20centenarians">roughly a dozen of every 4,500 centenarians</a>, or people who reach the age of 100, will live past their 110th birthday.</p><p>A surprising majority, like Jones, are in great shape. According to the <a href="http://www.bumc.bu.edu/centenarian/">Boston School of Medicine - New England Centenarian Study</a>, a leading center for longevity research, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3309876/">69%</a> of supercentenarians show no signs of age-related diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, dementia, and stroke, at age 100 or later. Another study found <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2895458/">41%</a> of supercentenarians require minimal or no assistance in activities of daily life, such as feeding, bathing, and getting in and out of bed.</p><p>Jones' daily regimen is simple. Every morning with a glass of water and cranberry juice, she takes a multivitamin and a blood pressure medication. She sees the doctor just four times a year for "maintenance," Judge explained. Along with chewing gum and her breakfasts, Judge said Jones' diet largely consists of fruits. She never complains of pain. To the bewilderment of her physicians and family members, Jones even appears to be "reverse aging." Over the last four years, her hair changed from gray to brown and softened. When she was 96, she grew a tooth - not a wisdom tooth, not an impacted tooth, but a new tooth - in her lower jaw. She's a medical marvel.</p><p>For decades, researchers have engaged in a modern-day space race to identify the common thread among supercentenarians that allows them to live so healthily, so long. Jones checks off a few boxes.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table no-rightrail"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>The genetic jackpot for long-lasting life</h2><p>Jones is a woman, and that counts for something. Approximately 90% of supercentenarians are female. The New England Centenarian Study suggests that <a href="http://www.bumc.bu.edu/centenarian/overview/">women may biologically fare better</a> than men when age-related diseases manifest, meaning they hold on longer despite illness.</p><p>In her heyday, she never abused alcohol or drugs. Even coffee was too strong for her tastes.</p><p>Most importantly, Jones has good genes. Her niece Judge told us that, according to the US Census, Jones' grandmother lived to be 117.</p><p>The research is inconclusive, but it suggests that supercentenarians have ingrained protective mechanisms - basically a complicated web of genes - that help them avoid age-related diseases and delay cognitive and functional decline. George Church of Harvard Medical School <a href="http://io9.com/why-supercentenarians-hold-the-key-to-extended-life-1493906536">explained it best in an interview with io9</a>'s George Dvorsky:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"To appreciate why it's so extremely rare to live to 107 and beyond you need to think about it this way. It may take several genes to help protect a person from various forms of cancer. You can have all of those genes, but still die early of cardiovascular disease. If you have genes that protect you from the many forms of CVD, you may nevertheless still die early from cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, and so on. <strong>So a person likely needs numerous protective genes in every major category of disease risk</strong>, in order to sidestep these typical longevity landmines."</p><p>As researchers scramble to pinpoint the winning DNA combination, Jones sticks with her routine.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table no-rightrail"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Finding strength in family</h2><p>According to Judge, Jones partially attributed her longevity to family. She never had children or a husband of her own, but she still had a large family around her to provide comfort, contact, and a support system.</p><p>For the last 30 years, Jones has lived in her apartment in the Vandalia Houses. Her nieces and nephews visit every Sunday, and she will call out any one of them who misses a week. Though she can't see them, she recognizes their voices and the ways they interact with her; one likes to tap her on the head, for instance. Judge knows it's possible one of them will live to be 115 years old, although she hopes it's not her.</p><p>"I don't think I would have the support that she has," Judge said. "She's had good people with her."</p><p>Still, the apartment doesn't feel like home to Jones. "She wants to go back to Alabama, that's her main thing [these days]," Judge said, quoting her aunt's refrain, "'I want to go home, I want to go home.'"</p><p>They try to remind her that the family no longer lives at the farm, with seven Mushatts residing nearby. Brooklyn is her home now. Jones will often reply, "'No, this is not what you call home."</p><p>Then she goes back to sleep, where her family likes to think she returns to Alabama.<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/breakfast-second-oldest-person-born-1800s-2015-5">We spent a lovely morning with the second-oldest person in the world</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="FjdjM3dTqNgAH_9HmnTo2ef5NfwWETPz" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

This 115-year-old woman shared the secrets to long life over a breakfast of bacon and grits

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/aerial-image-of-greek-island-ikaria-gm469900784-61833356">iStock/3quarks</a></span></p><p class="caption">Ikaria, a Greek island renowned for the longevity of its residents.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>For thousands of years, throughout recorded history, people have searched for a way to live longer.</p><p>And we've made remarkable strides, especially in the past century and a half or so. But we may now be butting up against a natural limit to the human lifespan, according to an analysis <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature19793.html">published October 5 in Nature</a>.</p><p>The authors of the analysis say that their data indicates that even if we continue to cure diseases that affect people in old age, no one is likely to significantly outlive the Frenchwoman who holds the record of the human with the longest known life, Jeanne Calment.</p><p>She was 122 years old when she died, in 1997.</p><p>The essential question, according to authors Xiao Dong, Brandon Milholland, and Jan Vijg, is whether or not our maximum lifespan is flexible, like <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15734678?dopt=Abstract&amp;holding=npg">that of some organisms</a>, or whether biological factors mean that limit is fixed. But while they write that the data they've analyzed "strongly suggest that human lifespan has a natural limit," that doesn't mean humanity could never find a way to break that limit.</p><h2>What the data show</h2><p>To answer that central question, the authors of the paper analyzed demographic data from 41 countries around the globe.</p><p>Historically, life expectancy first started to drastically shoot up in the past hundred years or so because we'd eliminated many deaths that occurred early in life. The introduction of antibiotics, aggressive vaccination campaigns, and measures to reduce infant and maternal mortality ensured that many more people were able to reach old age.</p><p>In more recent years there were slower but significant improvements in late-life mortality, meaning that more and more elderly people lived longer. But those changes appeared to plateau around 1980, the authors write, which they say indicates the possibility of a limit on human life.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Al Bello/Getty Images</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>To further evaluate this question, the authors analyzed the death rates of supercentenarians (people 110 years of age or higher) in the US, UK, Japan, and France. Though limited numbers of supercentenarians exist, which means that the data on their death rates is not conclusive, the maximum reported age of death in this group seems to have plateaued as well around 1995 - just two years before the death of Calment.</p><p>Even the healthiest people who seem to have the ideal genes for l0ngevity have not lived longer since then. The authors write that the chances of someone living past 125 in any given year are less than 1 in 10,000.</p><h2>Can we break the limit?</h2><p>In many ways the essential question right now - among <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tech-billionaires-life-extension-projects-2015-4">tech billionaires trying to defeat death</a> or <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/evidence-caloric-restriction-slows-aging-process-2016-8">among researchers</a> and philosophers convinced we can <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/how-immortality-and-life-extension-research-could-help-the-world-2015-8">"slay the dragon"</a> of age - is whether or not humans can outlive whatever natural limits we might have.</p><p>The authors of the Nature analysis write that they think the limits on human life are not necessarily set by the diseases that kill us when we're old, but by the processes through which our bodies develop throughout our life. We need to change and grow and become able to reproduce, but along the way these physical changes set in motion a process that has a natural endpoint. After that, our cells and bodies are unable to continue. Even curing diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's might not make humans live longer, though the ends of our lives might certainly be better.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>ktsdesign/Shutterstock</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>For that reason, many of today's current anti-aging researchers are focused on the idea of improving what's called healthspan as much as they are on improving lifespan. (Who would want to live forever if their bodies and minds continued to decline, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45389">like Tithonus</a> of Greek mythology?)</p><p>Researchers know that aging itself is far more complicated and intertwined with humans' basic biology than just being a side effect of the individual diseases that usually end our lives. That highlights the challenge of trying to treat aging but it also means they understand the complexity of the problem.</p><p>"Treating aging used to be just an idea that was confronted with skepticism," <a href="http://gero.usc.edu/faculty/longo/">Valter Longo</a>, a professor of gerontology and biological <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> and the director of the University of Southern California Longevity Institute, told me in a recent interview.</p><p>But now Longo believes that there might be enough support for research that helps us figure out how to take the science of life extension further, though he agrees that healthspan must be improved at the same time. He has <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/fasting-mimicking-diet-slows-aging-and-reduces-disease-risk-2016-6">developed a diet</a> that he says he thinks could increase average lifespan by about 10% (average lifespan still being far less than the lifespan of centenarians but more relevant to a normal person), but that could also keep people much healthier throughout that life.</p><p>Jan Vijg, a genetics and aging researcher and one of the authors of the paper, <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2016/10/05/human-lifespan-limits/">tells Andrew Joseph and Natalia Bronshtein of Stat News</a> that he doesn't think it's likely we'll figure out how to treat all the intricacies of aging: "What are you going to do? Develop a drug for all of them?"</p><p>And right now, it might be hard to imagine an answer to that. But 2oo years ago it may have been impossible for most people to imagine surviving to 80 years of age or to conceive of the idea that humans would be planning to send people to Mars. Vijg tells Stat that what he thinks impossible could certainly change.</p><p>It's that remarkable challenge that sent Longo and others down the path of trying to "solve" aging in the first place.</p><p>"It was the most fantastic thing you could possibly study," says Longo. And an eventual answer may reveal ways to exceed even those natural limits we may have.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-explain-harvest-moon-2016-9">The last harvest moon eclipse of the decade has come and gone - here's what a harvest moon actually is</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="R5azR4NTE672sougZCqjax_ft6MHxrHf" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Some researchers think there's a limit to how long humans can live - but others disagree

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Shutterstock/Siberian Photographer</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Evidence suggests that fasting could help cure disease and prevent aging, though a number of fasting interventions sound difficult and unpleasant.</strong></li><li><strong>One researcher has developed the fasting-mimicking diet, which he says could provide the benefits of fasting but only requires eating a specific way for five days at a time once every few months.</strong></li><li><strong>Still, eating healthily and exercising are important for people who want to reduce disease risk and prevent aging.</strong></li></ul><p><br />Most of us don't just want to live longer. We want stay healthier at the same time - an extra 20-30 years lying in a sickbed sounds terrible.</p><p><a href="http://gero.usc.edu/faculty/longo/" rel="nofollow">Valter Longo</a>, the director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California, believes that by eating in a specific way, people might be able to live past 100 without developing debilitating diseases.</p><p>There's solid evidence that suggests periodic fasting could prolong lifespan and prevent disease. Longo has designed a diet that he says provides the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fasting-mimicking-diet-cure-disease-aging-2016-9">benefits of fasting</a> while still letting people eat normally most of the time.</p><p>Longo explains his fasting-mimicking diet (FMD) in his new book, "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Longevity-Diet-Maintain-Vitality-Restriction/dp/1600940382">The Longevity Diet.</a>" It's designed to provide the benefits of fasting while only having people cut back on food for five days at a time. These fasts can be done as often as once a month or as infrequently as once every six months. Most people could theoretically reap the benefits by doing the fast three or four times a year.</p><p>Studies - including <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28202779">at least one clinical trial</a> with 100 participants - have found that this diet can significantly alter signs of disease, reduce weight and body fat, lower blood pressure, decrease levels of biomarkers associated with cancer, and improve blood-sugar levels.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Shutterstock</span></p><p class="caption">Longo advocates for healthy eating even when you aren't on the diet.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>The fasting-mimicking diet</h2><p>People on the FMD eat normally for 25 days, but the five-day fast portion <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fasting-mimicking-diet-slows-aging-and-reduces-disease-risk-2016-6">is no joke</a>.</p><p>On those days, participants eat a specific blend of nutrients that amount to 1,100 calories on the first day and 800 calories per day on days two through five.</p><p>Nutritionally, most of these calories come from complex carbohydrates (like vegetables), healthy fats (olive oil), and plant-based protein (from nuts).</p><p>Although it's still far too early to say whether doing the FMD every so often will actually prolong life in the long term, the basic idea is appealing. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fasting-mimicking-diet-cure-disease-aging-2016-9">Fasting is known to trigger physical changes</a> that seem to be associated with longer life and disease prevention. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/issue/73/1">Early clinical trials indicate</a> that restricting calorie intake seems to trigger similarly promising physical changes in people, which is why it's sometimes discussed as a potential anti-aging intervention. </p><p>But as Longo explains in the book, calorie restriction usually involves reducing caloric intake by 20-30%, which sounds kind of miserable in the long term. And animal and human studies suggest that many of the physical changes associated with fasting start during a shorter fast.</p><p>Longo used that data, along with other anti-aging studies, examinations of how centenarians eat and live, and the clinical trials conducted so far, to design the FMD to provide "the benefits of fasting without the deprivation and hunger" (except for that five-day period).</p><p>Longo also <a href="http://l-nutra.com/">created a company</a> that sells the meals people consume while on the fasting portion of the diet, though he says 100% of his shares in that company and all profits from the book go to a <a href="https://createcures.org/">non-profit foundation</a> he created that's dedicated toward research on treating and preventing disease.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>sportpoint/Shutterstock</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Living a healthy life</h2><p>The studies conducted so far have allowed people to eat whatever they pleased for the 25 non-fasting days, but Longo emphasizes in the book that <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> supports certain eating plans regardless.</p><p>Most research indicates that the people who live longest and stay healthy tend to eat a largely plant-based pescatarian diet that's relatively low in protein. Longo thinks this is ideal - a mostly vegan and fish-based lifestyle, though one in which moderate consumption of wine and coffee are permitted.</p><p>For someone in good health who is eating like this and getting regular exercise, he thinks the FMD might be beneficial to do twice a year.</p><p>For healthy people eating a more "normal" diet, he wrote that the FMD might be beneficial once every four or five months. People with at least two risk factors for cancer, diabetes, or heart disease who are overweight could consider doing the FMD once a month, Longo says.</p><p>You should talk to your doctor before any major diet or lifestyle change, especially since intense fasting can be dangerous for people who are pregnant or have diabetes or other health conditions.</p><p>Dietary interventions can have powerful effects, and a way to get the benefits of fasting without having to drastically cut calories all the time could be promising. But people who really want to become supercentenarians should probably pay attention to all aspects of your lifestyle.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fasting-diet-ketosis-brain-body-effects-2017-12">The amazing changes intermittent fasting does to your body and brain</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

You Searched For "Supercentenarians" and got 7 results

Scientists are questioning the idea that the human lifespan has a limit

Kevin Loria

These are the secrets to long life, according to 5 of the oldest people in the world

Edith Hancock

Here's what the oldest people in the world eat and drink every day

Leslie Stephens

The oldest person in the world told us her secrets to a long life

Melia Robinson,Hunter Walker,…

This 115-year-old woman shared the secrets to long life over a breakfast of bacon and grits

Melia Robinson,Hunter Walker,…

Some researchers think there's a limit to how long humans can live - but others disagree

Kevin Loria

A strange diet is designed to slow aging by mimicking fasting - but you can eat normally most of the time

Kevin Loria