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Secret to amazing health of oldest living people

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Damayanti Datta
Damayanti DattaMay 12, 2017 | 15:34

Secret to amazing health of oldest living people

I remember meeting Sushila Sahay of Sunder Nagar, Delhi, the year she turned 100. Strikingly good looking and active, every day she supervised her chef and her gardener, shopped for groceries and checked the ledger book of the family estate and fruit orchards somewhere in the foothills of the Himalayas.

I asked her about the secret to her amazing health. She laughed and said, “I don’t know, but I used to have lots of oranges. At least, five or six every day. I still do.” Just that? Later, I did a bit of research and found that oranges are high in vitamin C, a powerful antioxidant that helps protect the body against all those floating free radicals that cause tissue damage and ageing, among other things.

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Vitamin C has worked wonders for some. 

All fired up, I toyed with the idea of taking vitamin C supplements. Is it alright to do so, at least once a day, for a while? I asked doctors, read as many research reports I could get hold of. But I didn’t get my answer: equal number of doctors and scientists were either for it or against it. I was even warned by some that I could end up with kidney stones. When I told them about grandmother Sahay, they just shrugged.

I gave up the idea, but ever since I have been (almost compulsively) checking out what centenarians eat or how they live.

They are in the news

The last one month, I have been coming across a whole lot of news about old people. Two of the world’s oldest people died: Emma Morano of Italy, at the grand old age of 117, on April 15 and Saparman Sodimejo (or grandpa Ghotho) of Indonesia, 147, on May 1.

In Ireland, 13 brothers and sisters of the Armagh family hit the Guinness World Record as “the oldest family on earth”. The oldest of them is 93 and the youngest, 75. Their combined age is 1,073 years.

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In the US, Richard Overton was celebrated as America’s oldest living World War II veteran: He turned 111 on May 10.

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Swamy Sivananda is going strong at 121. Photo: Roshan Jaiswal/BBC

Johanna Ramatse, South Africa’s oldest, acquired the keys to a new home on May 5 at age 134—a gift from the local church, as her old home was falling apart.

Meantime, 106-year-old great grandmother Mastanamma of Andhra Pradesh has become a YouTube sensation, with her shows on cooking channel, Country Foods, attracting millions.

There’s also Swamy Sivananda, who runs an ashram in Kabir Nagar, Varanasi, and whose Aadhar card puts his age at 121 years. He had the first medical check-up of his life last year and was declared fighting fit.

Food for thought

Strangely, most of them have (or had) eating habits that break all established medical research.

Emma Morano has had three (raw) eggs every day, all her life, apart from a fair amount of biscotti (those cookie-like Italian biscuits) and chocolates. Grandpa Ghotho — who had outlived his four wives, 10 siblings and all his children—was a chain-smoker.

The Irish brothers and sisters say that they grew their own food and had plenty of apples. Apple does have polyphenols that proverbially keep doctors away. But the research on apple’s influence on longevity is inconclusive. So far, all that we know is that apples extend longevity by 10 per cent in fruit flies.

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Mama Ramatse followed a strange ritual all her life. She would cover herself in fresh cow dung every morning, to strengthen her muscles. Picture: Kwanele Mboso

Army veteran Overton, who still walks without a cane, famously drinks whiskey (even in his morning coffee) and smokes cigars every day. He thinks whiskey is good for health.

Ramatse grew up eating South African traditional food “umfino” (maize with spinach, cabbage and potatoes) and “imbuya" (chaulai ka saag in Hindi, note shaak in Bangla). Strictly no meat. That’s what thousands of India’s poverty-stricken, malnourished population also have. And they don’t live long. But Mama Ramatse also followed a strange ritual all her life. She would cover herself in fresh cow dung every morning, to strengthen her muscles.

Mastanamma, unlike any elderly person I know, cooks up egg dosas, fish fries and bamboo chicken biryani on YouTube. I don’t know if she eats those, too.

Last but not least, Swamy Sivananda leads a simple life, but has a habit of eating mashed chillies every day.

There’s such a gap between what scientists and doctors tell us and what people actually do when it comes to health and longevity. I have decided to eat whatever comes my way.

Last updated: May 12, 2017 | 15:34
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