World's oldest person dies in Japan at 114
Posted: August 13, 2007
The world's oldest person, a Japanese woman who counted eating
well and getting rest as her hobbies, died Monday at age 114,
a news report said.
Yone Minagawa, a widow who lived in a nursing home but was
still sprightly late in life, died "of old age" Monday evening,
Kyodo News reported.
There was no immediate answer to a telephone call placed to
city hall in her town in southern Fukuoka prefecture.
Born on January 4, 1893, Minagawa was already in her 50s when
Japan surrendered in World War II.
She had been certified as the world's oldest person by the
Guinness Book of World Records after Emma Faust Tillman, the
daughter of freed American slaves, died in January.
Despite her advanced age, Minagawa was said to enjoy eating
sweets and counted eating well and getting a good night's sleep
as the secrets of her longevity.
Her nursing home said Minagawa had celebrated becoming the
world's oldest person earlier this year with a Western-style
lunch of bread, stew, salad and a dessert.
Japanese women are the world's oldest living people, in what
experts attribute to a traditionally healthy diet and high standard
of medical care.
Their life expectancy was a record 85.81 years in 2006, according
to the government.
Japanese men are the world's second oldest with a life expectancy
of 78.8 second only to men in Iceland who on average live to
be 79.4.
Article at: news.yahoo.com
|
