A 130-year-old Indian found the longest-lived man in the world (July 31, 2002, 10:34 Ocean Forum)
Dayang.com News According to Brown, Himachal Pradesh, northern India Village residents say that the old lady Devji Devi who lives in this village is at least 130 years old. If her age can be confirmed, she will be the longest-lived person in the world, 14 years older than the oldest known Chinese woman in the world.
Chandigarh lawyer Dinesh Kumar recently told the media that although Devi does not have a birth certificate, it is estimated from her family history that she is at least 130 years old. He said that Devi gave birth to her eldest daughter when she was 25 years old. Her eldest daughter got married at the age of 20 and gave birth to her son Keshav Ram at the age of 28. Ram is now 80 years old.
Kumar said he started investigating Devi's family history three months ago and found two important pieces of evidence that could prove her age. First, one of her grandsons is 80 years old. Secondly, one of her surviving sons is 102 years old.
Devi is still strong and can still go up the mountain to collect firewood by herself. She said that she drinks two glasses of milk every day, eats a piece of millet bread, and has only been to the hospital twice in her life. (Xinhua News Agency)
No one can live forever. Even if we find the secret to staying young forever without aging, we will still die from infectious diseases, homicides, accidents and other reasons. Among people of different ages, adolescents have the lowest mortality rate. In developed countries, this figure is 0.05 per year. This means that even if we can stay young forever, 0.05 people will die every year due to various reasons, only 95 people can live to be 100 years old, and 50 people can live to be 1,000 years old.
But looking at it conversely, aging is undoubtedly the most important factor leading to our death. It prevents any of us from living to be 1,000 years old, and only a few very lucky people can live to be 100 years old. "Singing over wine, what's life like? Just like the morning dew, the past days will be so bitter!" Cao Cao's eternal song can be transformed into an eternal problem: How old can a person live? This question can be divided into three parts: What is the maximum human lifespan? What is the average human lifespan? What is the life expectancy of each person?
Although some people have been trying to calculate the maximum life span that humans can achieve, these calculations, whether based on superstition or claiming to be based on science, are untenable. In fact, there is no reason to think that there is an upper age limit to which one can live and yet must die. It is impossible for natural selection to evolve such a "design". Although everyone will eventually age and die, aging is a process in which the "machine" of life gradually wears out, and there is no upper limit that is gradually approaching. We can say with certainty that no one can live to be a thousand years old or ten thousand years old, but we cannot know for sure how old is the maximum number of years that a person can live. For example, just like a car factory launches a new car, we know that it will eventually be scrapped if it continues to be used. We can also estimate its service life based on the original design, but unless we specially design a device to allow it to reach the It will be automatically scrapped during its service life, otherwise there will definitely be some cars that can continue to be used after its service life. We cannot infer what their maximum service life is. The only way is to investigate the service life of all this car, find the one with the longest lifespan, and take it as the known longest lifespan of this car. The same is true for a person’s maximum lifespan. We cannot calculate theoretically, but take the longest lifespan in history as the longest known lifespan of human beings.
Who is the oldest person in history? You may immediately think of Peng Zu, the symbol of Chinese longevity. It is said that he was born in the Xia Dynasty and was 800 years old by the end of the Shang Dynasty. This is of course nonsense. Formal historical records, also known as "official history" or 24 histories, are more reliable. Xie Zhaozhe of the Ming Dynasty once made statistics in the book "Five Miscellaneous Groups": "The life span of a human being is not more than a hundred years, and the number will end. Therefore, if he does not die after a hundred and twenty years, he is called a lost monster. However, Duke Dou of the Han Dynasty, aged One hundred and eighty. Zhao Yi of the Jin Dynasty was two hundred years old. Luo Jie of the Yuan Wei Dynasty was one hundred seven years old. He was still active at the age of thirty-six. Li Yuanshuang of Luoyang died at the age of one hundred and thirty. Six years old.
Gu Siyuan, a native of Zhongli, was one hundred and twelve years old. He lived as a human being and had horns on his head. There is a man in Rangcheng who is two hundred and forty years old. He no longer eats grain, but drinks the breast milk of his great-grandson. Zhang Yuanshi, a native of Shangjin County, Jingzhou, is 116 years old. He has extraordinary physical strength and eats the same food. Fan Mingyou was a Xianbei slave, two hundred and fifty years old. ...This is all recorded in official history. Among them, "Luoyang Li Yuanshuang" was mentioned by Bai Juyi, the great poet of the Tang Dynasty, in the article "Preface to the Poems of the Nine Lao Tu". He settled in Luoyang in his later years, and when he was 74 years old, he organized a "Nine Lao" group with eight older people. "Hui", the oldest of whom was Li Yuanshuang, who was 136 years old. According to these records, there are many people who have lived over 120 years old, and some even lived to be more than 200 years old.
There are similar legends and legends abroad. Records. The Jewish Bible Genesis claims that before the great flood, human beings lived incredibly long lives, and the longevity champion was Methuselah, who lived to be 969 years old. This is of course nonsense. , like "Five Miscellaneous Groups", "Genesis" also allows God to set the maximum life span of descendants as one hundred and twenty years ("The LORD said: If a man is of flesh, my Spirit will not dwell in him forever. inside; however, his life can still be one hundred and twenty years."). However, in Western history, there are also records of people who have lived beyond this divine period. The most famous one is the old British longevity star Thomas Parr. This old man. He was a farmer in Shiloh, and his parish records state that he was baptized in 1483. Legal documents state that he inherited his father's estate (a small farm) in 1518. Marriage records state that he first married in 1563, when he was 80 years old. He later gave birth to a son and a daughter, both of whom died in infancy. When he was 100 years old, he was unfaithful to his wife and gave birth to an illegitimate son. He wore white clothes in the church to atone for his sins in 1605, 10 years after his wife's death. Married for the second time at the age of 122. In 1635, the Earl of Allentown heard about Parr's deeds when he inspected Shiloh County, and took him to London to meet King Charles I. At this time, Parr was blind. However, he was favored by the king for his wit, received good hospitality, and had his portrait. Unfortunately, a few weeks later, while enjoying a palace banquet, Harvey, the discoverer of blood circulation, died on the spot. His body was attributed to "acute indigestion caused by unaccustomed to luxurious diet". Charles I ordered that Parr be buried in Westminster Abbey, which is only used for the burial of kings and great men. The tomb still exists today. The epitaph states that he "lived for ten dynasties,... died at the age of 152, and was buried here on November 15, 1635." ”
But the biggest problem with these historical records is that there is no conclusive evidence to prove that they are accurate and reliable. In a traditional society that respects the elderly, people tend to exaggerate their age intentionally or unintentionally, so their claims are worthy of Doubtful. For example, in the case of Parr, we know the exact year of his death, and even his death certificate is still preserved, but there is no reliable information to prove that he was actually born in 1483. The most reliable birth record is the birth certificate. , and this is only in recent times. The all-time longevity champion that we can confirm is a French woman, Jeanne Louise Calment, according to her birth certificate. Born on February 21, 1875. She left behind her husband (died in 1942), their only daughter (died in 1934) and their only grandchild (died in 1963), a lawyer. An agreement was signed with her to give her $500 a month in living expenses in order to inherit the apartment where she lived after her death. The lawyer was only 47 at the time and she was 90. The deal was not easy for the lawyer. It was a good deal. Unfortunately, 30 years later, after paying $184,000, more than double the market price of the apartment, the lawyer died at the age of 77, but he still could not take possession of the apartment. Because Mrs. Carmen is still alive and well, and according to the agreement, the lawyer's family must continue to pay Mrs. Carmen monthly living expenses. At the age of 85, Mrs. Carmen started to learn fencing when she was 110 years old. She just moved into a nursing home. On her 121st birthday, she released a record called "Time Housewife", which was about reminiscing about the past in the context of music.
At this time, she was blind, almost deaf, and unable to leave a wheelchair, but she was still full of energy and had normal intelligence. She died in a nursing home on August 4, 1997, at the age of 122 years and 164 days. The oldest man is Chiyo Izumi, a Japanese who was born on June 29, 1864 in Isen Town, Tokunoshima, Kagoshima Prefecture. He died on February 21, 1986, at the age of 120 years and 237 days. He worked until he was 105 years old.
After the death of Mrs. Carmen, Mrs. Maude Ferris-Luse of Michigan, USA, who was born on January 21, 1887, became the longevity champion. After her death on March 18, 2002, the title of longevity champion was transferred to Kagoshima Kagoshima, a woman from Kagoshima City, Japan, who was also born in Isen Town on September 16, 1887. The oldest living male is Yukichi Nakaganji, who lived in Ogun City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, and was born on March 23, 1889. Very few people live to be over the age of 114, estimated to be one in 2.1 billion people. No one knows if these people will outlive Mrs. Carmen. We can now only set the maximum human life span as 122 years. But this record will definitely be broken in the future, especially as the population expands, the number of people participating in the longevity race increases, and with the improvement of medical and nutritional conditions, more and more people are able to live to their natural lifespan, then The possibility of a record-breaking event is greatly increased.
No one can know how long any one person will live. But we can use statistical methods to predict the average life span of a certain group of people, which is called average life expectancy. If we want to know the life expectancy of a certain group of people, the most direct and accurate way is to calculate their average life span after they all die. But this approach is unrealistic because it means we have to wait more than a century before we can do statistics. In practice, demographers use an indirect, less accurate but much simpler statistical method. For many years, many governments have kept statistics on the number of births and deaths each year, as well as the ages of those who died. The census also counts the number of people still alive at each age. This information, combined, allows demographers to calculate a person's risk of death and probability of surviving to the next year at each age. This survival probability forms a "life table" showing estimates of life expectancy for a population at any age. This estimate is called "cyclical life expectancy," and it changes based on each year's statistics. In 2001, China's average life expectancy was 71.8 years, compared with 67.77 years in 1981, an increase of 4 years in 20 years. Before the founding of New China, the average life expectancy in China was only 35 years. According to the "World Population Prospects: 2000 Revision" published by the United Nations Population Division, the current average life expectancy in developed countries is 75 years, while that in developing countries is 63 years. This shows that China's average life expectancy is close to the level of developed countries, and in some areas it has exceeded the average level of developed countries. For example, according to statistics from the Population and Employment Statistics Division of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Statistics, the average life expectancy of the Shanghai population reached 78.77 years in 2000. Among them, men are 76.71 years old and women are 80.81 years old.
The life expectancy of people of different ages forms a "life table". Life tables generally separate men and women and include three columns: average years left to live, average days left to live, and probability of living to your next birthday. According to the 2000 U.S. population life table, the average remaining life span for boys and girls born in 2000—that is, the average life span from 2000 to death—was 73.5 years (26,000 days) and 79.6 years ( 29,000 days). If you were a 35-year-old American male in 2000, this table shows that on average you had 14,902 days (40.8 years) left to live. Note that the average life expectancy is an average. That is to say, for a 35-year-old male, about half will survive for more than 14,902 days, and the other half will not live for that many days. The table also tells you that the probability of living to age 36 is 99.8.
Careful observation of the probability of surviving to the next birthday in the life table shows that the probability of each age group is different. The probability of teenagers and children is the highest. Before the age of 60, the probability remains around 99, and then gradually begins to increase. Decline, with a sharp decline after the age of 90. For a 110-year-old man, the probability of surviving to his next birthday is less than half. This probability reflects the differences in mortality rates among people of all ages. The first person to discover this pattern was a British insurance statistician named Benjamin Gompertz in the 19th century. In 1825, while working for a British insurance company, Gomperz was trying to find a simple way to estimate mortality rates at various ages. The importance of this to life insurance was obvious. After collecting and counting the mortality rates in his area, he discovered an interesting pattern: infants have a higher mortality rate, which then decreases every year until the mortality rate reaches its lowest point during adolescence between the ages of 10 and 15. After adolescence, mortality increases dramatically, doubling approximately every 10 years (i.e., the likelihood of dying at age 25 is twice as high as age 15, age 35 is twice as likely as age 25, and so on), and this trend continues until 80 years old. Gompertz next looked at mortality rates in Britain, France and Sweden at different historical periods and found the same pattern. So he thought he had discovered a natural law - the "law of mortality." Later researchers discovered that this law also applies to other animals: during the period of sexual maturity, animal mortality reaches a minimum point, and then begins to increase exponentially. There are biological reasons behind Gompertz's law. Natural selection works through reproduction. If harmful factors (such as disease-causing genes) are present in the body