How to Make it to 117 Years Old

She Turns 117 Years Old on 1/21/2020. And she’s still walking around and discussing lifestyle with anyone who cares to inquire: https://youtu.be/-Nar5WNI1TA

Kane Tanaka writes poetry. She survived cancer. Heck, she survived everything. It’s an incredible outlier. But I don’t view that as a circus-worthy curiosity, so much as an instruction on how we might all live better.

She eats chocolate. She enjoys life. She has a social circle, including sense of family and community. Given that well over 1 out of 5 younger Americans feels lonely, we may want to pay attention: https://www.google.com/…/millennials-and-the-lonelines…/amp/

Tanaka, along with most incredibly long-lived individuals, drinks a fair bit of caffeine. Like all supercentenarians, her food choices may surprise ideologues who want to believe that low fat eating or vegetarian eating is the answer. Welp, it isn’t. Survey the eating habits of every person studied who officially made it past 110 years of age, and your itty bitty ideological playground gets destroyed. They’re having treats and snacks. BUT, they all practice some sort of restriction.

Generally, this means they may only eat once or twice daily. In Tanaka’s case, what she does is never eat until she feels full. She stops herself. Either way, duration or serving size, there appears to be ample support for control in one’s nutritional practice. Additionally, there are known mechanisms to support this idea. Namely, autophagy, cell waste clearance, removal of plaques, digestive tract healing and rest, and immune reset. These things don’t happen if you’re eating 6 times a day. These things don’t happen if you don’t restrict the servings.
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Thus, in supercentenarians, we’d expect to see some sort of limits on food frequency or volume. And in all cases, we see one or both of these: https://perfecthealthdiet.com/…/what-makes-a-supercentenar…/ . Will it take Tanaka past the prior world record of 122 years old? Time will tell. For now, she’s firmly seated in the position of officially oldest living person. May she see many more Januaries. And may we all learn to live better from those like her.