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Supercentenarians are elderly people who have passed the age of 110. According to world rankings, Brazil has at least 14 living people in this age group - worldwide, there are 310, according to the Gerontology Research Group (GRG),
The second oldest person alive today is Brazilian nun Inah Canabarro Lucas, 116, born in São Francisco de Assis, in Rio Grande do Sul. The first is also a woman, Japanese Tomiko Itooka, born less than a month before Inah.
The granddaughter of Noemia Vieira de Souza, a Brazilian supercentenarian who lived to be 111 and died in 2023, Iara Souza became interested in researching the country's oldest people. Today she is a volunteer at LongeviQuest, an international institute that validates who the oldest people in the world are.
"As it was necessary to send some documents that we didn't have, I did the research work, which revealed the true age of our matriarch (111), leading her to be recognized, at the time, as the oldest person in the state of Rio de Janeiro and the fifth in Brazil," says Souza.
The LongeviQuest list currently includes 14 Brazilian supercentenarians, most of them women.
Waclaw Jan Kroczek, director of the GRG's supercentenarian research division, says that as well as verifying, validating and registering supercentenarians, the group also works in various fields of geriatrics, human longevity, public health and demography.
On the GRG's world list, of the five oldest people alive today, only one is a man. According to Kroczek, this is because women tend to live longer than men for a combination of biological, social and lifestyle reasons.
"A key factor is that women generally have a lower risk of heart disease earlier in life due to hormonal differences, especially the protective effects of estrogen," says Kroczek.
Women also tend to have more health-conscious behaviors, such as regular visits to the doctor and healthy eating, which may contribute to their longevity, according to the researcher.
"Supercentenarians often lead relatively active and engaged lives. Many have balanced lifestyles that include healthy eating habits, regular physical activity and strong social connections. Maintaining a positive attitude and dealing effectively with stress are also common traits. However, there...