The number of “supercentenarians” is increasing

After the death of the oldest person in the world, a 117-year-old Spanish woman, the new oldest person in the world is a Japanese woman, born on May 23, 1908, which makes her 116 years and 3 months old.

Tomiko Itooka waited until she was 110 before entering a retirement home. Her secret to longevity? Walking. At over 70, once widowed, she twice set out in sneakers to climb Mount Ontake, 3,000 meters above sea level. At 100, she climbed, without a cane, the 392 steps of the Ashiya shrine, the city where she lives, near Osaka.

Today, Tomito Itooka spends most of her time in bed and gets around only in a wheelchair. On her birthday, the mayor and the CEO of the nursing home group came to greet her with a huge cake, flowers and balloons in green, her favorite color.

Japan has the longest lifespan. The archipelago has nearly 600 “supercentenarians” namely, people who are over 110 years old. This performance is generally explained by a healthy diet based on fish, vegetables, little fat and an efficient health system. But the United States is not badly placed either. China is a special case because it does not keep statistics, but there are more and more super-old people there. France, for its part, is at the top of the European ranking. In fact, there are thirty times more centenarians in our country today than in the 1970s.

Regardless of their nationality, in this age category, women are overrepresented compared to men. The oldest known person to date is the Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 and lived to the age of 122 years and 164 days.

This phenomenon of “supercentenarians”linked to the aging of the population, is changing our societies. In France, according to INSEE, 11% of those born after the year 2000 can hope to become a centenarian, or even “supercentenary” and remain in full possession of their faculties until they are 90 or 100 years old.

This means that at least four generations could soon live side by side in the same family. This major aging will especially force us all over the world to rethink our relationship to work, to reorganize our retirement systems. Above all, it will disrupt the health, leisure and real estate markets.

In China, by 2050, one in three people will be over 60. Social spending on seniors is projected to account for a quarter of GDP, but reaching old age is a priceless privilege. In 1595, Montaigne wrote: “Dying of old age is a rare, singular and extraordinary death.”.