The world's oldest woman says God is the secret to her longevity. Her predecessor credited bananas.
Tomiko Itooka was the oldest known person in the world when she died last month at age 116.
Another 116-year-old, Inah Canabarro Lucas of Brazil, now holds the title.
Here are the two women's very different explanations for their longevity.
A combination of genetics, lifestyle, and luck are thought to contribute to a person's longevity — but we don't know for sure why some people live so long.
The world's oldest known living person has a very different explanation for her longevity than her predecessor did.
Tomiko Itooka, who lived in Ashiya, Japan, died on December 29 at the age of 116 years and 220 days.
She was succeeded by Inah Canabarro Lucas, a nun who lives in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and was 116 and 212 days old as of January 6. Lucas is one of only three living people confirmed to have been born before 1910.
It's extremely rare to live to 116 — a Pew Research Center analysis of US Census data in January of last year found that just 0.03% of the US population was over 100.
Here's what Itooka and Lucas credited their longevity to.
Itooka said bananas and a Japanese drink helped her live to 116
Itooka married at 20 and was an office manager at her husband's factory during World War II, according to LongeviQuest, an organization that verifies the ages of supercentenarians. She was very active and enjoyed hiking. She twice climbed Mount Ontake, which is 10,062 feet high, and did a pilgrimage of more than 600 miles to 33 temples in the Kansai region in her 80s.
LongeviQuest reported that Itooka also drank a popular Japanese fermented drink called Calpis every morning and loved bananas — two things she credited her longevity to.
There's some evidence that lactic-acid bacteria, which are found in Calpis, could be beneficial for longevity, according to a 2024 review published in the journal Aging and Disease. But the researchers say further investigation is needed.
Fermented foods are generally great for gut health because they increase the diversity of microbes in the digestive system, the epidemiologist and nutrition expert Tim Spector previously told Business Insider.
Hiking could also have contributed to Itooka's longevity. A 2016 American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine article said such activity could offset the life-shortening impacts of being sedentary.
Lucas attributed her longevity to God
Lucas was a teacher who became a Catholic nun at the age of 26.
She has said she thinks God is the secret to her longevity. "He is the secret of life. He is the secret of everything," she told LongeviQuest last February.
Researchers from LongeviQuest previously told BI that religiousness was a common trait among the oldest people in Latin America they'd verified. While Latin America does have a large religious population, research suggests that religion and other sources of purpose are linked to longevity.
A 2018 study by researchers at Ohio State University on 1,600 obituaries found that people whose obituaries mentioned religious activities lived, on average, 10 years longer than those whose obituaries did not. The researchers thought this could be because religion gives people social support and opportunities to volunteer.
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