Welcome to Running: A FEVER. It’s a show about fitness, diet, and medicine. I’m Michael Davis, and my goal is to live a long, healthy, happy, active life right up to the very end. It’s all about livin’ long and lovin’ life.
For a long time, I’ve wanted to do an episode on the oldest people in history. And I’m not talking about the list I bring to you every year. That’s just the ones that have undergone a rigorous verification process. To make that list, you have to be thoroughly investigated by the Gerontology Research Group, or Guinness World Records, or some such organization. I’m talking about people who claim longevity that don’t make it, or haven’t yet made it to that list.
There’s a list of folks that Wikipedia provides, and I’ll get to that. But let’s talk about some claims from ancient tradition and folklore.
Perhaps the most famous is Methuselah from the bible. His name has become synonymous with longevity. Genealogies in the books of Genesis, First Chronicles, and Luke give his age at 969 years. This is taken literally by some, who say that explanations might include that people had a better diet at the time, or that the earth was covered by a mist that protected it from radiation. Some say that Methuselah’s extreme old age symbolically links the Garden of Eden with the Great Flood. Adam would have lived in Methuselah’s lifetime, and Methuselah is said to have died in the year that Noah launched his ark.
But he’s not the oldest. As far as I was able to tell, that honor goes to Billafunda Sayadaw U. Kowida, a Burmese Buddhist monk who supposedly was born in 908 and died in 2020, living to be 1112 years old.
I wanted to find an American, and that would be Joseph Greold, who lived from 1723 to 1866, 143 years.
Several American claimants have been debunked, including Charlie Smith, who claimed to have lived 1842-1979, 137 years, 93 days. In reality, he lived a long life, but not that long; he actually lived from 1879 to 1979, 100 years, 93 days.
Another American whose claim was debunked was John Smith, who claimed to have been born in 1784 and died in 1922. That would be 138 years of age. His actual birthdate was between 1822 and 1826, making him 96 to 100 years old at the time of his death.
Though hardly serious, another claim by magician David Blaine is that he was frozen in ice in suspended animation for 3000 years. This was in 2000. He was 27 years old. Actually, he was frozen for 52.3 hours.
How about Colestein Veglin from the USA? Born in 1260, and made the claim in 1876 just after the centennial of America. If my math is correct, that’s 616 years. When he stated his claim, he was arrested and was eventually committed to an asylum. He also had six wives and seven children living. The original story came from the July 20, 1876, edition of the New York Times.
Let’s quit picking on Americans for the moment. Thai citizen LP Suwang is said to have lived from 1551 to 1995, 444 years. Like Billafunda Kowida, LP was a Buddhist monk born in Cambodia. He is supposed to have effected miraculous healings. Local legend also says that he learned a technique of living for 100 years, then dying for 20 days, then coming back to life and living another 100 years, and so forth.
Okay, enough of legends and folklore. Let’s look at some serious claims.
One of the problems with documenting longevity is that, in some remote areas of the world, there is only family word-of-mouth, with no written records of births, deaths, marriages, censuses, etc. This being the case, you don’t see these areas represented on the verified list of the oldest people, even though some there may have lived long enough to make the list. As a result, no supercentenarians are found from Africa, India, China, or South America, some of the most populous regions of the world.
There are several living contenders who could be verified at some point, but have not yet been. I believe these are called grey-area cases. One is Mexican Manuel Garcia Hernandez. At last report in 2024, claimed to be almost 129 years old, born in 1896. The most interesting fact about this is that he’s a man, when the top 28 oldest verified people are all women, the oldest, of course, being Jeanne Calment at 122 years, 7 years short of Mr. Hernandez. Another man on this list is Marcelino Abad Tolentino of Peru, at last report, claiming to be 125 years old, which is more than the oldest woman.
Wikipedia also lists 71 people, either known or suspected to be deceased, with claimed ages ranging from 122 to 130, that have not been verified.
It’s not known how hard Guinness or the Gerontology Research Group is working on validating these claims. But presumably, there is some effort there. The GRG requires proof of birth date, proof of death date if the person is no longer living, and another form of identification, preferably also a photo and census data. Their website does not list current claims that have not been validated. But it has a complete list of validated supercentenarians, living and otherwise. And a number of those have been validated in the last couple of years.
Well. I hope you had as much fun with this topic as I did putting the episode together. Longevity is a fascinating topic, so I love talking about it and learning about it. Then I can dream that maybe I’ll make one of these lists someday, or maybe even become a legend. Perhaps I should go ahead and start claiming I’m a thousand years old. Something to think about.
Thank you so much for listening. Be sure to check out the blog for a ton of links to the references I used here. And if you don’t mind, subscribe on YouTube. Doesn’t cost anything but a click. I look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, if you’ve got the fever, keep it burning, and if you don’t catch the fever. Bye bye!
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longevity_claims
https://www.grg-supercentenarians.org/
https://gerontology.fandom.com/wiki/Koku_Istambulova
https://tinyurl.com/raf-extreme-longevity
https://gerontology.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_longevity_myths_(130%2B)
https://gerontology.fandom.com/wiki/Billafunda_(Siddha)_Sayadaw_U.Kowida
https://myanmarpedia.blogspot.com/2007/10/wizzardo-sayadaw-u-kowida.html
https://www.newschoolers.com/news/read/Radical-Radish-Unfrozen-3-000-Year-Man-Searching-Describe-Powder
https://gerontology.fandom.com/wiki/Colestein_Veglin
https://web.archive.org/web/20120331070427/
http://immortalityresearchcenter.com/veryold/ColesteinVeglin615.pdf
https://gerontology.fandom.com/wiki/LP_Suwang
https://dailybruin.com/2010/03/04/autopsy-115-year-old-aids-research