Posted on 09/01/2006 5:25:12 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
LOS ANGELES (AP) - George Johnson, considered California's oldest living person at 112 and the state's last surviving First World War veteran, had experts shaking their heads over his junk food diet.
"He had terrible, bad habits. He had a diet largely of sausages and waffles," Dr. Stephen Coles, founder of the Gerontology Research Group at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Friday.
The 5-foot-7, 140-pound Johnson died of pneumonia Wednesday at his Richmond home in Northern California.
"A lot of people think or imagine that your good habits and bad habits contribute to your longevity," Coles said. "But we often find it is in the genes rather than lifestyle."
Johnson, who was blind and living alone until his 110th birthday when a caregiver began helping him, built his own house by hand in 1935. He got around using a walker in recent years.
Johnson was the only living Californian considered a "super centenarian," a designation for those ages 110 or older, Coles said. His group is now in the process of validating a Los Angeles candidate who claims to be 112 years old.
Coles participated in an autopsy Thursday that was designed to study Johnson's health.
"All of his organs were extremely youthful. They could have been the organs of someone who was 50 or 60, not 112. Clearly his genes had some secrets," Coles said.
"Everything in his body that we looked at was clean as a whistle, except for his lungs with the pneumonia," Coles said. "He had no heart disease, he had no cancer, no diabetes and no Alzheimer's.
"This is a mysterious case that someone could be so healthy from a pathology point of view and that there is no obvious cause of death."
The family was in favour of an autopsy. Relatives said Johnson wanted them to allow it if it would help science.
Born May 1, 1894, Johnson's father managed the Baltimore and Ohio Railway station in Philadelphia.
Johnson was working in 1917 as a mail sorter for the U.S. Post Office when he was drafted into the army. The war ended a year later, and he never served in combat.
Two years later, he and his wife moved to Northern California.
"It was a great adventure in those days. We were young and wanted the experience," Johnson said in a March interview with the Contra Costa Times.
The couple settled in Fresno, Calif., and remained there until 1935, when they bought property in Richmond. They used lumber salvaged from dismantled buildings to build their house.
During Second World War, Johnson worked at the Kaiser shipyard in Richmond and later managed the heating plant at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland.
He remained in good health and continued driving until he was 102, when his vision began to fail.
Johnson's wife died in 1992 at the age of 92. The couple had no children.
Kielbasa! Sto lat!
Finger-lickin' ping.
If you're blind, FR becomes of limited use unless you have really have good hired help.
When I go blind at 110, I'll have the nurse type my opus.
Maybe people died younger in the recent past, because they had poor nutrition. My G'ma lived to 96, and had bacon and eggs with coffee nearly every morning.
Cross this with this story of an older vet who is still alive.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1688216/posts
Eating well is a good diet to prescribe for most all people. However, the biggest killer is stress. Obviously, this man had not only good genes, but some life habits that worked in positive conjunct with his genes. And didn't go into "overkill" on the whole "you are living so be very afraid" apparatus so common in this day and age.
He died from amylodosis, abnormal protein buildup so maybe the sausages weren't such a good idea. More than that, I'm almost SURE those sausages were home made with hogs he killed himself and the waffles were made from scratch. Not today. Not this processed, artifical JUNK... have a little pork with your GMO soy, bull testes and God know whatelse for filler. Plus, it pays to be happy and stress free. You don't live to be 112 sitting on a fat lard butt watching television that's fer sure.
If stress hasn't killed me yet - it NEVER will!
LOLOLOLOL
It's the broads. Babes keep you young.
Maybe not having kids too :D
Your slogan really stopped me. It's GOOD. It's an excellent motto to live by.
S'pose he ever cross-contaminated his kitchen sponge after touching raw meat? That's probably what killed him.
I've told my daughter repeatedly that, when it comes to health and longevity, to choose her parents wisely.
Sausage and waffles everyday??
And a long life??
I just found my new diet.
Interesting...the health-conscious food-Nazis of The Los Angeles Times
omit any mention of the sausages and waffles!
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-johnson1sep01,0,7906879.story?coll=la-story-footer
I go with two other factors that might account for his longevity:
1. He was a true American "mutt". He might have been the recipient of what
geneticists call "hybrid vigor".
2. No kids! My parents always said I (and my brother) would be the
death of them (but they are still kickin' in their 70s)
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