The world’s oldest man has celebrated his 113th birthday in Spain after putting his long life down to a diet of home-grown vegetables and a daily glass of red wine.
According to a report by DailyMail UK, Francisco Nunez Olivera, who has four children, nine grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren, began the day with his traditional sponge cake and glass of milk for breakfast before opening letters of congratulation from around the world.
The widower’s daughter Maria Antonia, 82, was among those who spent the anniversary with him at his home in the village of Bienvenida in Badajoz, south-west Spain.
Francisco, who has two siblings aged 97 and 93, became the world’s oldest man after the death of Polish-born Israeli Yisrael Kristal on August 11.
The retired farmer, who fought in the Rif War in the first half of the 1920s between Spain and the Berber tribes of the Rif mountains in Morocco, went out for daily walks alone in his home village until he was 107.
He started to read again aged 98 after a cataract operation, one of only two occasions he has been to hospital, according to relatives.
Relatives have attributed his longevity to a diet based on vegetables he grew on his own land and a daily glass of red wine.
Also, researchers at the University of Liverpool revisited a study carried out 175 years ago which compared the health and life expectancy of people in different parts of the United Kingdom (U.K.), including Liverpool, to see if its findings still held true.
They found that stark differences still exist and that people living in Liverpool still had lower life expectancy than those living in the rural area of Rutland.
The original study into sanitation conditions by Edwin Chadwick in 1842 charted the average age by death and by occupational group for five areas in the UK — Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, Bolton and Rutland, a rural county in Eastern England.
The findings revealed a strong correlation between where you lived, what your job was and the age you lived to. This was the first study to demonstrate the huge geographical differences in health and life circumstances. It showed that a labourer in Rutland could expect to live a longer life than a professional tradesman in Liverpool.
Research led by the University’s Department of Geography & Planning undertook a similar analysis using data from the Office of National Statistics and the 2011 census to see if the same pattern still persisted.
They found that whilst the level of inequality was not on the scale it had been between the two areas in 1842, individuals in the middle social class bracket in Rutland still lived longer than those in the highest social class in Liverpool.
Dr. Mark Green, who conducted the study, said: “On the 175th anniversary of this report, which was ground-breaking at the time, we wanted to see if in the 21st century your geography — that is where you live — still determined your health and life expectancy.
“We found that whilst life expectancy has nearly doubled since Chadwick’s report, there is still a link between where you live, your social class and how long you live to.
“It is remarkable that after 175 years, mortality rates in Liverpool are still higher than in Rutland within each occupational group. What this demonstrates is that living in certain locations offers very different life chances and health outcomes for people within the same occupational groups.”
No comments:
Post a Comment