London-Sana
The United Nations Population Division has revealed that the number of centenarians aged 100 and over is increasing around the world.
The division indicated that more than 621,000 people at least 100 years old were living in the world in 2021, and this number is expected to exceed one million by the end of the current decade.
Only 92,000 people achieved this feat in 1990, which was not a simple matter at the time.
And the BBC explained in a report that humans have come a long way in terms of life expectancy thanks to advances in a series of areas that provided medicines, food and better living conditions compared to their ancestors.
Reaching 100 years of age is not easy. People who have reached this age made up only 0.008 percent of the world's population in 2021, according to United Nations figures. It is not currently expected that most of the population around the world will enjoy a 75-year-old platinum birthday because the current global average life expectancy is 73 years old
The picture changes a lot from one country to another. The average person in Japan, for example, lives for 85 years, while someone in the Central African Republic is expected to live only 54 years.
Retired Brazilian farm worker Josefa Maria da Conceicao celebrated what her family says is her 120th birthday, and according to her relatives, earlier this year she stopped ordering her daily cigarette and appeared much less energetic than in previous years.
Although Josefa's identity card shows that she was born on February 7, 1902, her attempt to get her name in the Guinness Book of Records was unsuccessful, as Lucille Randon, a 118-year-old French nun, currently holds the title as the oldest living person.
Among the men, Venezuelan Juan Vicente Mora, 113, holds the record.
Exceeding a hundred years is difficult. In the United States, a study conducted by Boston University estimated that only one in 5 million Americans reach the stage of super-centenarians, meaning that they live at least 110 years.
What puzzles most age experts is that some people who are 100 years old and over are not necessarily those who practice good health practices. Brazilian Josefa Maria has smoked most of her life and grew up in a poor area in northeastern Brazil.
Studies on aging revealed that many of the centenarians had bad habits, among them heavy smokers, some of them were obese, a few of them were vegetarians, and many of them did not even exercise moderately.
The rise in the number of people who have reached a hundred years has led scientists to question whether the limits of human longevity will be extended.. French Frances Jeanne Calmette was the oldest person whose age has ever been verified so far, as she died in 1997 at the age of 122 and is officially the only human being who lived after 120 years, but researchers from the University of Washington in the United States claim that longevity will reach new limits during the current century, as some may put 125 or even 130 candles on their birthday cakes.
Experts such as Dr Richard Siew, director of aging research at King's College London, argue that it is essential to address quality-of-life issues as the world's population ages, saying the bigger question is not to discuss how long we can live but how we can delay the onset of age-related decline and stay healthy for longer. What we do now adding that in this way if we are lucky enough to reach old age we can enjoy those years instead of living them in agony.
Organizations such as Aging Aging International, a network of non-governmental organizations that provide support to older people around the world, point out that this philosophy is essential to help treat the aging population as a support rather than a burden on health and care systems.
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