World’s oldest person dies in Italy, aged 117

EMMA Morano, the world’s oldest person, has died at the age of 117.

Born on November 29, 1899, Morano was believed to have been the last surviving person in the world who was born in the 1800s.

She died while sitting in an armchair at her home in Verbania, a town on Lake Maggiore, Italy.

Her doctor, Carlo Bava, visited her nearly every day and said her condition had been normal until several weeks ago. “But she was slowly fading away,” he said.

Morano credited her longevity to eating eggs, going to bed early and being single. Her diet consisted of several eggs a day, sometimes raw, despite health advice to the contrary. “I eat two eggs a day, and that is it. And cookies. But I do not eat much because I have no teeth.”

She avoided meat because she was once told it caused cancer.

Morano preferred singledom, though she had many “suitors”, after leaving her abusive husband in 1938.

“Morano abandoned her husband in the Fascist era when women were supposed to be very submissive. She was always very decisive,” said Bava.

“I didn’t want to be dominated by anyone,” she later said of it.

Morano worked mostly as a cook and in a factory, and did not retire until she was 75. Bava called her “a phenomenon”. However, genetics likely also played a role – her sisters reached 100 and her mother 91.

Violet Brown, who was born in Jamaica on March 10, 1900, is now considered the oldest living person in the world, a list kept by the Gerontology Research Group shows. – The Independent