Emma Morano is keen to keep the title of “oldest lady in Europe”. This resident of Verbania, a small town on the shores of Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, has just celebrated her 116th birthday.
Of course, the secret of her longevity undoubtedly holds for genetic reasons (her mother died at 91 years old and her two sisters respectively at 102 and 107 years old) but “Signorina Morano” is convinced, as for her, that her incredible resistance is due to a nutritional secret: raw eggs. The old lady has indeed eaten between 2 and 3 per day since her adolescence, thus following the prescription of her doctor at the time to fight against anemia.
No question of leaving your little two-room apartment
Born on November 29, 1899, Emma Morano is currently the second oldest woman in the world, behind the American Susannah Mushatt Jones, born four months earlier. And no way, for this little bit of an energetic woman, to end her days in a nursing home for the elderly. Even if her legs no longer allow her to climb the steps that lead to her apartment, she insisted on staying in her small two-room apartment. Even if she had to accept the presence, for a year, of a home help.
For her 116th birthday, the old lady, who experienced the pontificate of 11 different popes, received a parchment with the solemn apostolic blessing of Pope Francis. Then she submitted with good grace (a habit now) to the visit of the cameramen of Italian and foreign televisions. Her only regret: for a year, she no longer has the right to the little chocolates she adored. But as the doctor who has been following her since she turned 90 points out: “If all my patients had been like her, I would have spent my life reading my journal”.
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