Meet the world’s oldest man alive at age 112, I eat bananas daily

Salustiano Sanchez-Blazquez puts it down to eating a banana a day.

The 112-year-old New Yorker has been just crowned the oldest man in the world after Jiroemon Kimura died last month at age 116.

Sanchez-Blazquez, nicknamed ‘Shorty’, said a daily intake of bananas and six Anacin tablets contributed to his longevity.

‘I’m an old man and let’s leave it at that,’ the self-taught musician, coal miner and gin rummy aficionado said in a statement to Guinness World Records.

Record-holder: Salustiano Sanchez-Blazquez, 112, pictured, became the world's oldest man when Jiroemon Kimura died on June 12 at age 116

Record-holder: Salustiano Sanchez-Blazquez, 112, pictured, became the world’s oldest man when Jiroemon Kimura died on June 12 at age 116

Sanchez-Blazquez, a great-great-grandfather, said he was humbled by the attention, but he didn’t feel he accomplished anything special just because he has lived longer than most.

But Robert Young, senior gerontology consultant with Guinness World Records, said 90 percent of all supercentenarians are female and Salustiano is currently the only male born in 1901 with proof of birth.

Guinness World Records used census reports, immigration papers, marriage records and news reports to confirm the record.

The world’s oldest person is a woman, 115-year-old Misao Okawa of Japan.

 The oldest authenticated person was Jeanne Louise Calment of France, who died at the age of 122 years and 164 days.

Sanchez-Blazquez was born on June 8, 1901, in village of El Tejado de Bejar, Spain.

He was known for his talent on the dulzania, a double-reed wind instrument that he taught himself and played at weddings and village celebrations.

At 17, he moved with his older brother Pedro and a group of friends to Cuba, where they worked in the cane fields.

The world's oldest person is Japan's Misao Okawa, 115

The world’s oldest person is Japan’s Misao Okawa, 115

In 1920, he moved to the U.S. via Ellis Island and worked in the coal mines of Lynch, Kentucky.

He eventually moved to the Niagara Falls area of New York, where he still lives, working in construction and in the industrial furnaces.

He married his wife, Pearl, in 1934.

When she died in 1988, he lived with his daughter Irene Johnson, 69, before moving into a nursing home in 2007.

Grand Island’s Johnson offered her own theory for her dad’s staying power: ‘I think it’s just because he’s an independent, stubborn man.’

Sanchez-Blazquez has a daughter, a 76-year-old son, John, seven grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren.

Read more: Daily Mail

Comments (6)

  1. Does this life longetivity record has a special creteria for selection? We have old folks here in Africa who we believe to have lived more than the old in Guinness Book of record yet they have never been heard of. If this is really a world record you better come down to our rurals and find out for yourselves.

  2. Come to Nigeria, and you will be amazed. There are age people up to 120 and above.

  3. Come to Nigeria, and you will be amazed.

  4. Come 2my place and see older people. I totally disagree

  5. Pesonally i disagree with the man as the oldest, because we have the oldest even at imo state.

  6. what so ever happen in this life today,God realy want it that way.and no man can change it excep if we turn to him alone. He gives peace to whom he pleases and grace to whom he wanned to,and long life to whom he choose to. So do you realy want to gain that favor too? Please open up your heart and accept JESUS CHRIST as your persol LORD and SAVIOUR. You will lived to see what you realy become.

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