Elizabeth Francis, the oldest person in the United States turned 115 earlier this week, and she couldn’t be happier. According to The Guardian, Francis has greeted each chapter in her life with a sense of optimism, humor, strength and sagacity, Meyers said, citing testimonials from members of her close-knit community.
With her 115th birthday this past Thursday, Francis now holds the distinction of being the oldest living American. She also cemented her place as the world’s fourth-oldest living person.
Francis was born in 1909 in St Mary parish, Louisiana, about 90 miles south-west of New Orleans. She was two when the Titanic sank and had turned 11 before women gained the right to vote in the US. She has seen the end of both world wars, lived through 20 different US presidencies and survived two of the deadliest pandemics: the 1918 flu outbreak and Covid-19.
Now she currently lives in the city of Houston, which further speaks to her longevity. Francis recently lived through another notable event when Hurricane Beryl struck just west of the Texas city on 8 July. Not to mention two other hurricanes she’s lived through: New Orleans Hurricane Katrina and Houston’s Hurricane Harvey. Both with catastrophic results, but she’s lived through them all.
“She has seen some things in her 115 years,” a statement from LongeviQuest’s chief executive officer, Ben Meyers, said about Ms Francis, per the outlet. Dubbing her “America’s grandmother”, Mr Meyers added: “But none of it has seemed to rattle her.”
While most people will automatically think that it’s a matter of diet or exercise that would be Francis’ secret to living well beyond 100, they would be wrong–well sort of.
According to reports, centenarians, or people who live beyond 100, tend to eat animal-based foods like eggs, meat, fish, and dairy in moderation, usually as a flavoring or for special occasions. For example, Blue Zone diets include eggs about four to six times a week.
Centenarians also tend to cook with fresh herbs and plants from their gardens or forests. Some centenarians eat fermented foods daily, which may help maintain healthy gut function and immune systems.
And when it comes to how they eat their meals, research suggests that families who eat meals together tend to eat more nutritious food, eat more slowly, and may have fewer issues with disordered eating.
But when it comes to Francis, it’s a different story. When speaking to the Washington Post, Ms Francis also offered up one single tip on how to live a long and happy life. “Speak your mind and don’t hold your tongue,” she said.
Wow, that’s a “drop-the-mic” statement. But when we dig in a little deeper, this actually makes sense why she lives so long.
Life expectancy is influenced not only by the traditional lifestyle-related risk factors but also by factors related to a person’s quality of life, such as heavy stress.
Something called the toxic stress load (TSL) can be affected by what you hold in which causes a build up of stress. The TSL is actually two-fold. It refers to the physical and mental reaction people experience after stressful events, especially longer-term ones, coupled with the “allostatic load” or physical consequences from continuous toxic stress.
“The TSL is the term that describes the build-up of negative physical and psychological changes that result from your ongoing need to respond to challenges,” the authors of the article, Healthy No Matter What: How Humans Are Hardwired to Adapt, write in TIME. “It is the baggage, the scars, and the tensions collected through life.”
These tensions carry weight—and the heaviness of your toxic stress load can affect the aging process and your lifespan. Chronic stress can lead to heart problems, for example, that put people at risk for early mortality.
“When your TSL becomes overwhelming, it triggers changes in your body that are so profound that they are equivalent to accelerated aging,” they write, having analyzed research on the lives of people who live the longest in cities across the U.S.
Everyone feels stress, but race, class, ethnicity, and economic status, among other factors, impact a person’s stress load unequally—with toxic stress affecting people disproportionately from the moment they are born.
Separately, Ms. Francis’ eldest granddaughter said, “We all know that we have to punch that [final] ticket someday, so we’re amazed and grateful that she’s still here. She’s surprised us all.”
According to The Guardian, Ms Francis was born in 1909 in St Mary Parish, Louisiana. She raised her now-95-year-old daughter as a single mother, ran a coffee shop in Houston and preferred walking over driving. The 115-year-old was alive during the Great Depression, the first aeroplane flight across the Atlantic and 20 presidents from William Howard Taft to Joe Biden.
Ms Francis now lives with her daughter. “They enjoy sitting next to each other to laugh and watch old episodes of ‘Good Times’ and ‘The Jeffersons’ on television,” her 69-year-old granddaughter, Ethel Harrison, said. “They also love watching ‘The Price is Right.’ They both feel lucky and blessed to be together so late in life,” she added.
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