X-Message-Number: 28421
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2006 17:12:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: Doug Skrecky <>
Subject: sausage-and-waffles diet kills man at 112

[Here we see the sad results of a junk food diet. First the subject went
blind, then apparently immunsenescence occurred, and finally the
subject died from pneumonia. Humor aside, the most frustrating thing from
a life extensionist standpoint, is that there now exist treatments for
both immunsenescence and macular degeneration, but unfortunately his
doctors failed to mention this to the subject. There's no telling how much
longer he would have lived had he looked after himself, or recieved more
intelligent medical care. A number of years ago I offered to pay for a
deprenyl prescription for Jeanne Calment, but her doctor disallowed this,
then she died (Calment - not the doctor). At the time, deprenyl seemed
like a good idea, but now there appear to be better options. My offer to
pay for life/health extending drugs/supplements to any supercentenarian
still stands. If anybody knows of any supercentenarian who is interested
in taking up my offer, please let me know. If anybody else is also
interested in offering assistence to supercentenarians, please get in
contact with me.]

Man lives to 112 despite sausage-and-waffles diet
By JEFF WILSON, Associated Press Writer> Friday, September 1, 2006

George Johnson, considered California's oldest living person at 112 and
the state's last surviving World War I veteran, had experts shaking their
heads over his junk food diet.

"He had terrible bad habits. He had a diet largely of sausages and
waffles," Dr. L. Stephen Coles, founder of the Gerontology Research Group
at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Friday.

The 5-foot-7, 140-pound Johnson died of pneumonia Wednesday at his
Richmond home in Northern California.

"A lot of people think or imagine that your good habits and bad habits
contribute to your longevity," Coles said. "But we often find it is in
the genes rather than lifestyle."

Johnson, who was blind and living alone until his 110th birthday when a
caregiver began helping him, built the Richmond house by hand in 1935. He
got around using a walker in recent years.

Johnson was the only living Californian considered a
"supercentenarian," a designation for those ages 110 or older, Coles
said. His group is now in the process of validating a Los Angeles
candidate who claims to be 112 years old.

Coles participated in an autopsy Thursday that was designed to study
Johnson's health.

"All of his organs were extremely youthful. They could have been the
organs of someone who was 50 or 60, not 112. Clearly his genes had some
secrets," Coles said.

"Everything in his body that we looked at was clean as a whistle, except
for his lungs with the pneumonia," Coles said. "He had no heart disease,
he had no cancer, no diabetes and no Alzheimer's.

"This is a mysterious case that someone could be so healthy from a
pathology point of view and that there is no obvious cause of death."

The family was in favor of an autopsy. Relatives said Johnson wanted them
to allow it if it would help science.

Born May 1, 1894, Johnson's father managed the Baltimore and Ohio Railway
station in Philadelphia.

Johnson was working in 1917 as a mail sorter for the U.S. Post Office
when he was drafted into the Army. The war ended a year later, and he
never served in combat.

Two years later, he and his wife moved to Northern California.

"It was a great adventure in those days. We were young and wanted the
experience," Johnson said in a March interview with the Contra Costa
Times.

The couple settled in Fresno and remained there until 1935, when they
bought property in Richmond. They used lumber salvaged from dismantled
buildings to build their house.

During World War II, Johnson worked at the Kaiser shipyard in Richmond
and later managed the heating plant at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in
Oakland.

He remained in good health and continued driving until he was 102, when
his vision began to fail.

Johnson's wife died in 1992 at the age of 92. The couple had no children.

On the Net: Gerontology Research Group

www.grg.org

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