Major In The Majors
The #1 Thing You Can Do for Your Health
There was nothing about Jeanne Louise Calment that stood out as remarkable. She was born in Arles, France, in 1875, a year before Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone. She had a normal childhood. At age 21, she married a well-to-do man who allowed her to live a carefree life without work. She loved the outdoors and led a lifestyle of active leisure. She ate the typical whole-food diet of rural France in the early 20th century. She loved dark chocolate. After her evening meal, she enjoyed a glass or two of port wine. Her husband introduced her to smoking when she was 21, and she smoked one or two cigarettes a day, usually after dinner. Indeed, nothing about Jenne’s life seems out of the ordinary.
What was extraordinary about Jeanne Louise Calment was that she lived to be 122 – the longest verified human lifespan in history.
To put that in perspective, only 1 out of 6000 will live to be 100. One out of every 7 million will live to be 110. But Calment defied all the odds – out of the billions and billions of lifespans ever recorded, she beat them all, not by a small amount.
To be sure, she didn’t live a lifestyle that most health experts would describe as perfect. She started smoking when she was 21 and quit when she was 117. She drank alcohol and ate sweets – although in moderation. She couldn't access modern purported longevity compounds like metformin or rapamycin.
Jeanne’s exceptional longevity raises an interesting question: What variables matter the most to health and longevity? Genetics alone can't explain her long lifespan – careful research has shown that genetics only accounts for 20% of our health and longevity. Jeanne’s parents and siblings lived long lives, but not remarkably so.