A diet of waffles and sausages?
The oldest living Californian, George Johnson, died this week at the age of 112. Johnson was born in 1894 in Philadelphia and moved to California with his wife in 1919. In 1935, they built a house in the city of Richmond, in Northern California, which Johnson continued to live in up until his death. As amazing as his life undoubtedly was, the thing that has people rehashing his story is that his diet, at least in his later years, consisted primarily of waffles and sausages.
The cause of his death was pneumonia and an autopsy was conducted, with the permission of his family, to see if science could gain some insight into his longevity and whether there was anything beneficial about his diet.
A researcher from UCLA who participated in the autopsy reported that "all of his organs were extremely youthful. They could have been the organs of someone who was 50 or 60, not 112" and ultimately, Johnson's good health was chalked up to good genes. But it surely couldn't hurt to have an extra waffle every once in a while - just in case.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-09-2006 @ 8:04AM
Brent said...
Haha! That's great! I love hearing these stories that are opposite conventional expectations. Like the guy who set out to disprove the claims of the SuperSize me movie by living off of McDonald's food for an entire year, while exercising regularly, and all of his health stats were normal.
Things like this should remind us that we don't know everything about diet and health, and there is a large amount of perception and belief involved in research papers. Exercise is key, for sure, but I think the body is better able to handle junk food than most people think.
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