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A Brazilian man claimed he turned 126 last week, which would make him the oldest person to ever live by nearly a decade.
Jose Aguinelo dos Santos, a son of slaves, said he was born on July 7, 1888, just months before Brazil abolished slavery.
“The truth is that you just keep getting older. You take each stage at a time,” he told the Brazilian newspaper O Globo. “If I got to this age it’s because I’ve lived a lot, that’s all.”
Mariana Silva, psychologist at the Vila Vicentina home, said Jose has no health problems and is so lucid he still amuses other residents by cracking one-liners.
She said: “He’s one of our most with-it residents.
“He doesn’t have high cholesterol, diabetes or high blood pressure. The only medicine he takes are vitamins and a tablet to give him an appetite, which you can lose with old age.
“When he’s on his own he likes to sing. None of us know the songs he sings. They’re from a time no-one else remembers.
“He doesn’t like to take a bath every day and it’s sometimes impossible to get him to the shower.
“When he puts his foot down, that’s it. ”
No-one can get him in there.”
Mr dos Santos, who arrived at the home in 2001, received his birth certificate last month after living his entire life without any documents.
A team of experts arrived on his birth date after researching his past and interviewing him about his earliest memories, during which he was able to describe the slave compound perfectly.
The old people’s home now hopes to provide conclusive evidence that he is the world’s oldest man through ‘Carbon-14’ dating.
The home’s president, Jose Roberto Pires, said they are determined to do the test even though it costs around £13,000.
But he added: “We are trying to find a way to do it without having to pay. This is very important. We believe the world’s oldest ever person is living here with us, and this is the only way we can really prove it.”
Agencies/Canadajournal
