快猫短视频

SHE met Vincent van Gogh as a child, gave up smoking at 117 and eventually died aged 122 years and 164 days. Jeanne Louise Calment is officially the oldest human ever to have lived, known in her native France as 鈥渓a doyenne de l鈥檋umanit茅鈥�. But she may not be what she seems.

If a recently published research paper is correct, a woman called Jeanne Louise Calment did exist, but she died in 1934, aged 59. The woman who claimed to be her was actually her daughter Yvonne, 23 years her junior.

This finding could not only shatter 颁补濒尘别苍迟鈥檚 legendary status in France, but it could force gerontologists to revise some of their cherished ideas about extreme old age.

颁补濒尘别苍迟鈥檚 , as verified by state demographers, is that she was born in Arles, France, on 21 February 1875. She was a wealthy woman who lived her life in relative obscurity, until she became famous aged 110. She saw out her final years as a national treasure and a subject of intense scientific interest, eventually .

Her fame exploded after she made a cameo appearance in a 1990 movie called at the ostensible age of 114. She was also notably spry, riding a bike well beyond her 100th birthday. Her most famous quote is 鈥淚鈥檝e only got one wrinkle and I鈥檓 sitting on it鈥�.

But according to mathematician Nikolay Zak of the Moscow Society of Naturalists, whoever this wry wit belonged to, it wasn鈥檛 the real Jeanne Calment. Instead, Zak claims, her family covered up her death to avoid a crippling inheritance tax bill, and instead registered the death as that of Jeanne鈥檚 36-year-old daughter Yvonne. This daughter then assumed Jeanne鈥檚 identity and lived out the rest of her life 鈥� 63 years 鈥� posing as her own mother. This would make the woman who claimed to be Jeanne just 99 when she died.

Casting doubt

Zak鈥檚 argument has divided longevity researchers, not least because of the dramatic impact it could have on the science of ageing. He points out that 颁补濒尘别苍迟鈥檚 age at death is 鈥減robably the single most famous data point in the entire field of gerontology鈥�. It currently defines the upper limit of human lifespan and also forms part of the evidence that in extreme old age, the probability of dying stops rising 鈥� the so called 鈥渓ongevity plateau鈥�. Between the ages of 40 and 80 your risk of dying in a given year doubles approximately every eight years, creating an exponential mortality curve. But in old age, for some unknown reason, the curve flattens out and the risk of dying in a year stabilises at about 50/50. This 鈥減lateau鈥� seems to be reached around 105.

Zak is not the first to cast suspicion on 颁补濒尘别苍迟鈥檚 story. In fact, doubts started circulating almost as soon as she died in 1997. , a gerontologist at the University of Newcastle, UK, was one of many who questioned the feasibility of someone living that long. In his 1999 book he raised the possibility of the mother-daughter identity switch, although he quickly dismissed it. Too many people would have had to be in on it, he concluded.

Suspicion lingered. In 2007, in an , Jean-Pierre Daniel made the allegation that Calment assumed her mother鈥檚 identity for insurance fraud purposes. Daniel further claimed that the insurance company discovered it near the end of her life, but chose to keep it quiet because of 颁补濒尘别苍迟鈥檚 iconic status.

The latest round of allegations was sparked by a Russian geriatrician called Valery Novoselov of RUDN University in Moscow. In his clinical judgment, Calment didn鈥檛 seem to display the hallmarks of a supercentenarian (the term demographers use for people over 110). He never met Calment but says there are enough photos and videos to make an assessment of three syndromes we know are an inevitable part of extreme age: the ability to sit up straight without assistance, marked skin atrophy and the loss of tissue and fat that makes bones appear more pronounced. 鈥淗er authenticity I never believed,鈥� he says.

Novoselov contacted Zak and asked him to assess the probability of 颁补濒尘别苍迟鈥檚 longevity claim. Zak took on the challenge and the result of his dive through the archives last December.

At the time, they had not been subjected to scientific scrutiny, including peer review, so many demographers were dismissive. For example, Jean-Marie Robine of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, who helped to validate 颁补濒尘别苍迟鈥檚 age in the 1990s, , 鈥淲e have never done so much to prove the age of a person. We never found anything that allowed us to express the slightest suspicion.鈥澛� Others were confident that Zak鈥檚 paper wouldn鈥檛 pass the peer review process.

But it did. In February, Zak鈥檚 investigation was , citing multiple lines of evidence that Jeanne Calment was not who she said she was. 鈥淣o one item constitutes a smoking gun but I claim that in combination they form a compelling case,鈥� he says.

As a mathematician, Zak鈥檚 principle interest was in the numbers. He points out that Calment was a statistical outlier, living significantly longer than anyone else. The next oldest person, Sarah Knauss of Pennsylvania, US, died at 119 years and 97 days. Based on longevity records, Zak calculated the probability of anyone reaching 颁补濒尘别苍迟鈥檚 incredible age, even assuming that the mortality plateau is real. His answer: 1.4 per cent.

Secondly, the official validation of 颁补濒尘别苍迟鈥檚 age omits a piece of evidence that demographers generally consider essential: a public declaration of reaching centenarian status, such as an article in a local newspaper.

Zak also points out multiple inconsistencies in 颁补濒尘别苍迟鈥檚 on-the-record statements that fit the switch theory. For instance, in Vincent and Me Jeanne says she met Van Gogh in her father鈥檚 shop. Jeanne鈥檚 father did not own a shop, but her husband 鈥� Yvonne鈥檚 father 鈥� did. These slips were usually put down to old age, but Zak says that all are consistent with her being Yvonne, not Jeanne.

What鈥檚 more, when demographers interviewed Calment, she made no mention of a cholera outbreak that killed 118 people in Arles in 1884, when Jeanne would have been nine years old, but Yvonne was not yet born. Gerontologists often cite a person鈥檚 knowledge of such memorable events as part of age verification, says Zak.

As to how Yvonne could have assumed her mother鈥檚 identity without arousing suspicion, Zak says that despite being 23 years apart, the pair looked strikingly similar, and the family largely kept to themselves.

Financial incentives

Zak alleges that the original motive for the switch was tax evasion and fraud. Jeanne鈥檚 death would have landed the family with a tax bill equivalent to hundreds of thousands of dollars 鈥� which was particularly unwelcome given they had recently paid a substantial tax bill after the death of Jeanne鈥檚 father Nicolas in 1931. Jeanne also received an annuity on an insurance policy which would have expired on her death. It continued to be paid throughout her life.

The deception went on, claims Zak. In 1965, supposedly aged 90, Jeanne sold her apartment to a local man on the condition that she could live there until she died, a common arrangement in France. In return he paid her 2500 Francs a month. He expected her to die within a decade. She lived for more than three, eventually accruing more than 10 times the value of the apartment. He died two years before she did and passed the liability on to his widow.

In light of all of this, Zak believes the switch theory checks out. 鈥淚 conclude that until we have a proof that there was no switch, the age of Jeanne cannot be considered as scientifically verified,鈥� he told 快猫短视频. Aubrey De Grey, editor of the journal that published the research, concurs. 鈥淵ou have to be really sure that a claim is true before it gets listed in the official league tables of longevity. At this point we can certainly say that Calment is nowhere near that level of confidence. The challenge now is for gerontologists to react responsibly and not appear to whitewash the uncertainty.鈥�

Zak, however, says that his claims have unleashed fury. 鈥淎 lot of professionals in the field reacted very negatively.鈥�

That was entirely predictable. Calment occupies near-legendary status in gerontology and mainstream scientists are not always welcoming to de Grey, who is considered an outsider and maverick. Zak, meanwhile, was an unknown quantity in gerontology circles until his paper came out.

Most researchers 快猫短视频 contacted either did not respond or leaned towards the status quo. 鈥淪cientifically, I鈥檓 inclined to doubt that it will be possible to prove the case one way or the other,鈥� says Kirkwood. 鈥淔or the time being, therefore, I shall continue to describe Jeanne Calment as the current world record holder.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檇 always defer to the demographers, they鈥檙e the ones who have got the methodology and quality control,鈥� adds Linda Partridge, managing director of the in Cologne, Germany. In any case, she says, 鈥渄on鈥檛 you think that the neighbours might have noticed?鈥�

But putting scepticism aside and imagining that the switch hypothesis was true, what scientific impact would it have, especially on the longevity plateau? After all, the dataset of supercentenarians is quite small and Calment is a prominent statistic.

Researchers have mixed feelings. Kirkwood says: 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think the truth or falsehood of the claims has any great significance. She is just one case and the science of extreme longevity is concerned with the more extensive data.鈥� Partridge, however, says that Calment is an important data point. 鈥淥bviously if you鈥檙e going to do statistics on outliers it is important that the outliers are correct, I would imagine you wouldn鈥檛 have to have too many changes for it to radically change the picture. But that is very much one for a statistician, which I鈥檓 not.鈥�

The people who would be sure of the impact 鈥� demographers 鈥� proved hard to reach. The first two 快猫短视频 contacted did not reply. Robine, the state demographer who helped to validate 颁补濒尘别苍迟鈥檚 age, said 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think that the article by Zak is a scientific work鈥�.

Another demographer, Ken Wachter at the University of California, Berkeley, described the switch hypothesis as 鈥渨ildly implausible鈥�. But he was more open about the significance of the question: 鈥渢he validity of Jeanne 颁补濒尘别苍迟鈥檚 death is of some scientific importance,鈥� he says. Remove her from the record and the existence of a longevity plateau becomes 鈥渃ompletely out of the question.鈥� But he cautions that many of his colleagues don鈥檛 think it makes that much difference.

One reason for the reticence appears to be a possible domino effect. If Calment is revealed to be a fraud, then what of the other supercentenarians? After all, most of them were born in the 19th century when record keeping was not as rigorous as today, and they lived through the chaos of two world wars. Indeed, the past offered up many reasons to lie about one鈥檚 age: during the first world war, for example, approximately 250,000 British youths claimed to be older than they were in order to go to the front; many older men did the same to avoid it.

Even if Calment really was who she said she was, Zak isn鈥檛 the only scientist outside the gerontology mainstream who has been asking awkward questions about supercentenarians. Biologist Saul Newman at the Australian National University in Canberra recently published a paper showing that (or frauds) to magic up a longevity plateau.

Knock-on effect

Imagine a group of people who all turn 50 in a given year 鈥� say 1925, the year Jeanne Calment notched up her half century. If just 1 in 1000 of them claimed to be older than they actually were, assuming normal mortality rates, by the time the cohort reaches 100 the discrepancy is enough to flatten the mortality curve.

What is more, Newman claims to have evidence that such errors are not uncommon in the real world. 鈥淭he observed plateaus depend on a tiny percentage of paper records,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hese records are, unsurprisingly, prone to errors. I feel the Calment case is just another in a long line of dubious claims. I have more results incoming.鈥�

This is in keeping with previous research showing that large numbers of extreme age claims turn out to be false, or at least unverifiable. In 2010, for example, the reported that two thirds of age claims for people turning 110 could not be verified; for 115-year-olds it was 98 per cent (see: 鈥�Dubious supercentenarians鈥�). The same study found that, in countries with rigorous birth records going back more than 150 years, nobody has been proven to have lived past 115.

Demographers go to great lengths to verify claims such as 颁补濒尘别苍迟鈥檚, but if she turns out to be fake then who knows? 鈥淚f my hypothesis is confirmed then other scientifically validated supercentenarians will need a revalidation,鈥� says Zak.

Until Newman鈥檚 results are published in a journal they remain speculation. But the Calment affair is very much up for scientific debate.

It probably cannot be settled without new and incontrovertible evidence. Zak says that may be found in the archives of the French insurance company she allegedly swindled for 61 years. But they may not be willing to cooperate.

The other possibility is cells and DNA known to have been taken from Calment when she was still alive. These are rumoured to be kept in a bioarchive in Paris, says De Grey. 鈥淲ork is continuing right now to identify whether that is true,鈥� he says.

Calment does not have any living close relatives, but they are not necessary to prove whether the blood was drawn from the real Calment or her daughter. Jeanne Calment married her first cousin Fernand, so Yvonne鈥檚 DNA would show tell-tale signs of having fewer than the full complement of grandparents and great-grandparents.

For now, 颁补濒尘别苍迟鈥檚 record still stands. The current oldest person is a Japanese woman called , who was born on 2 January 1903. She officially has more than 6 years to go to outlive Jeanne Calment 鈥� but in reality she may not have to wait that long.