It is time for Blog Post #3. In a desperate attempt to find a topic for this post, I googled “weird science discoveries.” I was brought to livescience.com. From there I clicked on an article about the worlds oldest person. What is her secret? Supposedly, it is her daily serving of bacon. Yes, sizzling strips of bacon. So, what makes a person survive 100+ years? Could the secret actually be bacon? Luck? Or something else?

Lets start with where my newfound curiosity began. Susannah Mushatt Jones of New York is the world’s oldest living person. At 116 years, she “recently said that she eats a serving of bacon every day.” However, Jones claims that “bacon is not a fountain of youth.” She credits her “good sleeping habits, as well as her abstinence from tobacco and alcohol, for her continued good health.” So, is the bacon important at all? Or is the bacon just a coincidental piece in a healthy lifestyle. But, Dr. Thomas Perls of Boston University believes that Jones’s genetics are more of a cause than he’s healthy habits. For the past 10 years, Perls has been studying why some lives last longer than others. He does claim that “there’s just no scientific evidence that suggests people who eat bacon every day live longer.” People have conducted research to figure out the correlation between red meat consumption and lifespan, and the findings actually refute Jones’s bacon success story.

In 2012, Harvard scientists conducted a study with 120,000 people. Over the course of 28 years, “one daily serving of unprocessed red meat such as steak or pork chops was associated with a 13 percent increased risk of dying during the study” since 20% of the subjects died during the study. And, daily consumption of “processed red meat, such as a hot dog or bacon, was associated with a 20 percent increased risk.” The study also found that substituting red meat with a “healthy protein source” helped lower the mortality risk. The results of the study are synonmous with a 2010 meta-analysis developed by the different scientists at Harvard. The meta-analysis concluded that “consumption of processed meats, but not red meats, is associated with higher incidence of CHD and diabetes mellitus.” So, it appears that its not the color of the meat that matters but whether it is processed or not. I am sure the bacon that Jones has been consuming all of her life is processed. Dr. Perls has another idea…
How long one lives might be determined by genes.  Dr. Perls claims that “a person’s genes play a relatively small role in determining whether an individual lives to see his or her mid-80s or 90s.” He says that once a person passes that point, genes are very important. He and his team studied 1,055 centenarians (over 100) and 1,267 controls (under 100). They discovered “150 DNA sequence variations called single nucleotide polymorphisms among those 100 years old and above that may have contributed t their healthy aging.” So theoretically, “15% of the American populations is predisposed to live to be 100.”

So no, Susannah Mushatt Jones cannot really thank bacon for her 116 and counting years. She can however thank her mom and dad because her right now, her genes are most likely the ones to blame.

Susannah Mushatt Jones!