Fatema Amr Eissa Qadib, Egypt’s oldest woman, passed away on January 20 th 2015 at the age of 115. According to Health Inspector Mohamed Ali Moqresh’s statement to Alarabiya, Qadib died of natural causes leading to brain and heart failure. The average life expectancy of a woman born in Egypt today is 73.5 years .
Qadib, who lived in Beheira, was born on April 20, 1900, said Moqresh.
Qadib witnessed four Egyptian revolutions, in 1919, 1952, 1971 and 2011. She also lived through the rule of Khedive Abbas II, two Sultans, Hussein Kamel and Fuad I, and the last ruling kings of Egypt: Fuad I, Farouk I and Fuad II. She witnessed Egypt move from being a kingdom to being a republic, and its seven presidents (if we count Adly Mansour's brief presidency).
Qadib lived through the pride of nationalizing the Suez Canal in 1956, the sorrows of 1967's Setback and the joy of winning the 1973 war.
While we can only guess as to why Qadib lived for so long, other super centenarian's longevity has led scientists to wonder what is their secret?
Scientists now have some new hints thanks to Dutch Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper who passed away in 2005 at the age of 115.
According to the genetic analysis of blood and tissue samples collected during her autopsy, our stem cells have a concrete say in when our time is up.
Discover Magazine explains:
“We are born with up to 20,000 hematopoietic stem cells — cells that give rise to new blood cells — that self-renew in our body every 25 to 50 weeks by dividing creating two daughter cells.
By contrast scientists found that Andel-Schipper’s blood, at the time of her death, was being derived from only two active stem cells — suggesting the rest wore out and died.”
While many movies revolve around humans’ pursuit for immortality, the real life version of that pursuit is a long healthy life, and based on the results from studying Andel-Schipper’s blood, the answer may very well be reserving some of your stem cells at an earlier age to be injected once more into your body when it fails to produce its own.
Apart from saving up for your next Eurotrip, seems like there’s a lot more saving you need to plan for.