Louise Jean Signore, born in Harlem on July 31, 1912, never imagined she would live to this age. In 2018, she told the New York Post that when she first came to the local senior center, she always looked at the 100-year-olds with awe.
Six years later, she has outlived all of her younger siblings and joined the small but growing number of supercentenarians: people who live to age 110 and older. Although supercentenarians are rare, more and more people are living beyond age 100.
According to the Pew Research Center, the number of centenarians in the United States is expected to more than quadruple, from about 101,000 in 2024 to 422,000 in 2054. So it’s no wonder many of us want to know their health secrets (although genes and luck likely play a big role in their longevity).
Signore believes this contributed to her living to 112 years of age.
Stay single
“That’s why I’m alive. That’s why I’m OK, because I didn’t get married… no marriage, no kids. I’d rather be single,” she told the New York Post last week. “When you’re married, you have a lot of problems.”
She’s not the only centenarian who attributes her longevity to never having married. Business Insider previously reported that Joyce Preston, a 100-year-old from the UK, advises the same thing.
Research is divided on whether a person’s relationship status affects their life expectancy. It seems to come down to the pros and cons of individual circumstances. For example, a 2020 study published in the journal SSM – Population Health found that married people are more likely to live two years longer than unmarried people.
However, another study published in 2022 in JAMA Network Open with East Asian participants found that married women did not appear to benefit as much from marriage as men, possibly because they were expected to most of the housework and childcare.
“Good life”
Signore has a strict daily routine. Francis Perkins
Signore does not drink or smoke, has a strict daily routine and has been very active throughout his life.
She swam often and walked wherever she could, the New York Post reported in 2018. When she retired, she began playing bocce (an Italian game similar to bowls) every morning, swimming and biking every afternoon, and line dancing in the evenings.
Even when her health deteriorated and she had to stop exercising, she continued to do mobility exercises. And when she can’t go outside, she still paces the hallway to get some exercise, her neighbor told the New York Post last week.
Eat a Mediterranean diet
Signore also believes her diet helped her reach 112.
“I grew up with very good food,” she told the New York Post in 2019. “Italian food is very healthy.”
“We had salad, fruit and vegetables every evening,” she told the publication in 2018. “And we always had wine on the table. We only had cake and lemonade on Sundays.”
She still adds tomato sauce, garlic or olive oil to her meals, the Post reported in 2018 — key ingredients in the Mediterranean diet, which was voted the healthiest diet for the seventh year in a row that year.
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