His age qualifies him for the supercentenarian list, those people who have lived to 110 or older. There are close to 1,000 confirmed (and disputed) cases, and many more that have not been verified.
And there are those who were once considered verified, such as Japan's Shigechiyo Izumi, who supposedly died at age 120 years of age in 1986, but the claim has since been discounted if not debunked by scholars (Guinness World Records still has him as the second-longest living person). It is believed he was born in 1880 instead of 1865 and was named after an older brother who died previously and hence the confusion over the year of his birth. He apparently died at the age of "only" 105 and not 120.
Coincidentally, I have been websurfing about supercentenarians, and it makes for interesting reading. Here is a list of them, from Jeanne Calment's 122 years down to the dozens who lived to or are currently 110 years old.
Indiana's Edna Parker, who I have mentioned on a blog post or two, is the current world record holder of living supercentenarians at over 114 years of age.
No doubt the increase in numbers has to do with improved medical care, but also there is little doubt there is an increase because of better recordkeeping such as birth certificates, baptismal records, census records, and better research into individual cases. Usually cases of people born before 1870 are discounted because of the lack of records proving their age (although there are a number of verified cases).
As of now, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which monitors supercentenarians, there are 77 supercentenarians worldwide, with 66 women and 11 men. This is the current list as of yesterday.
This footnote is interesting:
The total number Supercentenarians that we have cited above has been frequently been misconstrued in the news media as representing every single person in the world aged 110 and over. The actual estimated number of worldwide living Supercentenarians is more likely to be between [300 - 450] persons. For the USA, we predict something like [60 - 75] Supercentenarians. While the total number of validated cases cited above is only about ten percent of the suspected real-world total, it should also be noted that the bulk of the true Supecentenarians actually fall between [110 - 113] years old; hardly any ever survive to live past 115. {Our estimate of [300 - 450] persons is based on a survival percentage of centenarians-to-age-110 to be between [0.15 - 0.25] percent.}
It should be noted that a significant majority of worldwide claimants to be age 110-or-over have subsequently been proven to be false; these individuals and more often their family or friends have their own personal motives for claiming these persons and, we are sad to report, are occasionally disingenuous (not well-intentioned).
We believe that the increasing number of true cases that we have observed during the last 30 years are the result of at least two factors:
(1) the diligence of our own committee members throughout the world who deserve much of the credit; and
(2) far more persons are reaching 110 than ever before. That is, people who were dying at [105 - 109] are now reaching [110 - 113] years of age.
Please note that the SSA data show that both of these reasons are major factors, and that it would be incorrect to ascribe all of the increase to an actual increase in longevity or all of the increase due to better record-keeping. Coming in the next few months, an SSA Report, along with our own historical databases, will better show how much of the increase can be ascribed to each of these two factors.
