Supposed 128 year old woman found in Uzbekistan.

[VT-16]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7857596.stm (contains video)

Uzbek is 'world's oldest woman'
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A woman claimed to be 128 years old, the oldest reported person in the world, is living in Uzbekistan.

Turkey's Cihan News Agency says Tuti Yusupova's birth is documented as 1 July 1880, but there is no independent confirmation of her age.

Ms Yusupova says her health is fine in general, but she has problems with her hearing.

So, how can her age be independently verified?

[Broomstick]

It may not be possible to independently verify her age.

Typically, such verification is done through records of various sorts (birth certificates, baptismal or other religious records, school records, etc.) which may or may not exist.

[VT-16]

Well, they claim to have both her birth certificate and her passport, the latter dating back to 1997. I think that's not enough because, apparantly, Guinness wants something additional before they accept the entry into the book.

[Karza]

We'll just cut her in half and count the rings.

The cops didn't think it was funny either.

How precisely is it possible to determine a person's age through medical examinations or such? I suspect there won't be too many records of a person born in late 19th century Uzbekistan, at least not of the early part of her life.

[Solauren]

Got any really old photos of her?

[VT-16]

She apparantly got married in 1897, husband died in the 40s. Maybe some kind of info can be found there. As well as the claim that she's got almost 200 kids, grandkids, great-grand kids and great-great-grand kids. Any kind of official timeline.

Hey, I'm just impressed at the modern computers they have in the official buildings in Uzbekistan now, rather than the stereotypical backwards view I have of countries in the old USSR ending with "-stan". They seem organized enough to have plenty of birth certificates and other 19th century public records.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7857596.stm (contains video)

Uzbek is 'world's oldest woman'
Advertisement

A woman claimed to be 128 years old, the oldest reported person in the world, is living in Uzbekistan.

Turkey's Cihan News Agency says Tuti Yusupova's birth is documented as 1 July 1880, but there is no independent confirmation of her age.

Ms Yusupova says her health is fine in general, but she has problems with her hearing.

So, how can her age be independently verified?

More likely than not, this is a fraudulent claim. Birth certificates can be forged, and just because information turns up on a passport doesn't mean that it is, in any way, accurate. To verify advanced age, investigators have to find a number of public records from different time-periods that can firmly establish a given person's timeline.

[Surlethe]

Split Zed's one-liner to Testing. You know better, man.

[General Zod]

More likely than not, this is a fraudulent claim. Birth certificates can be forged, and just because information turns up on a passport doesn't mean that it is, in any way, accurate. To verify advanced age, investigators have to find a number of public records from different time-periods that can firmly establish a given person's timeline.

I dunno, Jeanne Calment was the oldest most thoroughly documented person alive at 122 years of age. 128's on the extreme end but it doesn't really seem too implausible.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

More likely than not, this is a fraudulent claim. Birth certificates can be forged, and just because information turns up on a passport doesn't mean that it is, in any way, accurate. To verify advanced age, investigators have to find a number of public records from different time-periods that can firmly establish a given person's timeline.

I dunno, Jeanne Calment was the oldest most thoroughly documented person alive at 122 years of age. 128's on the extreme end but it doesn't really seem too implausible.

That the woman in the OP claims to be six years older than Jeanne Calment was at the time of her death raises red flags, as there is precisely one verified supercentenarian who has lived over 120 years, and of a population of people who reach the age of 110, the five-year survival rate beyond that milestone is 2%. The six-year survival rate is 0.6%, and the seven-year survival rate is a mere 0.4%.

Furthermore, the vast majority of supercentenarian claims turn out to be either false, or outright fraudulent. The claim of the woman in the OP was submitted by a local head of Uzbekistan's ruling party, who was researching centenarians as part of the nation's independence anniversary. This raises further red-flags, and tends to suggest that this particular claim of extreme age be taken with a massive grain of salt.

[VT-16]

But then, to find all the additional info, one would have to go through the same country's archives, which, if this is already forged, could just forge all the additional info as well.

[Broomstick]

How precisely is it possible to determine a person's age through medical examinations or such?

Not very. Past adulthood there are few definitive markers. Even something as easy to determine as menopause may occur as early as 40 or as late as 60 in normal people. My father is 80 but medical people mistake him for being in his late 60's, whereas my mother is late 70's but the home nurse who visited yesterday kept thinking she was in her 90's. Humans age at different rates (hence, that "Real Age" thing) due to genetics and environmental influences. It is impossible to look at an adult human body and give more than a crude estimate of age, and the older the adult to more difficult that estimate.

[Modax]

What about at the cellular level? For instance, what could you learn by looking at their telomere lengths?

[Chris OFarrell]

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't there something in the Bible after the flood that had God decreeing that no human would ever live beyond 120 years?

Is he going to get around to smiting this woman anytime soon?

[Broomstick]

What about at the cellular level? For instance, what could you learn by looking at their telomere lengths?

Probably not. Telomeres decrease in length based on number of cell divisions, which probably varies considerably due to differing metabolism and cell types, and may well vary from the start of life due to genetic differences. As the years go by it wouldn't surprise me if any initial differences magnify, which may account for part of the differences in "physical" age between people of the same chronological age. In any case, I don't think are quite there with the science and tech to do this. Maybe in the future.