I'll be amazed if I reach 60, let alone 70 or more. This is simply based on everything I put my body through in the past and all the problems I've been having recently. I'm only 40 now, but I have been having the health problems one would expect from a 60-65 year old.

Oldest person in the world: Russia claims woman is 128 and she's NEVER had one happy day

some people exist for a long time but how long do they actually live?

My religious cousin had bypass surgery, he's overweight, and has diabetes problems. He's 52 and expects to live much longer. He told me people live to 120 nowadays, and in Biblical times they lived 100's of years! (He said he will definitely work into his 80's. He's been working at a comic book store for years and years at minimum wage, 26 hours a week. I can't imagine working that job into your 80s.)

My sense is that he believes these things just so he can cheat on his diet. He says he doesn't eat sugary foods, etc., anymore, but I've seen him eat pizza, fried chicken, cake, cheetos, hot dogs, etc., and he says he weighs more now than he ever has. One doctor chewed him out for his bad diet, so he switched doctors because she just "wouldn't believe him". Now he's on insulin, and his potassium is skyrocketing. I looked it up, and high potassium could be from kidney failure, uncontrolled diabetes, or heart medication. The best scenario seems to be the heart medication, but he's been on it for quite some time and only recently had the high potassium (and recently has the diabetes been more and more out of control).

He tends to be prone to wishful, magical thinking, so I don't know how much of his health problems I can blame on religion, but he has said multiple times that he is just putting it in "Jesus's hands" (that is, not worrying about it and possibly doing little to help himself), and Jesus is the reason he survived his bypass surgery (apparently not the doctors who discovered the blockages before a heart attack, nor the surgeons who performed the surgery).

I wish there was something more I could do to help, but it doesn't appear there is anything I can do.

A light smoker till 117. She met Van Gogh

You fail to mention that Jeanne Louise Calment also held the record of being the youngest person in the world. It’s quite amazing to have both records.

Wrong! I remember reading that some dude Methuselah lived 969 years, and a shipping magnate under the name of Noah lived 950 years...

How could guinness verify the other dude was the oldest? How could he know? '

Yes, and she also surpassed that biblical thing that says that people will not surpass 120.

That would mean I'm just at the cusp of mid-life! Woot!

No, wait....69 more years?!