Francis Perkins
The second oldest person in New York just celebrated her 112th birthday.
Louise Jean Signore, who was born on July 31, 1912, in Harlem, never thought she would live so long. In 2018, she told the New York Post that she used to look in awe at the 100-year-olds when she first joined her local senior center.
Six years later, she has outlived all of her younger siblings and joined the world's small but growing ranks of supercentenarians: people who live to 110 and over. Although supercentenarians are rare, more and more people are living past 100.
The number of centenarians in the US is estimated to more than quadruple from about 101,000 in 2024 to 422,000 in 2054, according to the Pew Research Center. It's no wonder, then, that many of us want to know their health secrets (although genes and luck likely play a big role in their longevity).
Here's what Signore thinks has helped her live to 112.
"That's why I am living. That's why I am OK because I didn't get married… no marriage, no children. I'd rather be single," she told The New York Post last week. "When you are married you have a lot of trouble."
She's not the only centenarian who attributes her longevity to never marrying. Business Insider previously reported that Joyce Preston, a 100-year-old from the UK, advises the same.
Research is mixed on whether a person's relationship status affects their longevity. It appears to come down to the pros and cons of individual circumstances. For example, one 2020 study published in the journal SSM - Population Health found people who were married were more likely to live two years longer than those who weren't.
However, another study, published in 2022 in JAMA Network Open featuring East Asian participants, found that married women didn't appear to benefit as much from marriage as men, possibly because they were expected to take on the majority of domestic labor and childcare.
Francis Perkins
Signore doesn't drink or smoke, has a strict routine, and has been very active throughout life.
She swam often and walked everywhere she could, the New York Post reported in 2018. When she retired, she started playing bocce (an Italian game similar to bowls) every morning, swimming and biking every afternoon, and line dancing in the evenings.
Even once she had to stop playing sports as her health deteriorated, she continued to do mobility exercises, and she still walks back and forth in her hallway to get some exercise when she can't get outside, her neighbor told the New York Post last week.
Signore also thinks her diet helped her reach 112.
"I was brought up with very good food," she told the New York Post in 2019. "Italian food is very good for you."
"We had salad, fruit, and vegetables every single night," she told the publication in 2018. "And we always had wine on the table. We only had cake and soda on Sundays."
She still adds tomato sauce, garlic, or olive oil to her meals, the Post reported in 2018 — key ingredients of the Mediterranean diet, which was voted the healthiest diet for the seventh year in a row this year.
