Kamato Hongo, a Japanese woman believed to have been the oldest person in the world, died Friday of pneumonia on the southern island of Kyushu. She was 116.
Hongo had been admitted to a hospital in the city of Kagoshima, near her home, several weeks earlier.
Hongo was famous in her region for her unusual habit of sleeping 48 hours at a time and then staying awake for two days, a pattern that she began after she had hip surgery at the age of 110. Family members discovered that she was able to ingest food even in her sleep and fed her small meals around the clock to sustain her.
Her relatives never allowed Hongo's unusual sleeping pattern to be disturbed, even when it was inconvenient. She was asleep, for example, when the certificate arrived from the Guinness Book of World Records in September 2002 officially recognizing her as the oldest person in the world. (She succeeded Maude Farris-Luse, an American who died in March 2002 at 115.)
Hongo also slept through her birthday two years ago, exhausted by festivities the day before as Japan celebrated its annual Respect for the Aged Day. The mayor of Kagoshima was among dozens of visitors who came to honor Hongo at her home on that day.
She was often asked about her diet, which consisted primarily of fish, rice, pork, green tea and rice wine, with occasional snacks of unrefined brown sugar. She attributed her health to her optimistic attitude and "not moping around." Even though she spent most of her time in bed in recent years, she exercised regularly by propping herself up to practice a traditional Japanese dance that focused on hand movements. Her great-granddaughter, Tomoko Kurauchi, 18, refreshed Hongo's bright pink nail polish every day.
Family members occasionally suggested possible reasons for their matriarch's good health.
"The key is not storing up stress," said Hongo's grandson, Tsuyoshi Kurauchi, in an interview with Associated Press last year when he was 45. "If you do that, you can eat or drink anything."
Gerontology researchers agree that low stress levels and good nutrition are leading factors in support of a long, healthy life.
"But, don't expect that eating fish every day will guarantee that you can imitate Kamato Hongo," said Dr. Stephen Coles, director of the Los Angeles Gerontology Research Group www.grg.org, an international organization based at UCLA that tracks people who are older than 100. He said that "90% of longevity is the result of genes."
