Researchers Say Eating This 1 Food Helped a Person Live to 117
Is it possible to live to age 117? Researchers have studied a person who did so, and they have identified the keys to living extremely long.
María Branyas Morera, the woman who lived to 117, ate one specific food that scientists think contributed to her long life. She ate three servings of yogurt every day. The scientists believe this helped her gut microbiome, reducing inflammation in her body. However, Morera's genes were also predisposed to health, and other lifestyle factors were key to her longevity. In other words, her genetics and habits combined to create the perfect storm.
The scientific study was published on September 24, 2025, by the journal Cell Reports. The article is called, "The multiomics blueprint of the individual with the most extreme lifespan."
"Extreme human lifespan, exemplified by supercentenarians, presents a paradox in understanding aging: despite advanced age, they maintain relatively good health," the researchers wrote. "To investigate this duality, we have performed a high-throughput multiomics study of the world’s oldest living person, interrogating her genome, transcriptome, metabolome, proteome, microbiome, and epigenome, comparing the results with larger matched cohorts."
Here's what they found.
Experts Identified These Keys to Extreme Old Age
Uncover the secrets of the world’s oldest person, María Branyas Morera:
— TimePie (focus on anti-aging science) (@TimePieChina) September 25, 2025
Researchers @ManelEsteller dive into her genetics, microbiome and lifestyle, find“She had an exceptional genome enriched in variants in genes that are associated with enhanced #lifespan in other species" pic.twitter.com/rVnBZoA3RP
The research subject was "the world’s oldest verified living person from January 17th, 2023, until her passing on August 19th, 2024, reaching the age of 117 years and 168 days. She was a Caucasian woman born on March 4th, 1907, in San Francisco, USA, from Spanish parents and settled in Spain since she was 8," the study found.
The researchers found that Morera lived so long because of genetics and also her healthy diet and lifestyle. Study co-author Dr. Manel Esteller provided these details to CNN:
- She never smoked.
- She never drank alcohol.
- She "liked to work until she" could not.
- She "lived in the countryside."
- She walked for 1 hour a day.
- Her diet included a lot of yogurt.
- Her diet was "Mediterranean style," with olive oil.
According to Fox News, Morera told Guinness these secrets of her old age, when she became the world's oldest living person:
- Order.
- Tranquility.
- "Good connection with family and friends."
- "Contact with nature."
- Emotional stability.
- No worries.
- No regrets.
- "Lots of positivity."
- "Staying away from toxic people."
The research study goes into great scientific detail about how Morera's genes facilitated old age. The language is scientific and includes findings such as, "one of the strongest enrichments was found in immune system-related categories," such as “T cell differentiation in thymus,” “response to bacterium,” “regulation of viral process,” and “antigen receptor-mediated signaling pathway.” The researchers also provided these additional lifestyle details:
- She had "good sleep habits."
- She had an "active social life. She largely enjoyed from quality time with family and friends, playing with dogs, reading books, growing a garden, walking, and playing the piano."
"Overall, these results suggest that the studied extreme supercentenarian possesses a microbiome that confers an increased likelihood for a healthy extended lifespan. This is also consistent with her adherence to a Mediterranean diet," the study found, labeling it as Bifidobacterium.
According to CNN, the research team identified a "gene associated with immune function and cognitive retention, a gene that influences how efficiently the body metabolizes fats, and another gene associated with aging brain health and heart disease," as factors in Morera's old age.