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Happy 115th Birthday to Spain's oldest woman ever

Fiona Govan
Fiona Govan - [email protected]
Happy 115th Birthday to Spain's oldest woman ever

Ana Vela Rubio has never been ill a day in her life and only moved into a nursing home at the age of 109 where staff say that she "does not look her age".

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Spain’s oldest woman ever has just celebrated her 115th birthday, just one year younger than Europe’s oldest person, Italian Emma Morano.

READ MORE: Emma Morano shares her secrets for a long life.

Vela was born in Córdoba on October 30th 1901 and moved to Barcelona in the 1940s to work as a dressmaker.

She now lives in La Verneda old people’s home in Barcelona, close to her daughter, who is 89-years-old. 

"She doesn't look 115. We have residents a lot younger who look older than Ana does," revealed David González, director of the La Verneda home for the elderly in Barcelona, in an interview with Efe.

"Although she's very special to us, we don't treat her as a 115-year-old lady; we treat her as one of the group.

"She's always been a super-friendly, super-affectionate and very optimistic person – perhaps that's the secret to her long life.

"And she's very physically strong, which has helped her get through the deaths of three of her four children, and of her brothers and sisters – the last of whom died this year."

In June, Vela took the crown as the longest living Spaniard ever recorded when she reached 114 years and 221 days old, surpassing the record of María Antonia Castro, an Andalucian who died twenty years ago.

Spaniards have one of the highest life expectancies in the world, which is often attributed to the Mediterranean diet and traditional slower pace of life. 

READ MORE: Six Spanish secrets on how to live to the age of one hundred

But one Spaniard who lived to the ripe old age of 107 did so on a diet that consisted mainly of... red wine. 

 

 

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