Mexican woman becomes world’s 'oldest person' at 127

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

A Mexican woman has become the world’s oldest person as she is celebrating her 127 birthday today, her friends and relatives say. She attributes her long life to eating chocolate, sleeping for days on end and never getting married, her family have said.

The woman, named Leandra Becerra Lumbreras, was reportedly born on 31 August 1887 – the same year as Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.

Her relatives told Mexico’s El Horizonte newspaper that she has sadly already seen five of her children and some of her 20 grandchildren die. Her granddaughter, Miriam Alvear, 43 said in El Horizonte: “She is entirely lucid; she blows your mind with stories from the revolution.”

Lumbreras has however lost her birth certificate and so is not officially recognised as the world’s oldest person, who is Misao Okawa, aged 116 from Japan.