--- title: 116-year-old Italian Woman Is Now The Oldest Living Person description: At 116, Emma Morano is now the oldest person in the world; she is also the only person whose life has been part of three centuries. canonical: https://time.com/4337417/new-oldest-person/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-16T18:33:45.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:47:42.229Z og:title: 116-year-old Woman Credits Eggs and Being Single For Long Life og:description: She's now the oldest person in the world. og:url: https://time.com/4337417/new-oldest-person/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7c4a1c5a186d06c9/698893523c1639777645d464/emma-morano-oldest-living-person.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: TOPSHOT-ITALY-OLDEST-PERSON-MORANO og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 116-year-old Woman Credits Eggs and Being Single For Long Life twitter:description: She's now the oldest person in the world. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7c4a1c5a186d06c9/698893523c1639777645d464/emma-morano-oldest-living-person.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Oldest Person In the World Attributes Her Long Life to Eating Eggs and Being Single > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=0547ab82-2b8f-4adb-86d4-60294563cde2&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now [Watch (HLS stream): A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uJFYIrvP.m3u8) (3:13)  _Published 2014-08-20. A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium._  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang May 16, 2016 6:33 PM UTC  Emma Morano, 116, poses for AFP photographer in Verbania, North Italy, on May 14, 2016\. Emma Morano is the oldest living person in the world, and the only one left who has touched three centuries. (OLIVIER MORIN/AFP/Getty Images) Emma Morano, 116, poses for AFP photographer in Verbania, North Italy, on May 14, 2016\. Emma Morano is the oldest living person in the world, and the only one left who has touched three centuries. (OLIVIER MORIN/AFP/Getty Images) OLIVIER MORIN—AFP/Getty Images  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang May 16, 2016 6:33 PM UTC Ask the [oldest living person in the world](http://time.com/4329257/new-world-oldest-person-italy-emma-morano/) — a tiny, 116-year-old Italian woman — what [the key to her longevity is](http://time.com/4138476/aging-alzheimers-disease/) and her response might surprise you. The [Guinness World Records](http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2016/5/guinness-world-records-announces-emma-martina-luigia-morano-as-worlds-oldest-liv-428983) confirmed on Monday that Emma Morano of Verbania, Italy is [now the oldest living person](http://time.com/4329079/susannah-mushatt-jones-oldest-person-dies/) at 116 years and 169 days old. The spry supercentenarian was born on November 29, 1899, making her the only person whose life has touched three centuries. In a 2015 interview with the [New York ](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/world/raw-eggs-and-no-husband-since-38-keep-her-young-at-115.html?%5Fr=2)[_Times_](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/world/raw-eggs-and-no-husband-since-38-keep-her-young-at-115.html?%5Fr=2), Morano shared that she attributes her long life to eating three raw eggs a day — she has since gone down to two eggs a day — since she was in her teens (a doctor recommended it for anemia.) She also largely credits her impressive life span with being single. Although Morano had many “suitors” following the end of an unhappy marriage in 1938, she never remarried. “I didn’t want to be dominated by anyone,” Morano said. When Morano was told that she now held the title of oldest person alive, she told the [_Telegraph_](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/13/the-secret-to-longevity-is-eating-two-raw-eggs-a-day-says-newly/) via her caretaker, Rosi Santoni, “My word, I’m as old as the hills.” ## Transcript Sexual pleasure is only one part of what men and women want from each other. They want intimacy, they want closeness, they want understanding, they want comfort, they want fun, and they want somebody who really cares about them beyond going to bed with them, and I think people are always seeking that. In every generation. [ MUSIC ] My name is Shirley Zussman. I just reached a hundred years of age, and I am a practicing sex therapist. I was invited with my husband to a lecture in New Jersey, in 1966. Masters and Johnson were the speakers. No body knew about them. Human sexual response had just been published, what I saw was a couple who will say that people had problems in an area in their lives that was very important and they were recognizing that it was all not just. Glamorous and wonderful to be sexual. One had to almost had to learn how to be a good partner and to endure the pleasure not only for yourself but for each other. And I thought we can do that. Why can't we do that? And we applied for training with Masters and Johnson at that time. The patients that came to us were people who read the paper. The only way they do anything about the work that was being done there. And the problems they came with, was somewhat different than the problems they come with today. Mostly, women came because would put out orgasmic, they didn't know how to achieve an orgasm, but they wanted one. It was so over that ,. Goal they had for themselves and how do I get there. That was one Masters and Johnson's contribution that there was a relatively simple way to start learning about your body. In other words, get, get to know your, who you are sexually and physically and that was. And encouragement for masturbation for learning what makes you feel good. I see a big change in the we view casual sex. In the 60's I think it was not just casual it was frantic. I'm shocked at the lack of connection with people; because of iPhones, even I love my iPhone. There is so much less actual physical connection, there's less touching, there's less talking, there's less holding, there's less looking, [ INAUDIBLE ]. People get pleasure from looking at each other. But the most common problem, I would say, in the sex therapy that I live in, is a lack of desire. You have to look at your priorities. You have to decide what is important to make you feel good about yourself and your life. And to help make your partner feel good and to establish something that is gratifying that really fills a need that we all have to be close to somebody. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4337417/new-oldest-person/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4337417/new-oldest-person/"},"headline":"The Oldest Person In the World Attributes Her Long Life to Eating Eggs and Being Single","datePublished":"2016-05-16T18:33:45.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:47:42.229Z","description":"As confirmed by the Guinness World Records","url":"https://time.com/4337417/new-oldest-person/","keywords":["Newsfeed","society","Aging"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7c4a1c5a186d06c9/698893523c1639777645d464/emma-morano-oldest-living-person.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7c4a1c5a186d06c9/698893523c1639777645d464/emma-morano-oldest-living-person.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TOPSHOT-ITALY-OLDEST-PERSON-MORANO","caption":"TOPSHOT-ITALY-OLDEST-PERSON-MORANO","creditText":"OLIVIER MORIN—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4337417/new-oldest-person/","name":"The Oldest Person In the World Attributes Her Long Life to Eating Eggs and Being Single"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"A 100-Year-Old Sex Therapist on Having Good Sex, Then and Now","description":"A practicing sex therapist in New York City, Dr. Shirley Zussman has witnessed everything from the legalization of the contraceptive birth control pill to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s to the rise of internet porn in the new millenium.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/uJFYIrvP/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-08-20T13:40:15.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uJFYIrvP.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4337417/new-oldest-person/","duration":"PT3M13S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4337417/new-oldest-person/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```