The real question is why did it take them 8 years to find a vegan that was over 100?

She does well on other aspects of longevity: (i) calorie restriction, (ii) stress control and (iii) exercise.

When my husband and I got married in 1922, we took some classes at the camp grounds and they taught us to eat two meals a day and walk fifteen minutes every two hours.

The oldest man in the U.S. died last year at 120 something and he ate only 2 meals a day: breakfast and lunch. He didn't touch anything after lunch. Two meals a day would amount to calorie restriction.

And walking a good distance everyday would keep her in good shape. But she also has stress under control, being a devout 7th Day Adventist (what many people miss) -- this gives her a sense of mission as well as fulfillment, something that modernity does not instill in people.

When asked how one might live to 108 and keep close to God, Dinwiddie replied, “Read the Bible... it's all in there. People say to me, 'you don’t have any aches or pains and you’re feeling great at 108, what do you do?' Well, do what God tells you to do. It is all in the Bible.”

Her cortisol and other hormones would tend be in optimal range. In short, her secret is CR and Tebowing. I wouldn't be surprised by any of this. Nor should anyone who believes in Norman Vincent Peale.

Plenty of anecdotes abound of centarians who smoke, drink, played in polluted rivers, ate blah blah blah blah blah. You gotta do what works for you and makes you feel healthy. Perhaps she never drank the soy kool-aid and eats mostly home made food. Maybe she's just blessed with a family line of people who DID eat healthy and she's just enjoying the fruits of her epigenetic wealth. Who knows how healthy her children are.

I would be more interested to know, out of all the 108 year olds living today, how many are vegans or vegetarians for 80+ years..

I sincerely doubt that she has been a vegan that long. I suspect she is misunderstanding what veganism is. It barely even existed as a concept when she claims she started the diet and when it was referenced during that time, it simply meant the same thing as vegetarian. I wouldn't take it seriously unless she can provide some real evidence she has been vegan that long. Either way, the importance of those nutrients is primarily during pregnancy and early childhood development. And of the people who are that old, most did not eat any particularly special diet.

She's just one example. She can't explain it herself (saying she does it because it's in the Bible.)

There's no such thing as luck, and I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and say she isn't lying. In the end it just reinforces the notion that we all need to find what works for us as individuals.

I made the Vegan Mistake for about 8 years, and though I would never recommend that anyone go down such a path of nutritional martyrdom, I will say that I would undoubtedly have been far healthier if instead of the grains, soy, and other crap, I had just built a diet around tubers and fruit. Many deficiencies would still have been encountered, but I suspect that the mineral deficiencies I ended up developing would not have occurred/been as severe.

I recently spoke with a vegan and told her as much but she looked at me like I was speaking another language while she ate a plate of tofu. Can't say I didn't try.

Now, a tuber/fruit diet + plenty of pastured eggs would probably not result in any deficiencies.

This question aptly demonstrates the amazing power of the single-case anecdote to shut down critical thinking. The longevity of this 108-year-old person who may be a vegan tells us very little about that person's life in its entirety. Including her genetic endowment, or her mindset.

I always wonder if longevity is actually good indication of the health of the individual. Maybe running up a flight of stairs, catching a ball or playing a game of chess is a better indicator. I mean there really are lot of very old alcoholic chain smokers still alive at the moment.

Is length of life actually going to indicate anything? For one if we are talking in the context of a Seventh-day Adventist then they would confirm the soverignity of God over the span of their lives anyway (as I do myself), so the number of year matters little in comparison to the quality of the living years and the will of God. Lest we forget Job (אִיוֹב ʾ iyobh)!

At the end of the day, people who eat more varied vegetables are probably going to do better than those who don't. I think this would not be wrong to say. I always think veganism is less about the removal of animal products from their diet and more that they just eat more vegetables then the average-joe-canine. I highly doubt you would meet a 108 year old women who lived on Quorn her whole life.

The one thing I would like to know is how come every vegan I have ever met has a tattoo? Maybe it's actually the ink and community spirit that keeps them alive longer.

BoingBoing had a related article a while back, "Want to live a long life? Ignore centenarians, watch 7th Day Adventists": http://boingboing.net/2011/08/05/want-to-live-a-long-life-ignore-centenarians-watch-seventh-day-adventists.html

The rational was basically that centenarians were more likely to have a genetic factor in their longevity rather than a dietary factor.

http://thevegantruth.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-compilation-of-long-term-vegans-our.html- here's over 50 long-term vegans

Hate to say it because I try to remain open minded to all points of view, but I just don't believe this. This article and the other web sites that mention it (mostly references to this short article on pro-vegan and pro-vegetarian blogs) give little detail about her diet besides one quote from her, "fruits, vegetables, and nuts. It's all there in the Bible."

This is actually beyond veganism since if this is really all she eats since there aren't even any grains. There is nowhere near enough nutrition in this diet by any standards, and nowhere near enough calories for a younger person unless her diet was primarily nuts. Perhaps what she means is that she eats "a lot" of fruits, vegetables and nuts, but other things as well, kind of like that interview with the NFL player who said he is vegan, except when he eats chicken.

The Bible promotes many foods besides fruits, vegetables, and nuts, there is a "Bible diet" or "Maker's diet", but there is a long list of other foods on it, including grains and meat.

Maybe she has been eating this way for the past 10 years or something (since age 98) but I'd be absolutely shocked if this has been her diet for 90+ years and, sorry to say, won't believe it unless someone comes up with more facts.

I was vegan for about 6 weeks and stopped because I felt like I was going to die. A lot of people try a vegan diet and feel great for a few years and then crash. Many celebs have tried a vegan diet to fight cancer and subsequently died. There is no human culture that has survived exclusively on plants, we have just not evolved to handle it.