The world’s oldest man, a Japanese who said his secret to a long life was not to smoke, drink or overdo it, has died at the age of 112.
Yasutaro Koide, born on March 13, 1903, died two months short of his 113th birthday.
Koide worked as a tailor when he was younger and was recognised by the Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest man in August.
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare said he died early today at a hospital in Nagoya, central Japan, where he had been treated for chronic heart problems.
He is succeeded as the oldest man in Japan by 111-year-old Tokyo native Masamitsu Yoshida. It was not immediately known whether Yoshida is now the oldest male in the world.
Japan, a rapidly aging country, has more than 61,000 centenarians, according to the nation’s family registration records. Nearly 90 per cent are women.
The world’s oldest person is an American woman, 116-year-old Susannah Mushatt Jones of Brooklyn, New York.
