THE world’s oldest living person has celebrated another birthday, as she turned 117 Tuesday.

    Italian woman Emma Morano is the last known person alive to have been born in the 19th century, and the oldest person on record in the world.

    She celebrated the landmark day by enjoying a birthday cake with her caretakers in her home in Verbania, a town in northern Italy on Lake Maggiore.

    Morano, who came into the world Nov. 29, 1899, last month revealed her unusual secrets for a long life.

    She also said she expects well-wishers from around the world to pay her a visit as she celebrates another landmark year.

    Morano revealed that she puts her longevity down to eating eggs and cookies daily — but hardly any fruit or vegetables.

    On a marble-topped chest of drawers in the room she has proudly displayed the Guinness World Records certificate declaring her to be the world’s oldest living person.

    There is also a photograph of her and her doctor Carlo Bava holding eggs: the secret to her long life appears to lie in eschewing all received medical wisdom.

    “I eat two eggs a day, and that’s it. And cookies. But I do not eat much because I have no teeth,” she said.

    The egg habit dates from when she was diagnosed with anaemia at 20 in the wake of World War I and a doctor advised her to eat three a day, two raw and one cooked.

    She maintained that regime for 90 years and is believed to have eaten over 100,000 eggs and counting.

    In scenes from the famous “Rocky Balboa” movies, Sylvester Stallone downs glasses of raw eggs as part of his training regime.

    “Emma has always eaten very few vegetables, very little fruit. When I met her, she ate three eggs per day, two raw in the morning and then an omelette at noon, and chicken at dinner,” said Bava, who has been her doctor for the past 27 years.

    Now she lives mostly on biscuits “and does not want to eat meat because she doesn’t like it anymore and someone told her it causes cancer,” he said.

    She is the eldest of eight children and has outlived all her younger siblings, but Morano is still some way off the previous record, held by France’s Jeanne Calment who lived to be 122.

    While Morano’s mind is alert, she is very deaf, speaks with difficulty and does not see well enough to watch television, spending her time instead either sleeping or snacking.(SD-Agencies)