He just turned 101. A senior from Poland has one recipe for longevity.

• Born in 1924, Mr. Leopold still walks and goes to church every day.
• He had 6 children, 12 grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and 4 great-great-grandchildren.
• He considers avoiding cigarettes to be the secret to longevity.

As reported by "Fakt," Leopold Czyż from Jastrzębie-Zdrój recently celebrated his 101st birthday, which fell on Tuesday, July 22. He thus became the only man among the city's centenarians.

Despite his advanced age, the senior still impresses with his exceptional vitality and independence:

• he walks every day,
• descends from the first floor on his own,
• crosses the street,
• walks along the promenade to the church,
• returns home on his own.

When asked about the secret of his longevity, Mr. Leopold replied in one sentence:

- It's probably because I didn't smoke cigarettes .

The birthday boy was born in 1924 in Rybnik and has an impressive family, including:

• six children,
• twelve grandchildren,
• seventeen great-grandchildren,
• four great-great-grandchildren.

His life was also marked by history: in 1939, at just 15 years old, he joined the Polish army to defend his homeland. After his father's death in 1941, he was forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht, but after some time he managed to return to the Polish Army, where he served under the command of General Stanisław Maczek.

For many years, Mr. Czyż was also a musician of the Jas-Mos Coal Mine Orchestra.

The mayor of Jastrzębie-Zdrój, Michał Urgoł, visited his home with congratulations, along with an official delegation, wishing the senior citizen strength and health for many years to come.

The human age limit is shifting. Next: 130 years

Experts are increasingly predicting that the limit of human life has not yet been reached and that in the coming years, if we are not hit by another pandemic, we should expect further records in terms of life expectancy.

Currently, the longest-living people reach the age of 110 to 120. This limit may be exceeded, predicts David McCarthy of the University of Georgia in the USA.

Professor McCarthy and his colleagues determined that people born in 1910 would be able to break new life expectancy records. This was due to improvements in the quality of life and the development of medicine, especially after World War II.

"The longest-living people born in 1910 are now over 110 years old. In the next decade, we'll know whether some of them will live past 122. Some may even live to be 130," says Professor David McCarthy.

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