cheese-wire.com

It’s not often cheese is credited with health-giving properties, but if Sakhan Dosova is to believed, it’s a key ingredient in helping her reach the ripe old age of 130.

Dosova, from Karaganda in northern Kazakhstan, has a recorded birthdate of March 27, 1879, which if true, puts her 16 years older than the next eldest known human currently living.

The mother of 10 says she has never visited a doctor or taken medicine and puts her good health down to her sense of humour — and, of course, cheese.

Twice-married Dosova, who reached retirement age at the beginning of World War II, says a diet of ground wheat and kurt, a salty dried cottage cheese, has kept her going

“I don’t have any special secret. I’ve never taken pills and if I was ill, I used granny’s remedies to cure me,” she said, according to media reports.

“I have never eaten sweets. I don’t like them. But I love kurt,” she says.

Dosova’s age came to light during a recent census in her home town. Researchers traced her appearance on Stalin’s first census in 1926 aged 47.

Some Kazakh officials have called Dosova’s age into question, but local statistics expert Nailya Dosayeva says there is no doubt she is about to turn 130.

“She has an old passport and documents which are genuine, and based on these we can judge her age as being correct,” she said, according the the Daily Mirror newspaper.