World's oldest and tallest women are both dead

The world's oldest person, American Besse Cooper, died on Tuesday at the age of 116, CNN reported.

Amazingly, AFP reported that a Chinese woman who was certified as the tallest in the world has died, an official from her hometown said on Wednesday.

Yao Defen was 2.33 metres tall

Yao Defen, of eastern China's Anhui province, was listed as the world's tallest woman by Guinness World Records in 2010, when she stood 2.33 metres high, according to the record compiler's website.

“Yao Defen died in the middle of last month,” a spokesman for the government of Shucha township, where Yao lived, told AFP by telephone.

The official, who refused to give his name, said that he was not certain of the cause of her death.

Yao, recorded as the third tallest woman who ever lived, was 40 when she died. Her gigantism was reportedly due to a tumour in her pituitary gland.

An Anhui newspaper reported that she died on November 13, having reached a height of 2.36 metres, adding that she was already more than two metres tall when she was 15.
 

Besse Cooper passes away at 116

Meanwhile, the oldest person Cooper passed away in Monroe, Georgia, east of Atlanta, her son Sidney told the television network.

Cooper "had a long, good life. She went very easy," he said.

Guinness World Records gave Cooper the distinction of being the oldest living human in January 2011. She was born August 26, 1896 in Tennessee.

When asked for her secret to longevity, Cooper once said: "I mind my own business and I don't eat junk food."

She married her husband Luther in 1924, and they had four children. As of her 114th birthday, Cooper has 12 grandchildren and more than a dozen great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In the same year Cooper was born, the first Dow Jones Industrial Average was published, the first modern Olympic games were held and the first Ford vehicle was built.

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