Tibet used to be considered as an uninhabitable region; however, today, there are 79 centenarians, 1,298 elders aged between 90 and 99, and 18,813 elders aged between 80 and 89. Tibetan regional government has prepared 6 million yuan to offer as "health subsidy" to elders aged above 80, averagely 300 yuan each.

An elder in Lhasa celebrated his 116th birthday on last March 16, and the current Guinness world records of the age the longest-living person is only 116 years old.

Currently, the life expectancy of Tibetan residents is 67 years old, much longer than the figure of 35.5 in Tibet in 1959. The population in the region has exceeded 2.8 million. Though the natural conditions on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau remain as bad as they used to be, the relatively advanced medicare here has provided an environment suitable for humans to live in, obviously.

(Chinanews.cn April 24, 2007)