The oldest person in the world has just turned 117 thanks to a foolproof formula of total and utter badassery.

Emma Morano has lived across three centuries, seen out two world wars and sadly, outlived all her siblings and friends.

Still, Morano, who hails from Verbania in northern Italy, lives a relatively independent life in her own flat and happily entertains yearly visits from photographers keen to snap her blowing out a triple-digit birthday candle and journalists who want to know all the secrets to her longevity.

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Her method, she says, is two-fold. Firstly, she is not afraid to be single. She kicked out her abusive husband in 1938 - a time when it was almost of unheard of for women to stand up to their spouses.

Morano recounts how she married a year after the death of her only child at the age of six months.

"He told me: 'If you're lucky you marry me, or I'll kill you'. I was 26 years old. I got married," she told La Stampa five years ago.

Divorce was not even made legal in Italy until 1970, so Morano technically remained married to her abuser until he died in 1978. Her one true love was a World War One soldier who died in battle, and after her ill-fated marriage she never chanced another relationship.

“I didn’t want to be dominated by anyone,” she told the New York Times in 2014.

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Her blueprint for remarkable durability is also down to raw eggs – two a day to be precise.

Morano ate three eggs a day – two of them raw – for more than 90 years, The Telegraph reports, after she was diagnosed with anaemia at the age of 20.

"Emma has always eaten very few vegetables, very little fruit,” her doctor, Carlo Bava, told AFP. "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."

She has since cut down to two eggs a day, BBC News reports.

Of course, genes do come into play – Morano’s mother lived to 91 and her sisters all reached 100.