104 YEARS OLD-ELIZABETH SULLIVAN, HER DOCTOR IS DR PEPPER

                                          Centenarian Elizabeth Sullivan

This is one of those stories that imparts common sense wisdom, makes us smile, and comes from a "regular" person.

There are no complicated research studies to confuse us or contradict each others results, no fancy words.

This is real simple and there is much wisdom found in the words of how Elizabeth Sullivan lives her life.

For this Texas woman, the best doctor in the world is Dr Pepper.

Elizabeth Sullivan, who turned 104 on Wednesday, March 18, 2015, says drinking three cans of the soda a day is one of the secrets to her remarkable longevity.

Feisty and fit as a fiddle at 104, Sullivan said she does not need the advice of real doctors. Instead, she keeps another doctor on hand. Dr Pepper.

Sullivan, started gulping the trademark "23 flavors" after she turned 60. "I started drinking them about 40 years ago," said Sullivan. "Three a day. Every doctor that sees me says they'll kill you, but they die and I don't. So there must be a mistake somewhere."

She was 103 when she talked to the Star-Telegram in 2014 about her Dr Pepper habit, "When I hurt my ankle and I had to go to the doctor he asked me about my food, I said I don’t like tea or coffee, so I drink three Dr Peppers a day. He said ‘That will kill you.’ About 15 years later I had to change doctors because he died. I was still drinking three Dr Peppers a day, and I still do.”

Just What The Dr Ordered

But to Sullivan, the slogan may as well have been the doctor's orders. She even drinks Dr Pepper in the morning.

“People try to give me coffee for breakfast," she told CBSDFW.com.   "Well, I’d rather have a Dr Pepper.”

                  

For her birthday this year, she got a surprise cake shaped like Dr Pepper and a gift basket from Larry Young, CEO of Dr Pepper Snapple Group.

"When you live to be 104 and still can talk to nice people, you deserve some Dr. Pepper, but I never expected this," she said of all the attention.

Elizabeth, who taught math at a Paschal High School for 15 years, said she also doesn't bother with a lot of modern technology. She recently gave up driving, but shows no signs of slowing down.

"Man I'm feeling good. I'm glad I'm still here, living in my own house. I'm glad I'm not in a rest home. Glad I can read books and watch TV and have people come by and say hello," she told CBS.

"They can't find anything wrong with me," Sullivan added to the Star-Telegram. "I'm just thankful that I don't take but one pill a day."

One pill, and three Dr Peppers. Not bad for anyone, at any age.

Sullivan's three-Peppers-a-day practice may come from the company's advertisement slogan during the 1920s and 30s, "Drink a bite to eat at 10, 2, and 4." The campaign was based on research in the 1920s and 1930s which found that sugar could provide a pick-me-up during typically low-energy times of 10:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. according to the Dr Pepper Museum.

During the year 1885 in Waco, Texas, a young pharmacist called Charles Alderton invented the soft drink "Dr Pepper".

Alderton worked at a place called Morrison's Old Corner Drug Store and carbonated drinks were served at the soda fountain

The distinctive Dr. Pepper taste remains unique 125 years later. Only three people know the 23 flavors that make up the soft drink. "We keep the Dr. Pepper recipe secure in a vault in the state-of-the art Beverage Innovation Center. The room is under 24-hour video surveillance and only one person in the world has access to this room," says Jason Genthner, a company spokesperson. "The recipe has been a mystery for more than a century as fans and competitors have unsuccessfully attempted to identify individual tastes."

The Dr Pepper recipe is also allegedly divided into two parts, each of which is locked up in a different Dallas bank so that no single person can ever be in possession of the whole formula. (Coca-Cola is rumored to follow a similar policy.) 

Here's another oddball Pepper fact: The period after the "Dr" went missing in 1950 when the company changed the font used to write the name. When presented in this new style, the lower case "r" consisted of a small slanted line with a dot at its upper right. Well and good, but when a period was trailed after that new-fangled "r", the period and the r's dot seemed to form a colon and alter the "r" into an "i". 

With the period there, "Dr. Pepper" looked like "Di: Pepper". The solution was to drop the period. 

The font has changed again since then, but the period remains missing.

Everyone has heard the advice, "Drink eight, 8-ounce glasses of water a day." That's about 1.9 liters.

Just keep in mind that the rule should be reframed as: "Drink eight, 8-ounce glasses of fluid a day," because all fluids count toward the daily total.

Before I read about this story, I have been mixing Dr Pepper each day with my water for the past year. 

I drink a lot of bottled water daily, but I also like the taste of Dr Pepper.  Tastes better, seems like a small vice in this world of so many temptations, and who knows, it even may be good for your health.

Sullivan's story just confirms what a lot of us suspect: when your time is up, it's up, and when you're destined to stick around and drink more Dr Pepper, well, it doesn't matter what you eat and drink, just do it in moderation, you're going to keep living.