TOKYO – The world’s oldest man, a Japanese, died Tuesday at the age of 112 after suffering chronic heart problems, officials said.

Yasutaro Koide had said his secret to a long life was not to smoke, drink or overdo it.

Koide, who was born on March 13, 1903, died two months short of his 113th birthday.

In the year he was born, the Wright brothers made their historic first flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and a modernizing Japan was embroiled in a dispute with Russia over Manchuria that would erupt into the Russo-Japanese War in early 1904.

Koide (pronounced “Ko-ee-deh”) worked as a tailor when he was younger. He was recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest man last August.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said he died at a hospital in Nagoya, central Japan, where he had been treated for heart problems.

Japan’s oldest man is now Masamitsu Yoshida, a 111-year-old Tokyo native who was born on May 30, 1904. It was not immediately known whether Yoshida is also the world’s oldest male.

Japan, a rapidly aging country, has more than 61,000 centenarians, according to the nation’s family registration records. Nearly 90 per cent are women.

The world’s oldest person is an American woman, 116-year-old Susannah Mushatt Jones of Brooklyn, New York.