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Science Forum Index » Life Extension Forum » Can 'Blue Zones' Help Turn Back the Biological...
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| Tim Campbell... |
 Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 11:34 am |
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National Public Radio: Weekend Edition Sunday, June 8, 2008 ·
Sardinian sheepherders, Japanese grandmothers and Seventh-Day
Adventists in Los Angeles don't seem to have that much in common. But
within these groups there are some of the longest-lived people in the
world.
Author Dan Buettner has scoured the Earth — not for the fabled
Fountain of Youth — but for the key to a happy old age. He spent five
years visiting areas of the world where people tend to live longer,
healthier lives, areas he calls "Blue Zones." Buettner talks about
these hot spots and how he found them in a new book titled The Blue
Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the
Longest.
In researching the book, Buettner partnered with National Geographic
and the National Institute on Aging. Several demographers used census
data to pinpoint countries with the longest life expectancy.
The team then zeroed in on particular regions to locate Blue Zones
around the world.
Buettner says one such zone, the Italian island of Sardinia, has the
highest number of male centenarians in the world, while another,
Okinawa, Japan, has the longest disability-free life expectancy. In
Loma Linda, Calif., a community of Seventh Day Adventists has a life
expectancy that's nine to 11 years greater than that of other
Americans. And middle-age mortality is lowest on Costa Rica's Nicoya
Peninsula — where Buettner says middle-aged residents have about a
four-fold greater chance of reaching age 90 than people in the United
States do.
One of the most striking people he met during his travels was 104-year-
old Giovanni Sannai of Sardinia. "He was out chopping wood at 9 in the
morning," Buettner tells guest host Audie Cornish. "He started his day
with a glass of wine and there was a steady parade of people coming by
to ask his advice. That's one of the characteristics of the Sardinian
Blue Zone — the older you get, the more celebrated you are."
Buettner says that just for fun, he challenged him to arm wrestle.
"And he beat me."
In the United States, there's at least one Blue Zone, a small area
about 60 miles outside of Los Angeles. Buettner describes the Loma
Linda zone as more of a cultural Blue Zone than a geographical one,
and says it has the highest concentration of Adventists anywhere.
He says their plant-based diet is inspired directly from the Bible —
the book of Genesis tells of God providing his people with grains and
seeds — and that every week, they take a Sabbath Saturday they call
the "sanctuary in time."
"No matter how busy, no matter how stressed out they are, they'll take
that 24 hours and focus on their God," Buettner says. He also points
out that most of the Adventists he interviewed said 90 percent of
their immediate friends are also Adventists, so their social circle is
very much supportive of their cultural habits.
Although the aging process isn't fully understood, scientists do know
that there's a complex interplay of genetics and the environment that
factors into health and longevity. And Buettner says he was able to
identify shared patterns among people who live in Blue Zones.
"They didn't take any supplements or pills or wine extracts," he says.
"They tended to live in houses and environments that nudged them into
bursts of physical activity in kind of an effortless way.
"Okinawans sat on the floor; Sardinians lived in vertical houses; the
Costa Ricans had gardens. So they were doing little things all day
long that added up significantly over the years and the decades,"
Buettner says.
But, he says, the research also produced some unexpected findings.
"One of the idiosyncrasies we discovered is that people who eat nuts
four to five times a week, 2 ounces at a time, tend to live two to
three years longer than people who don't eat nuts. That was a big
surprise for us," Buettner says.
Some may think the secret to longevity lies in strenuous physical
activity, such as running marathons or triathlons or pumping iron. But
Buettner says he has identified four things people can do that can
potentially increase life expectancy: Create an environment that
encourages physical activity, set up your kitchen in such a way that
you're not overeating, cultivate a sense of purpose and surround
yourself with the right people.
"These are long-term fixes that have been shown over and over to add
not only more years of life, but better years of life," Buettner says. |
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