People Found to Live Longer Healthier Live in the "Blue Zones"

Wednesday, November 05, 2008 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer
Tags: longevity, health news, Natural News

(NaturalNews) Researcher Dan Buettner says he has discovered four regions of the world where people live the longest, healthiest lives - and the lifestyle factors that make this the case.

The so-called "Blue Zones" include Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula; and the Seventh-day Adventist population in Loma Linda, Calif. These are not just places where people make it frequently into their hundreds, but also where old age is not normally marked by physical and cognitive decline.

Buettner notes that much of the world used to have this life expectancy pattern, before the globalization of the Western lifestyle.

"I think these pockets of longevity are disappearing," he said.

Buettner has identified several lifestyle factors that he believes to be responsible for the long, healthy lives of people in Blue Zones. The Okinawan diet, for example, is largely plant-based and includes eight times more fermented soy than the typical North American diet. The culture emphasizes respect for elders, and people can expect support from their family and neighbors throughout their lives. In addition, people in Okinawa tend to have a very well defined sense of life purpose.

"It's very easy to trivialize a sense of purpose," Buettner said, "but it's a very important determinant of longevity."

Knowing why you wake up in the morning increases your life expectancy by seven or eight years, he noted. This may explain why more people die in the year that they retire than in any year after their first.

In addition to diet and a sense of purpose, Buettner identified regular low-intensity physical activity and strong relationships with family and friends as key predictors of longevity. He points to the fact that Seventh Day Adventists - who are mostly vegetarian, have strong support networks and always take one day off from any kind of work each week - live an average of a decade longer than the general population.

"Once again," he said, "you have a heterogeneous population vastly outliving their cohorts for one and one reason alone: their lifestyle."

Sources for this story include: features.us.reuters.com.