This
is how it is going to be everywhere. The benefits are plainly
obvious and good health at a hundred is plausible and possible. Meat
once a week is good enough light alcohol on occasion is fine and
beneficial and working a couple hours in your garden is a really good
plan. I am not organized for that yet but it is on my list over the
next three years.
I
must say though that reaching my age, one discovers that all those
unhappy people who drink and smoke are no longer about anyway and it
be comes really easy to develop sound habits.
And
yes, nuts are a great idea as they are just about the only thing that
one can eat without preparation or the removal of a wrapper. They
even have nutritional benefit.
So
install a sack of nuts at your work station to handle those munchies.
How to Live to a
Ripe Old Age
Cathy Newman
National Geographic
News
Published December 27,
2012
Cento di questi
giorni. May you have a hundred birthdays, the Italians say, and some
of them do.
So do other people in
various spots around the world—in Blue Zones, so named
by National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner for the blue ink that
outlines these special areas on maps developed over more than a
decade. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic
Society.)
In his second edition
of his book The Blue Zones, Buettner writes about a newly
identified Blue Zone: the Greek island of Ikaria
(map). National Geographic magazine Editor at Large Cathy Newman
interviewed him about the art of living long and well. (Watch
Buettner talk about how to live to a hundred.)
Q. You've written
about Blue Zones in Sardinia, Italy; Loma Linda, California;
Nicoa, Costa Rica; and Okinawa, Japan. How did you find your way to
Ikaria?
A. Michel Poulain, a
demographer on the project, and I are always on the lookout for new
Blue Zones. This one popped up in 2008. We got a lead from a Greek
foundation looking for biological markers in aging people. The census
data showed clusters of villages there with a striking proportion of
people 85 or older. (Also see blog: "Secrets of the
Happiest Places on Earth.")
In the course of your
quest you've been introduced to remarkable individuals like
100-year-old Marge Jetton of Loma Linda, California, who starts
the day with a mile-long [0.6-kilometer] walk, 6 to 8 miles [10 to 13
kilometers] on a stationary bike, and weight lifting. Who is the
most memorable Blue Zoner you've met?
Without question it's
Stamatis Moraitis, who lives in Ikaria. I believe he's 102. He's
famous for partying. He makes 400 liters [100 gallons] of wine from
his vineyards each year, which he drinks with his friends. His house
is the social hot spot of the island. (See "Longevity Genes
Found; Predict Chances of Reaching 100.")
He's also the Ikarian
who emigrated to the United States, was diagnosed with lung cancer in
his 60s, given less then a year to live, and who returned to Ikaria
to die. Instead, he recovered.[
he has obviously been trying to drink himself to death ever since on
cheap wine – arclein ]
Yes, he never went
through chemotherapy or treatment. He just moved back to Ikaria.
Did anyone figure out
how he survived?
Nope. He told me he
returned to the U.S. ten years after he left to see if the American
doctors could explain it. I asked him what happened. "My doctors
were all dead," he said.
One of the common
factors that seem to link all Blue Zone people you've spoken with is
a life of hard work—and sometimes hardship. Your thoughts?
I think we live in a
culture that relentlessly pursues comfort. Ease is related to
disease. We shouldn't always be fleeing hardship. Hardship also
brings people together. We should welcome it.
Sounds like another
version of the fable of the grasshopper and the ant?
You rarely get
satisfaction sitting in an easy chair. If you work in a garden on the
other hand, and it yields beautiful tomatoes, that's a good feeling.
Can you talk about
diet? Not all of us have access to goat milk, for example, which you
say is typically part of an Ikarian breakfast.
There is nothing
exotic about their diet, which is a version of a Mediterranean diet,
which emphasizes vegetables, beans, fruit, olive oil, and
moderate amounts of alcohol. (Read more about Buettner's
work in Ikaria in National Geographic Adventure.)
All things in
moderation?
Not all things.
Socializing is something we should not do in moderation. The happiest
Americans socialize six hours a day.
The people you hang
out with help you hang on to life?
Yes, you have to
pay attention to your friends. Health habits are contagious. Hanging
out with unhappy people who drink and smoke is hazardous to your
health.[
our own society, at least here in Vancouver is noticeably changing
out bad habits bit by bit. In the meantime that advice is great]
So how has what you've
learned influenced your own lifestyle?
One of the big things
I've learned is that there's an advantage to regular
low-intensity activity. My previous life was setting
records on my bike. [Buettner holds three world records in distance
cycling.] Now I use my bike to commute. I only eat meat
once a week, and I always keep nuts in my office: Those who eat nuts
live two to three more years than those who don't.
You also write about
having a purpose in life.
Purpose is huge. I
know exactly what my values are and what I love to do. That's worth
additional years right there. I say no to a lot of stuff that would
be easy money but deviates from my meaning of life.
The Japanese you met
in Okinawa have a word for that?
Yes. Ikigai: "The
reason for which I wake in the morning."
Do you have a
non-longevity-enhancing guilty pleasure?
Tequila is my
weakness.
And how long would you
like to live?
I'd like to live to be
200.
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