Most of the research on
this subject seems to come from Dan Buettner, a National Geographic writer who has just released the second edition
of his book Blue Zones: Lessons for
living longer from people who’ve lived the longest. Buettner and other researchers have
discovered five “Blue Zones,” each culturally, genetically, and socially
different from the others, but sharing the characteristic of amazingly
long-lived residents. Sardinias’ Nuoro
province, for example, has the highest concentration of male centenarians
anywhere… and they live active, productive lives. Ikaria, Greece has the greatest population of
people who live to be over 90 of anywhere else on earth; their rate of heart
disease is less than 50 per cent that of the rest of the planet, and they
suffer from almost no dementia. Other “Blue
Zones” are Okinawa, Japan (highest average age of a population), the Nicoya
Peninsula in Costa Rica, and Loma Linda, California, a centre for Seventh Day Adventists.
Of
course, genetics play a part, but studies by some scientists that tried to
isolate the influence of heredity on long life, found that it played a much
less important role than previously thought.
The common factors among all these diverse cultures were mostly predictable:
daily exercise; a low-stress environment, almost always rural; meat as a
condiment, not a feature of the meal; a glass or two of red wine daily; a close
and engaged family and community.
While
this bare-bones summary does not do justice to Buettner’s work, and I highly
recommend his book for its fascinating examination of these happily long-lived
folks as much as for its conclusions, we can clearly see in broad strokes what
it takes to live healthy and maybe even long lives. The Slow Food Movement has always advocated
good, clean, well prepared food, eaten in a convivial setting with friends and
family. While the movement has never
claimed to be a path to longevity, it does claim that healthy eating produces
healthy lives; that longevity is a by-product should be no surprise.
There’s
one other notable observation in the research into Blue Zones: the rural areas where most of these
long-lived people reside are coming increasingly urbanized. The good news is that access to nearby modern
medical facilities has actually had a positive influence on their longevity. The bad news is that even with the
availability of health care, the length of life these people can expect has
begun to decline. The culprits, of
course, are the availability of supermarket foods and the encroachment of fast
food outlets, along with increased stress of traffic and a general erosion of
the rural, family-oriented social framework.
To learn more about
Pelham Slow Food (your path to a longer life?) contact Valerie Grabove at vgrabove@sympatico.ca
