Blue Zones: What we can learn from the world's oldest people

- February 17, 2014

In 2008, an American writer and explorer named Dan Buettner published a book titled
The Blue Zone: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest.
lived longer). This book, which was an extension of a report Buettner wrote for National
Geographic in 2005 about longevity, contained information on five regions in the world
where people lived for an unusually long time (often more than 100 years). years, as
evidenced by verifiable birth certificates). These five regions, which Buettner called
“Blue Zones,” are:

- The Barbagia region of Sardinia, Italy

The tropical islands of Okinawa in Japan
The Seventh Adventist community in Loma Linda, California
The small island of Ikaria in Greece
The Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica

Understanding that only 20 percent of a person's lifespan is determined by genetics,

Buettner and his research team began monitoring the diets and lifestyles of these Blue
Zone centenarians in hopes of unlocking the secrets of their longevity. His book is, at
its core, an exploration of the recurring tendencies he found while interviewing and
living among them. These trends were:
Frequent natural exercise

The most significant lifestyle factor shared by blue zone centenarians, Buettner
reported, was the frequency and gentleness of their exercise. These people, who often
maintain their own gardens and farms, routinely exercise for more than five hours a
day. However, their exercise was always based on natural movements such as
moderate walking, lifting light weights, and tilling the land. Comparatively, extreme
exercise like weight lifting and running a marathon did not exist.

Simple Plant-Based Diets

All centenarians adopted a simple diet that was rich in fruits and vegetables (especially
legumes) and low in fat, meat, and refined sugar. They preferred goat's milk to cow's
milk, drank alcohol in moderation (one or two glasses of wine a day with food was
common), and only ate foods like meat and cheese about five times a month, if they
were lucky. Many of the plants they ate were grown by themselves, and very few of
them ate fruits or vegetables that were out of season.

Here is a more specific list of the favorite foods of centenarians in each blue zone:

Sardinia – Bread, vegetables, small amounts of wine and goat cheese, very little meat
Okinawa – Sweet potato, fermented soy products, rice, vegetables
Loma Linda – Fresh fruit, oatmeal, salads, vegetarian foods
Ikaria – Vegetables, wine, herbal tea, small amounts of meat
Nicoyanos – Corn tortillas, beans, fruits, some animal products (mainly chicken and
eggs)
A large number of centenarians also followed the “80 percent rule.” That is, they
consciously decided to stop eating when their stomachs were around 80 percent full,
which prevented them from overeating.

A sense of belonging
Of the 268 centenarians interviewed by Buettner, 263 of them belonged to a faith-
based community (denomination did not seem to matter) and conversed regularly with
other believers. Additionally, most of them enjoyed the company of a mutual support
network of friends and family members, none of them living alone in nursing homes. All
of these factors contributed to an enormous sense of belonging, which seemed to
increase their psychological health.

Frequent exposure to sunlight

All blue zones are sunny, and all of the centenarians Buettner interviewed were
exposed to the sun regularly due to their outdoor lifestyle. Consequently, they received
large amounts of natural vitamin D which, as studies have shown, is linked to improved
mood and sleep, improved bone and eye health, and much more. Additionally, as
Buettner and other researchers have noted, warm climates appear to promote a more
relaxed, “work to live” attitude to life.

“To reach 100 years of age, you have to have won the genetic lottery,” Buettner
concludes. “But most of us have the ability to do well into our 90s and largely without
chronic illness. As centenarians demonstrate, the life expectancy of the average
person could be increased by 10 to 12 years by adopting the Blue Zones lifestyle.”

Source (translated into Spanish):

http://www.naturalnews.com/043896_Blue_Zones_longevity_secrets_centenarians.htm
l
Image: singularityhub.com, dietsinreview.com, green-mom.com

http://www.empoderasalud.com/zonas-azules-que-podemos-aprender-de-las-
personas-mas-longevas-del-mundo/

Consulted Thursday, July 7, 2016

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2013
The secret of the long-lived in the Blue Zones
http://www.elpoderdelaalimentacion.blogspot.com.es
The secret of the long-lived in the Blue Zones

Ushi Okushima, 108 years old. Photo: Blue

Zones
Who wouldn't like to reach 90 or 100 years old with strength, health and without
depending on someone to do their own things? Being long-lived today is much more
feasible than it was even just a few decades ago. We have the knowledge, we have the
experience and we have the desire to enjoy life to the full for many years.

There are places in the world where the oldest people on Earth live and a journalist,
Dan Buettner, has investigated them. These are geographical areas where groups of
people who reach 100 years of age in a healthy manner are concentrated . Dan
Buettner coined the term Blue Zones to refer to these 5 places:

 Sardinia, Italy.
 Okinawa, Japan.
 Loma Linda, California - United States.
 Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica.
 Ikaria, Greece.

And what happened to the Andean world? It is known from chroniclers that long-lived
animals once existed in the Andes. The chronicler Bernabé Cobo, in his History of the
New World - referring to the highlands - writes: "... it is the healthiest part of Peru and
where many men live, in no part of this kingdom have I seen fewer sick people or a
greater number of Indians old men of more than a hundred years, who remembered
the time of the Inca kings and the entry of the Spanish ." He also tells us: "they all have
good teeth and so strong that they last a lifetime...they rarely suffer from toothache or
tooth loss, and it is rare for the old Indian to have missing teeth ."

Are these types of testimonies sufficient proof to ensure that long-lived animals existed
in the Andes? It would be hasty to say so; A thorough study of longevity in ancient Peru
is necessary to understand the factors involved in the development of longevity in the
Andes. It must be taken into account that the introduction of diseases, new foods, plus
the emotional stress of the invasion, the imposition of a new social order and the
crossing of races influenced the biology of the Andean populations. Let us also
remember that the notion of longevity that we have now is different from that of 500
years ago. For a Spaniard in the 16th and 17th centuries, the perspective of what an
old man is must have been different from the one we have now. For example, until
recently it was believed that a 50-year-old woman was already an old woman; that is
totally different today. Physical anthropology is key to providing answers to these
questions.

Do you remember that recently, in August of this year, the news came out about a
Bolivian man, Carmelo Flores, who was said to be 123 years old? Blue Zones, on its
Facebook page, spoke out about it, saying that it was probably a fraud, in addition to
the fact that the Bolivian man refused to show his baptism certificate and that they
could almost guarantee that that age (123) is an exaggeration. They also mention the
research they did in the Vilcabamba valley, a valley in Ecuador, which is known
because centuries-old people live there. The investigation carried out in Vilcabamba
showed an exaggeration in terms of ages. You can corroborate this information by
visiting the Blue Zones Facebook page here . The following month, in September, the
president of Bolivia Evo Morales visited Carmelo Flores and the official documents that
prove the authenticity of his date of birth were recognized, here is the link.

I was recently traveling in Huánuco, a province in the Andes of Peru, and I met a man
who was over 80 years old. He looked very good, strong, with his back straight and his
abdomen in place, as you can see in the picture below. This man walked every day
from the puna to the lower part and we asked him about his diet. He told us that he ate
potatoes and corn, what the farm and the orchard provide. We promise to return to
learn more about the eating and living habits of this man from Huanuco, in order to find
similarities with other long-lived birds from the Andes and the Blue Zones.

Professor Milka, friend Diego from Mexico

and the 80-year-old man from Huanuqueño

Anthropology not only studies what is different between cultures, but also what is
similar and the study of Blue Zones is precisely about this, finding the similarities
between different groups of people in order to find what similar behaviors occur so that
we can replicate them. Let us remember that centenarians are concentrated in the Blue
Zones, long-lived people can be found all over the world, but what is special about the
Blue Zones is that they are home to groups and not isolated cases of one or two
people.

Although these 5 areas are very distant from each other, the long-lived people who
inhabit them have certain practices in common, certain ways of conceiving the world
that coincide; It is something that goes beyond culture, geography and economics.
Buettner and a team made up of doctors, anthropologists, demographers and
epidemiologists identified 9 practices that are common among the elderly . They are
called Power 9 and are as follows:

1) Move naturally: People in the Blue Zones don't think about exercise the way we do.
They do not go to the gym until they are exhausted, nor do they practice any exercise
routine at a certain time of the day, rather their entire life is based on movement, that
is, tasks in the field and those at home, everything involves moving naturally: cut
firewood, graze their animals, work in the garden and go from one place to another by
bicycle or walking.

Sardinian shepherd making pecorino cheese from his goats

Photo: Blue Zones
2) Reduce the rush: People in these areas have a time of day to relax, take a break.
Disconnecting from our worries for a while frees us; Lowering the revs helps us gain
momentum again to continue with our tasks.

3) A life purpose: In Okinawa people have a word for this: Ikigai, which translates as
"The reason you wake up every morning." Some time ago we read a study about the
characteristics of happy people and one of them was precisely having a clear life
purpose. It is curious that in Okinawa there is no word for what we know as retirement,
the life of Okinawans passes without interruptions, without deadlines to meet, they
continue working until they decide when it is time to stop. Every morning when you
wake up ask yourself what your Ikigai is.
4) Hara hachi bu: It is an expression attributed to Confucius and used in Okinawa to
remember that you should eat until you are satisfied, not full. For Okinawans it is about
eating up to 70 or 80%. So every time we go to eat a meal, let us remember the long-
lived Japanese and encourage ourselves to follow their valuable example. A long time
ago, we ate until we were full, which automatically made us sleepy and took away
energy instead of giving it to us. In the digestion process there is an expenditure of
energy, so do not believe that eating a lot, no matter how healthy it may be, is healthy.
What if they try to eat little at night for example, then tell us how they felt.

5) Diet based on vegetables and fruits: Almost all products are local, fresh, full of life
and color. Most of the inhabitants of these areas are not vegetarians, they eat meat a
few times a year, approximately five times a month. The exception is Loma Linda in
California. Loma Linda is a community of Adventists that follows a totally vegetarian
diet. If we are going to eat meat, the ideal is that it be pastured meat, from cattle or
from animals that have been fed with products that are in accordance with their biology,
not that come from a torturing industry, full of suffering and chemicals. In Okinawa,
pork is preferred, but it is only reserved for special occasions.

New York Times Photo (Eat like an Ikarian)

6) A little wine: In moderation, of course. A glass of wine a week is very good for us,
thanks to the fact that it is full of antioxidants and also relaxes and cheers us up.

7) Faith: The oldest people in the world are part of some religious or spiritual
community. Belonging to a religious and spiritual group is being increasingly studied by
science, which is proving that faith does have a positive effect on people and promotes
longevity.

8) Family: The majority of centenarians in these areas live with their families,
participating within the home.

9) The right tribe: Dan Buettner tells us that it is important to know how to choose your
friends. It tells us that if your friends have unhealthy habits, this will affect your life in
the long term. It suggests that we surround ourselves with people with healthy habits in
every sense, psychological and physical. It is known that optimism is contagious, the
same with pessimism and the same for certain behaviors. So if you don't want to lose
your friend, tell them about the Blue Zones lifestyle and make a plan to change the
habits that weigh them down, it's time to get rid of them.
If you want more information, go to the Blue Zones page, where you can find more
about the research they did in each of the 5 Blue Zones: http://www.bluezones.com/

We leave you with a BBC documentary about longevity, called How to live 101. It is
dubbed into Spanish.

http://asociacionplanetaverde.blogspot.com.ar/2013/10/el-secreto-de-los-longevos-de-
las-zonas.html

Consulted Thursday, July 6, 2016