What is the Secret to Living a Long and Healthy Life? The Blue Zones

What is the secret to living a long and healthy life? This question has exercised the minds of many through the ages. One approach to answering it today is to study the Blue Zones, those regions of the world where people live the longest. The term Blue Zone was originally applied by a group of demographers to a region of Sardinia, an island in the Mediterranean Sea where a high proportion of people live to 100 years or more (1). Now, largely through the efforts of explorer Dan Buettner and his team, five Blue Zones have been identified and they are;

1) Sardinia, Italy,
2) Okinawa, Japan,
3) Loma Linda, California,
4) Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica,
5) Ikaria, Greece

The first four of these have been reported in Dan Buettner’s book (2) and the fifth, Ikaria, is the most recent one to have been discovered.

So, what common lifestyle factors are shared by the inhabitants of these zones that might explain their longevity? They are as follows:

1) People putting family first.
2) Engaging in social interaction.
3) Eating a predominantly plant-based diet.
4) Keeping physically active.
5) Refraining from smoking.

References

1) Poulain, M. et al. (2004) Identification of a Geographic Area characterized by Extreme Longevity in the Sardinia Island: The AKEA study. Experimental Gerontology, 39, 1423-1429.

2) Buettner, D. (2008) The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest.
National Geographic Books. ISBN 1426202741.

Christopher J. Jones, M.Sc., Ph.D.