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MY WIFE AND I JUST finished watching the Netflix documentary Live to 100, which I highly recommend. The four-part series focuses on Dan Buettner’s study of pockets of people around the world who achieve amazing longevity, including many residents who live to age 100 and beyond.
The seven longevity locations include Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Ikaria, Greece; Nicoya, Costa Rica; and Loma Linda, California. These locations of long-lived people have been labeled “blue zones” based on the seminal demographic work on Sardinia by Giovanni Mario Pes, Michel Poulain and others.
Buettner identified nine characteristics shared by these blue zone residents. He further distilled that list down to four basic practices:
Interestingly, these blue zone traits mirror the advice of many HumbleDollar contributors: eat healthily, exercise, stay connected for greater happiness, and develop a sense of purpose.
How do Buettner’s findings help if you don’t come from a family with notable longevity and you don’t live in one of these blue zones? Buettner and others have found that heredity is not the largest contributor to longevity.
Buettner has helped implement well-being transformation programs in several U.S. communities. In every case, these communities have dramatically improved population health and longevity. In other words, we can improve our long-term health by adopting the lifestyle of blue zone residents.
I consider my house on a half acre is my gym club substitute: always something needs doing. And I was relieved to read, “A little bit of wine is common.”
We watched the series as well. One saying they mentioned in the Japanese episode was to eat until you are 80% full. It takes a while for the full signal to get to the brain. Unfortunately I grew up in the 60s where my parents preached the mottos of being, “ be a member of the clean plate club”, as “children in Africa are starving”. I have finally broken that habit, but it took decades.
John, I appreciate an article that presents information advocating good food and activity. It’s good to be reminded that the basics of good health are relatively simple, though life can sometimes complicate matters.
John, thanks for this. The “Eat well” characteristic mirrors Michael Pollan’s famously simple food rule: “Eat food (i.e., real food, not processed). Not too much. Mostly plants”. ‘In Defense of Food’ Author Offers Advice For Health : NPR
And all those centenarians brings to mind a quip: “Who’s the only person who wants to live to 100?” Answer: “Someone who’s 99.”
My mantra never changes … A healthy person has a thousand wishes – a sick person only one
That’s pretty standard advice, but the eating well part has become very difficult in the US. I just started reading “Ultra-Processed People” by Chris Van Tulleken and was shocked to discover just how much of the food supply has been taken over by pseudo-food. Substances that no one would have considered food half a century ago, engineered to be cheap and addictive, and widely advertized. Even food you think would be healthy, like yoghurt, usually turns out to have unwelcome additives unless it is plain, whole milk.
I am sure others have heard these phrases, “eat to live” or “live to eat”. Or some some of my close friends mentioned the phrase of children of the millenium, “YOLO” (you only live once). It’s very hard to live healthy in the US with the food temptation all around us.
John, thanks for the interesting article and the recommendation on the documentary. I look forward to watching it. My wife and I spent a few weeks in Nosara, Costa Rica in 2021. You drive through Nicoya to get there form the airport. It seemed a “poor” community by western standards, but it’s hard to tell from a van’s window.
Indeed, most of those studied are relatively poor and have no long-term-care plans other than relying on family. In effect, they are resilient and physically active almost because they have to be.