blue zones areas are populations around theworld where people live longest. it began with a ten year project with national geographicto identify these pockets where people are either reaching age 100 at the highest rates.they have the highest life expectancy or the lowest rate of middle age mortality. they’regeographically defined and then demographically confirmed. and we found five blue zones.
easy zone diet snacks, we found our first blue zone in sardinia,italy up in the highlands. the nuoro and ogliastra provinces and there we see a population ofabout 42,000 people living in 14 villages. and there is where men live the longest. normallyin first world populations like the united states for every one male centenarian thereare five female centenarians. but up in the
highlands of sardinia the proportion is oneto one. our second blue zone we found in okinawa, japan, the longest living women in the world.highest life expectancy of any other population on earth. they’re women over 60. they liveabout eight years longer than american women. largely devoid of heart disease and the cancersthat kill us. one of the more extraordinary blue zones is ikaria, greece, off the coastof turkey. ninety-nine square miles. they live about seven years longer than the averageamerican but most interestingly they almost completely allude dementia. we found almosteverybody over 70 on the island and found only three mild cases of dementia. in americawith a similar population you’d expect to find somewhere around 20 to 40 percent ofpeople who are suffering from dementia.
then in latin america the nicoya peninsulaof costa rica. and then finally in the united states the longest living population is amongthe seventh day adventist in loma linda, california. and they live up to a decade longer than theirnorth american counterparts. so i spent ten years traveling to these bluezones around the world trying to explain why they’re living so long. and i realized atabout year six that none of these spry centenarians ever said to themselves at age 50, well goshdarn it i’m going to get on that longevity diet and live another 50 years. they neverbought treadmills. they never called an 800 number to buy a supplement. longevity happenedto them. in other words it was something that ensued from their environment as opposed tosomething they tried for. first of all they
were eating a high carbohydrate diet. about65 percent of their dietary intake came from carbs. most of those, of course, are wholegrains or beans. beans is the cornerstone of every longevity diet in the world, abouta cup of beans a day. about 20 percent of their dietary intake was fats and most ofthose were vegetable fats. and about 15 percent were proteins. they did eat meat on averageabout five times per month so not a lot of meat. it’s mostly a plant based diet. about90 percent overall of their calories came from plants. they tended to eat a huge breakfast.breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper. nuts were the universal snack. people eatinga handful of nuts lived two to three years
longer than people who don’t eat nuts. andthey drink water, teas, coffee – good news. a lot of antioxidants in coffee. and thena little bit of wine. those were the four beverages. soda pops were largely unknownto blue zone longevity all stars. the maximum average life expectancy for people livingin america today is about 90. so that essentially means if we can avoid all the avoidable diseaseslike many cancers, most heart disease, many sources of dementia and diabetes, the averageperson can reach about age 90. and in costa rica they’re doing it at a rate two-and-a-halftimes better than we’re doing it in the united states with one-fifteenth the amountwe spend on health care.
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