LIFE’S TOO SHORT
The secrets of the societies where living to 100 is NBD
Once the preserve of midlifers, the pursuit of living longer is an object of increasing interest among the health-conscious of any age. Where better to look for inspiration than the five ‘blue zones’, home to the planet’s most enduring populations? Time to take the trip of a lifetime
An apricot-tinged sky merges into turquoise waters crashing against the craggy coastline and the breeze carries an aromatic cocktail of wood smoke, peonies and cypress trees. The soundscape could be from a soothe-yourself-tosleep Spotify playlist, if it wasn’t for the squawking chickens and donkey honks. For Thea Pakiros, hotel and restaurant owner, these sights and sounds are the backdrop to her evening stroll around Nas, a coastal area of Ikaria, the island she calls home. This particular Greek idyll’s rep may not rival that of all-nightlong Mykonos nor does it have the colour palette that makes Santorini an Instagrammer’s dream. Its eminence lies elsewhere, in academic circles.
Ikaria is a ‘blue zone’ – one of five global destinations with a disproportionate concentration of centenarians – that’s proving significant to scientists trying to figure out whether living a long, healthy life can be reduced to a lifestyle equation. Joining Ikaria in triple-digit significance are the Okinawa region of Japan, the Nicoya peninsula in Costa Rica, southern California’s Loma Linda and Sardinia. The term ‘blue zone’ was coined in 2004 by scientist Gianni Pes in his research on the aforementioned Italian island, published in the journal Experimental Gerontology. In the years since, academics have analysed the dietary patterns, relational dynamics and social mores of these populations in an attempt to tease out a formula for growing old, if not gracefully, then healthily. ‘The inhabitants of these places are not only living an extra, say, 12 years,’ says Dan Buettner, a US journalist who’s dedicated his career to studying longevity and authored the Blue Zones book series. ‘Biologically speaking, they’re a decade younger every step of the way.’ A pursuit that pays in elevated energy levels and a sense of vitality that even the most wellness-conscious could only dream of.
THE GENERATION GAME
‘As long as humans have lived, we’ve always wanted to live longer,’ says Professor Mark Jackson, director of the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health at the University of Exeter. Take the seminal 19th century text The Art Of Prolonging Life, in which Dr Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland described extending life as a ‘medical art’. During the interwar years, the idea that you could be healthy and happy in old age if you invested in midlife became embedded in the consciousness of the British middle classes; an imprint made weightier still by advances in medicine and public health, when selfhelp books promising the secret of youth abounded, with titles such as Live Younger, Look Younger and The Quest For Youth.
Scientific advances have since delivered breakthroughs in our understanding of the physiology of longevity. Both telomeres (the ends of chromosomes in DNA that have been likened to the fuse on a bomb – the longer they are, the better) and the APOE signal (a type of lipoprotein linked to Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular disease) were discovered in the 90s, and Y2K ushered in the Human Genome Project. In the years since, researchers have been looking across the genome for individual variants that affect longevity, leading to news reports about the so-called longevity gene – but the headlines are a little premature. ‘While your genes do affect how long – and how well – you live, only about a seventh of your lifespan is decided by genetics,’ adds Dr Peter Joshi, a human-lifespan researcher at the University of Edinburgh. ‘Your lifestyle and environment play a bigger role.’
It’s these environmental habits that caught the attention of Buettner, who – alongside Dr Pes – started identifying regions heavily populated by centenarians with a view to discovering what the rest of the world can learn from them. He adopted the term ‘blue zones’ and, in the 15 years since, has evolved it into shorthand for places with the highest life expectancy on the planet. He combed through journals and recruited researchers and locals to create a forensic study of the behaviours that contribute to a long, healthy life. Let’s dive into the key learnings.
EAT LIKE YOU MEAN IT
One key commonality across the residents of blue zones from Japan to Costa Rica is a penchant for plant-based eating. It’s estimated that between 90% and 100% of their diets is comprised of plants. ‘The five pillars of the blue zone diet are whole grains, greens, tubers [potatoes et al], nuts and beans,’ Buettner explains. It’s important to note that residents aren’t ordering such fare on Amazon Fresh in an attempt to live that wellness life. It’s more that such ways of eating have remained a mainstay of these typically remote and culturally homogeneous communities for generations. Take those living on the Nicoya peninsula in Costa Rica, who, after rising early, will typically break their fast with a homemade corn tortilla topped with black beans, jalapeños, cheese and an egg. Buettner describes the mixture of maize, beans and squash that forms the basis of a Nicoyan diet as possibly the best nutritional combination for longevity the world has ever known. ‘When these three foods are combined, they are low in fat, high in complex carbohydrates and fibre and contain all of the amino acids – the building blocks of protein – necessary for human sustenance,’ he explains.
When asked what makes these plant-powered diets especially healthy, Buettner’s long-time collaborator, Dr David L Katz, founding director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center, points to inflammation. Specifically, how antioxidants in plant foods protect cells and hormones from inflammatory injury, therefore shielding people from the deleterious effects of inflammation becoming chronic or excessive (and the increased cortisol response that accompanies this). When consumed in abundance – as they are in blue zones – they do wonders for your gut, too (especially prebiotic plants, like artichokes, leeks and asparagus). Meat factors rarely across blue zones. In Okinawa, pork is only typically used to flavour cooking, and only roasted on special celebrations; in Sardinia, this island of sheep farmers favours a surprisingly legume-heavy diet, only typically eating boiled mutton along with pasta at the weekend. Adding a flourish to the locally sourced, seasonally determined and home-cooked fare are nutrient-rich adaptogens. Think iodine and magnesium-rich seaweed and immunity-boosting shiitake mushrooms in Okinawa, and anti-inflammatory milk thistle, plucked from the craggy Sardinian hills.
ROUTINELY WELL
Buettner is keen to make it clear that gleaning longevity lessons from the blue zones isn’t a case of simply replicating the meals in their well-worn family recipe books. Beyond what’s on your plate, a theme running throughout blue zone cultures is the existence of specific mindful behaviours to engage in while you dine. In Loma Linda, California, it’s a pre-dinner prayer; in Okinawa, it’s ‘hara hachi bu’ – a pre-dining intention to stop eating when you’re 80% full. In Ikaria? ‘Eating is an experience that’s as much about satisfying the spirit as it is the stomach,’ Thea, who’s in her forties, tells WH from the guest house she owns with her husband, overlooking the island’s rugged coastline. ‘We cook from scratch and take the time to enjoy our food.’
Enquire after the fitness habits of blue zone residents and Buettner will let you know that such a phrase is a misnomer. ‘These aren’t “habits”,’ he says. ‘Their lives are set up so that every 20 minutes or so they’re nudged into movement, instead of thinking they can sit at a desk all day and make up for it with an hour at the gym.
Our bodies just don’t work that way.’ These guys were nailing incidental exercise long before it became a buzzword.
In some cases, the working day dictates it: as with the shepherds in Sardinia who climb steep, rocky terrain to tend their flocks. Bucking trends across the blue zones and beyond, men (who typically become shepherds) live longer than women in Sardinia. Buettner attributes this to their high rates of daily movement, compared to the women’s stress-inducing but relatively static responsibilities (running the family; managing finances; doing house repairs). Across the blue zones, even if one’s job doesn’t make for a five-figure daily step count, residents prioritise movement – travelling on foot rather than behind the wheel, or, as in the case of a recently deceased (at the age of 104) Loma Linda resident, yanking the weeds from his garden, unaided, until the very end.
These guys were nailing incidental exercise long before it became a buzzword
LONG-GAME MINDSET
This particular gentleman was brought to our attention by his neighbour, Georgia Hodgkin. A grandmother who’ll turn 80 this autumn, she’s currently writing a book and recently hiked up a mountain in North Carolina to watch her granddaughter get married. True to Buettner’s theories, Georgia walks daily, with her supermarket trips sometimes lasting two hours – not because she’s especially slow, but because there are so many of her fellow later-in-life pals out with her. Indeed, from Pacific to Mediterranean blue zones, community is key. One particularly charming example is ‘yuimara’, the Okinawan sense of social obligation, which compels small groups of women to commit to each other for life and neighbours to visit one another daily. In Sardinia, where elders are valued as cultural custodians, they play an active role in society – routinely advising authorities on policy decisions. ‘You don’t have the sense of isolation that I see with so many people in cities,’ says Thea, of Ikaria’s sense of community. ‘It is very hard to be lonely here.’
But it’s not just what blue zone residents do, how they do it and with whom that plays into their longevity formula; the ‘why’ is vital, too. ‘Many people just go through life rudderless, getting up and doing their jobs or providing for their family unconsciously,’ says Buettner. ‘But we know that those who have a sense of purpose live for seven or eight years longer, on average.’ They’re able to show up more wholly, too, according to a 2017 study published in JAMA Psychiatry, which found that people with goals and a strong sense of meaning were better able to maintain their independence as they aged (measured by grip strength and walking speeds).
The connection between quality of life in old age and having a raison d’être is real. The majority of Loma Linda residents belong to the church of the Seventh-day Adventists, a strand of Protestant Christianity that emphasises maintaining health as a way of honouring God. Their faith nurtures their sense of purpose, which, in turn, bolsters the strength of their community in a self-perpetuating cycle of doing good (members of Georgia’s family routinely volunteer with local charities one day a week) and feeling the benefits. While religious faith is woven into the fabric of most blue zone societies, having this purpose needn’t be dependent on defined doctrinal belief. It’s about finding or doing something that gives you the feeling of being rooted in something more meaningful than reaching 6pm with an empty inbox.
BUILT TO LAST
But do these health-promoting ways of life have staying power in an increasingly connected – and subsequently globalised – world? ‘We have a large population of younger people who live permanently on Ikaria who have made a point of continuing traditions and celebrations and have a strong sense of connection to their island,’ explains Thea. ‘While advances in technology make change inevitable, our culture is pretty much the same.’ Having moved to the island from Detroit as a newly-wed, Thea views Ikaria’s longevity formula from an interesting vantage point. She believes, ultimately, that what leads Ikarians to live longer, healthier lives than most UK residents is the way they look beyond the perceived struggles of the here and now, towards something altogether more permanent. ‘We’re not so caught up with status and material things; our goals are about happiness. We continue to do what we can, no matter how old we are,’ she says. ‘When asked our age, Ikarians just say the year we were born. We’re not concerned with what age you are; an 80-year-old can be sitting next to a 12-year-old at the dinner table and have the best conversation.’
You needn’t export that image – table groaning under a rainbow spread of lovingly cooked dishes, surrounded by an extended gathering so multigenerational it’s like an IRL Dolce & Gabbana advert – wholesale. A longevity mindset and lifestyle can be learned gradually. If you’re not sure where to start, try putting a pause between your work and your eating. Buettner’s taken up 15-minute afternoon naps, but doing Headspace or reading a novel on your lunch break works just as well. In an age of outsourcing every essential task from cooking dinner to building a shelf, reclaim some ownership and do it yourself. And if your job is more meansto-an-end than anything else, volunteer for a cause that you care about deep down in your bones. Maybe even with people in their latter decades; if Buettner’s excursions with the planet’s centenarians are anything to go by, you may unearth some gems.