NPR’s Weekend Edition, Can ‘Blue Zones’ Help Turn Back the Biological Clock?
“Sardinian sheepherders, Japanese grandmothers and Seventh-Day Adventists in Los Angeles don’t seem to have that much in common. But within these groups there are some of the longest-lived people in the world.”
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“Although the aging process isn’t fully understood, scientists do know that there’s a complex interplay of genetics and the environment that factors into health and longevity. And Buettner says he was able to identify shared patterns among people who live in Blue Zones.
“They didn’t take any supplements or pills or wine extracts,” he says. “They tended to live in houses and environments that nudged them into bursts of physical activity in kind of an effortless way.
“Okinawans sat on the floor; Sardinians lived in vertical houses; the Costa Ricans had gardens. So they were doing little things all day long that added up significantly over the years and the decades,” Buettner says.”
Excerpt: Dan Buettner, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest.
