Longevity secrets

Longevity in Italy: a disclosed secret

Blue Zones: longevity, genes and dietary habits

“Funded in part by the U.S. National Institute on Aging, scientists have focused on several regions where people live significantly longer. In Sardinia, Italy, one team of demographers found a hot spot of longevity in mountain villages where men reach age 100 at an amazing rate. On the islands of Okinawa, Japan, another team examined a group that is among the longest lived on Earth. And in Loma Linda, California, researchers studied a group of Seventh-day Adventists who rank among America’s longevity all-stars. Residents of these three places produce a high rate of centenarians, suffer a fraction of the diseases that commonly kill people in other parts of the developed world, and enjoy more healthy years of life. In sum, they offer three sets of “best practices” to emulate. The rest is up to you”.

Extraordinary longevity in Sardinia: secretes to live beyond the Italian average

In Sardinia, “men pass a mural depicting a village procession. By keeping active, many men stay healthy longer. The unique geographic properties of central Sardinia—rocky, sun-beaten terrain not suited for large-scale farming—meant that over the centuries, shepherding offered the best profession. Walking five miles or more a day as Sardinian shepherds do provides cardiovascular benefits and has a positive effect on muscle and bone metabolism without the joint-pounding of running marathons or triathlons.

But a long healthy life is no accident, says in this study Dan Buettner: “it begins with good genes, but it also depends on good habits. If you adopt the right lifestyle, experts say, chances are you may live up to a decade longer. So what’s the formula for success? In recent years researchers have fanned out across the globe to find the secrets to long life.

As per Sardinians, “a community of 2,400 people, Silanus, is located on the sloping fringes of the Gennargentu Mountains in central Sardinia, where parched pastures erupt into granite peaks. In a cluster of villages in the heart of a region called the Blue Zone by demographers, 91 of the 17,865 people born between 1880 and 1900 have lived to their hundredth birthday—a rate more than twice as high as the average for Italy”.

“Why the extraordinary longevity here? Lifestyle is part of the answer. By 11 a.m. on this particular day, Tonino” (in the picture) “has already milked four cows, split half a cord of wood, slaughtered a calf, and walked four miles (6.4 kilometers) of pasture with his sheep. Now, taking the day’s first break, he gathers his grown children, grandson, and visitors around the kitchen table. Giovanna, his wife, a robust woman with quick, intelligent eyes, unties a handkerchief containing a paper-thin flatbread called carta da musica, fills our tumblers with red wine, and slices a round of homemade pecorino cheese with the thumping severity of a woman in charge. I do the work, admits Tonino, hooking Giovanna around the waist, <<my girl does the worrying>>.

“These Sardinians also benefit from their genetic history. About 11,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers from the Iberian Peninsula made their way eastward to Sardinia. When military powers such as the Phoenicians and Romans discovered Sardinia’s charms, the natives were forced to retreat deeper and deeper into the highlands. There they developed a wariness of foreigners and a reputation for banditry, kidnapping, and settling vendettas with the lesoria, the traditional Sardinian shepherd’s knife”.

“In their isolation native Sardinians became genetic incubators, amplifying certain traits over generations. Even today roughly 80 percent of them are directly related to the first Sardinians, says Paolo Francalacci of the University of Sassari. Somewhere in this genetic mix, he says, may lie a combination that favors longevity”.

“Family’s diet is another factor. It’s loaded with homegrown fruits and vegetables such as zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, and fava beans that may reduce the risk of heart disease and colon cancer. Also on the table: dairy products such as milk from grass-fed sheep and pecorino cheese, which, like fish, contribute protein and omega-3 fatty acids. Tonino still makes wine from his small vineyard of Cannonau grapes, which in this mountainous part of Sardinia contain two to three times as much of a component found in other wines that may prevent cardiovascular disease”.

Oldest Italian tree: The monumental olive-oil tree in Sardinia.

To have an idea of ​​the giant size of this tree, which has been declared a Natural Monument since 1991, it is enough to say that the circumference of the trunk is about 11 meters and the diameter of the hair is 21 and 14 is high. Sculpted by Knots, small and large cavities, the Patriarch really looks like an old essay. Marked for years, but with roots still well planted in a land where ancient trees still survive. In the locality of Santo Baltolu di Carana, on the shores of Lake Liscia, other millennia are company to S’Ozzastru.

A few meters away, for example, there is another olive tree of about 2000 years. It is very ancient for us, a young man for the Patriarch.

It was the Italian Ministry of Agricultural and Forestry Policies to recognize the primacy of Sardinian olive. The same Ministry is carrying out the census of the monumental trees of Italy. Foreseen by Law 10/2013, the one that established the National Tree Day every November 21, the census aims to build a database accessible to everyone and navigable on map. The trees identified are protected by the same law of 2013 and, for those considered landscaped goods, will trigger double protection”.

Capital city of Sardinia: Cagliari, a treasure to discover