Where is the healthiest place on earth? Where do people live the longest lives? And what is a blue zone?
Let’s discuss these questions on today’s episode!
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Vocabulary
- Lifestyle (noun): The way in which a person lives, including habits, behaviours, and daily activities.
- Adopting a healthy lifestyle involves regular exercise, a balanced diet, and stress management.
- Longevity (noun): The state of having a long duration of life.
- The Okinawan lifestyle is often associated with longevity.
- Lifespan (noun): The length of time a person lives.
- Advances in healthcare have contributed to an increase in the average lifespan of the population.
- Moderation (noun): Consuming things in appropriate amounts, avoiding excess.
- Enjoying sweets in moderation is key to maintaining a healthy diet.
- Well-Being (noun): The state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy.
- Practices such as meditation and regular exercise are known to enhance overall well-being.
- Diet (noun): The kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.
- The Mediterranean diet, rich in fruits, vegetables, and olive oil, is often praised for its health benefits.
- Calorie (noun): A unit of measurement for energy, often used to quantify the energy content of food and beverages.
- Understanding the calorie content of different foods is crucial for those aiming to manage their weight through diet.
Defintion of Blue Zone
One of my goals this year is to live a healthier life. I want to eat better, exercise more, and generally have a more productive and fulfilling lifestyle.
While researching diets and exercise plans late last year I came across the concept of blue zones. And, by coincidence, one of you guys (a Thinking in English listener) messaged me on Instagram suggesting blue zones as a potential episode topic!
Around the world, the average quality of health and length of life varies considerably. Part of this is genetics. Your DNA can, and does, have an affect on your health, how likely you are to get certain illnesses, and ultimately how long you live.
But more important is lifestyle.
What you eat, how much you move your bodies, the amount of stress in your life, the community you live in, the beliefs you have, and more can have major consequences on our lives.
People who eat healthily and exercise regularly, amongst other things, tend to live longer than people who don’t eat healthily or exercise regularly.
Many of us see this as an individual thing. We, as individuals, choose our diets and lifestyle patterns.
However, in a few places around the world people have noticed that people tend to be healthier and live longer than other places. These are known as blue zones.
Blue zone is not a scientific term. The author Dan Buettner, who worked with National Geographic, first used the term while searching for the places where people lived longest. These areas had a surprisingly high number of nonagenarians and centenarians.
These sound like scary long words, but the meaning is easy to understand. A nonagenarian is a person 90 years old or older, and a centenarian is a person 100 years old or older.
Researchers, looking at areas that could possibly be considered blue zones, have also found that there are lower levels of chronic illnesses in these areas and people tend to be healthier.
Famous Blue Zones
National Geographic has identified five areas that they consider to be blue zones. And if you search for examples of blue zones, you are most likely to find articles talking about the following places.
Ikaria, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, has remarkably low rates of dementia in middle-age mortality. This means that less people die between the ages of 40 and 60 than average there.
The Okinawa archipelago, a Japanese prefecture, has the longest living women in the world.
The Ogliastra Province of Sardinia, an Italian island, has low rates of diabetes and cancer, and the most men over the age of 100 in the world.
Loma Linda in California, USA, has residents who tend to live 10 years longer than other parts of the USA.
And the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica has the lowest rate of middle-age mortality in the world and the second highest number of men over the age of 100.
These blue zones stretch from East Asia to Central America, with different climates, cultures, and histories.
But are there any characteristics that might provide a clue as to why inhabitants of blue zones live especially healthy and long lives?
Characteristics of Blue Zones
Diet
Diet seems to be one of the most important factors.
People living in blue zones tend to eat diets that are full of vegetables, plants, and lacking in ultra-processed foods.
While not necessarily vegetarian, most of these regions eat significantly lower quantities of red meat and dairy products, and much higher proportions of vegetables, than the average place.
Buettner, the man who identified the first blue zones, found that on average red meat is served only once a week. In places like Sardinia, Ikaria, and Okinawa, the diet includes significant amounts of fish along with local vegetables.
Gianni Pes, an epidemiologist who studies Sardinia, has suggested that a simple and traditional diet has been a major part in the region’s long lifespans. For example, the dish minestrone is full of local vegetables like cabbage and kohlrabi and packed with essential vitamins and amino acids.
Another example is Loma Linda, California. This town has a large community of Seventh Day Adventists, a Christian religious group, who follow a restrictive diet rich in nuts, fruit, and vegetables. They are vegetarians who discourage the use of too many oils, spices, salt, and sugar.
In describing the typical blue zone diet, Buettner wrote this: “Until the late 20th century, these diets consisted almost entirely of minimally processed plant-based foods—mostly whole grains, greens, nuts, tubers, and beans. People ate meat on average only five times a month. They drank mostly water, herbal teas, coffee, and some wine. Notably, they drank little or no cow’s milk; soda pop was largely unknown to them.”
Moreover, it has been suggested that many people in blue zones are in long term calorie deficit.
A calorie deficit occurs when the number of calories expended or burned by the body exceeds the number of calories consumed through food and drink. In simpler terms, it means that you are consuming fewer calories than your body needs for its daily functions and activities.
Famously, Okinawans practice hara hachi bu which translates to “belly 80 percent full”. They stop eating when the feel 80% full rather than 100% full, which helps to prevent them from overeating.
Since the 1930s, scientists have shown that calorie restrictions extends the life of animals in laboratories. The same theory has been suggested in Okinawa – by living in long term calorie deficit elderly Okinawans maintain a healthy body weight and perhaps live longer.
Compared to the USA, women in Okinawa are three times as likely to live to 100 years old and half as likely to suffer from breast cancer. And both men and women in Okinawa suffer from heart disease and Alzheimer’s at significantly lower levels compared to the USA, and even with mainland Japan.
Craig Willcox, an anthropologist studying Okinawa, has said the traditional Okinawan food is the opposite to a lot of modern cuisines. It is nutritionally dense and calorie poor. In other words, it is full of vitamins, minerals, proteins, and other essential nutrients, but low in calories.
This means Okinawans can eat a lot of food (including tofu, different varieties of seaweed, and unique local vegetables), but the meal will be significantly lower in calories than modern cuisines.
Alcohol is also drunk in moderation in most of the blue zones. The exception would be Sardinia and Ikaria, but the type of alcohol drunk in these locations (locally made wine) has been suggested to also have health benefits.
Other Factors
Other than diet, people in blue zones tend to live active lifestyles.
Rather than going to the gym or going running for exercise, the blue zones commonly have lifestyles in which physical exercise is included or necessary. This could be outdoor and manual labour jobs or long walks into the local towns.
In Sardinia, for example, one of the traditional industries was raising farm animals which required walking long distances across hills and steep slopes.
Across the blue zones, walking and outdoor activities keep people exercising regularly. Whether it is growing vegetables and gardening, or walking to town, or doing other activities this exercise is very important.
Whether consciously or unconsciously, people in blue zones tend to build stress relief into their daily routines. In some regions this is napping during the day. In other regions it is communal eating and drinking wine, or even religious prayer. These activities tend to reduce the levels of stress in people’s lives.
In fact, religion and faith is common across blue zones. Blue zones tend to be religious communities. Studies have shown that religious belief tends to increase the average length of a person’s life (possibly due to the extra support and community that comes from being part of a religion).
Blue zones also tend to have multi-generation families. It is relatively common for grandparents to live with their children and grandchildren in these communities. Grandparents tend to stay healthy when actively involved in the raising of their grandchildren.
And, finally, people in blue zones seem to have supportive and active social networks.
So, to summarise the characteristics of a blue zone: mainly plant based diet, low calories, not too much alcohol (except wine), active lifestyles, religious belief, stress relief, families living together, and social networks.
Challenges and Criticisms
While blue zones are a fascinating concept, it’s important to acknowledge some doubts and issues that people have raised about the concept.
First, it is not a scientific term, but one used by a writer for the National Geographic magazine. While research has been done on the Mediterranean diet or the Okinawan lifestyle, there has been little research done comparing the five blue zones I mentioned previously from a scientific principle.
One big concern is that scientists don’t all agree on whether the lessons from blue zones can be applied to everyone. Some argue that what works for people in these special zones might not work as well for others with different lifestyles.
There are also questions about how researchers identify these blue zones and whether the studies are really reliable. Some say we need to be careful not to assume that what happens in one place will happen everywhere.
The unique cultures and environments in these zones make it tricky to come up with one-size-fits-all solutions. What keeps people healthy in one blue zone might not be the same for another.
The Okinawan cuisine, for example, is full of ingredients unique to the islands. It would be unfeasible for people in other parts of the world to try to replicate that exact diet.
Or the lifestyle in Sardinia and Ikaria doesn’t necessarily fit into our modern career-oriented lives. Many of us don’t have time to make hearty and fresh lunches every day, take an afternoon nap, or drink a few glasses of wine every evening.
Things are always changing, too. Globalization and modern living might be affecting the traditional practices that used to help people in blue zones live longer.
Buettner, the man who popularise blue zones, has noted this himself. He found the younger Seventh Day Adventists are more likely to eat meat that older members of the community. And many of these communities are losing younger generations to cities and urban centres with more economic opportunities, and at the same time potentially losing some of the qualities that made them blue zones.
Lessons for a Longer Life
Whether or not blue zones offer the perfect model for long lives, there are definitely lessons we can learn.
Firstly, when it comes to food, taking a page from Blue Zones means leaning towards a diet rich in plant-based foods, and exercising moderation in our eating habits.
I think taking a balanced and mindful view towards what we eat, and making sure our food is packed with good nutrition and low calories.
Incorporating low-intensity activities into our daily routines and finding joy in movement, whether it’s through gardening, walking, or other simple activities, is a great way to engage in physical exercise.
The emphasis on social connections is another lesson. Building and maintaining strong relationships with family and friends, and actively participating in our communities, can significantly contribute to our overall well-being.
Adopting these lessons involves making changes to our lifestyles – from what we eat to how we move, connect with others, manage stress, and find meaning in our daily lives. By incorporating these practices, we can take meaningful steps towards improving our overall well-being and potentially extending our lifespans.
Final Thought
The concept of blue zones was an opportunity for me to discuss the factors contributing to longer and healthier lives in specific regions around the world.
While challenges and criticisms to the concept of blue zones may exist, the key takeaway lies in adopting balanced, mindful practices in our diets, embracing physical activity, nurturing social connections, and finding purpose to enhance overall well-being and potentially extend our lifespans.
Perhaps we should be following in the footsteps of communities in Sardinia, Ikaria, Okinawa, Costa Rica and California. Or perhaps we can be inspired by their diets and traditions, but find a way to incorporate them into our modern lives.
What do you think?
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