The oldest “verified” person in the world is a woman named Chiyo Muyako, who lives in Japan. She was born in 1901, which makes her 117 years old. Is she lonely? Probably not, because Japan’s supercentenarian list includes at least 17 other women from ages 112 to 116 years. How did that happen?
The United Nations cites population aging as one of the most significant social transformations of the twenty-first century. When I think about older people, I tend to associate the over-70 crowd with frailty, depression, loneliness, retirement, and health issues. However, the UN statistics predict that the global number of persons aged 80 or over is expected to increase to 909 million by 2100. In other words, the population aged 60 or over is growing faster than all younger age groups. That category applies to me as well as many of my friends. So what does social transformation look like? Bedpans and nurses?
In 2004, scientists Giovanni Mario Pes and Michael Poulain used blue lines to chart demographic data in their study on healthy aging in Italy. Later that same year, National Geographic fellow Dan Buettner asked himself, “How do you get to be 100+?” He worked with National Geographic and the National Institute on Aging to travel around the world to study communities with high percentages of centenarians. He interviewed hundreds of people who'd made it to age 100 about how they lived and tried to figure out what they had in common.
Using the same blue age designation, Buettner was able to define five regions as “Blue Zones.” Blue Zones are places in the world where people live longer and healthier than anywhere else on earth. For example, it is common in a single zone to find people living to 90 or even 100 years. And they aren’t just living long—these people are living healthy—without medication or disability. Now that is a social transformation that sounds enticing.
The designated Blue Zones are:
- Ikaria, Greece has more healthy people over 90 than anywhere else in the world.
- Okinawa, Japan has the highest centenarian ratios in the world: About 6.5 in 10,000 people live to be a 100 - compare that with 1.73 in 10,000 in the United States.
- In the Ogliastra Region of Sardinia, Italy the ratio of centenarian men to women is one to one. That's quite unusual, because in the rest of the world, it's five women to every one man who lives that long.
- Loma Linda, California, United States is a community of about 9,000 Adventists. They live as much as a decade longer than most Americans and much of their longevity can be attributed to vegetarianism and regular exercise.
- In the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica, residents have a “plan de vida” or reason to live that includes family and friends.
What’s going on? Individuals who are reaching 90 or even 100 years of age in the Blue Zones live active, normal, medication-free, mostly healthy lives all the way to the very end. I want to go blue! How can I go blue? Do I need to move to a remote location, become vegetarian and convert to Adventism? I don’t think so. I think that people living in the Blue Zone hold important clues to social transformation based on the strength of social networks.
For example, my own mother doesn’t live in a Blue Zone, but maybe she has a blue streak. She lives in Texas and is 83 years old. She is something of a local phenomenon because she continues to teach art courses at University, participate in social groups with students and other artists, drives a sporty Lexus, takes three tai chi classes a week and travels regularly to Europe during the summer. She wears size 4 jeans and her silvery hair is spiked. She doesn’t talk to psychiatrists, psychics or dieticians. We write daily emails to each other. She talks every night to my sister and we Skype once a week. I believe that Buettner put his finger on social transformation of an aging population when he noted, “90% of longevity is determined by lifestyle.”
Buettner explains, “The world’s longevity all-stars have strong connections with their family and friends. They’re active. They wake up in the morning knowing that they have a purpose, and the world, in turn, reacts to them in a way that propels them along. An overwhelming majority of them still enjoy life.” Now that makes me even more curious. Enjoying life is an ageless pursuit. How do they do it? Buettner has documented the Power 9 Principles for a healthy lifestyle:
- Move Naturally. Moving naturally throughout the day — walking, gardening, doing housework — is a core part of the Blue Zones lifestyle.
- Knowing why you wake up in the morning makes you healthier, happier, and adds up to seven years of extra life expectancy.
- Down Shift. Stress is part of life, but Blue Zones centenarians have stress-relieving rituals built into their daily routines. Adventists pray, Ikarians nap, and Sardinians do happy hour.
- 80% Rule. People in Blue Zones areas stop eating when their stomachs are 80% full and eat their smallest meal in the early evening.
- Plant Slant. Beans are the cornerstone of most centenarian diets. Vegetables, fruit, and whole grains round out the rest of the diet and meat is eaten in small amounts.
- Wine @ 5. Moderate but regular consumption of wine (with friends and/or food) is part of the Blue Zones lifestyle.
- Being part of a faith-based community adds four to 14 years to life expectancy.
- Loved Ones First. Having close and strong family connections (with spouses, parents, grandparents, and grandchildren) is common with Blue Zones centenarians.
- Right Tribe. The world’s longest-lived people have close friends and strong social networks.
Those are great principles, but I still wonder, how do you do it? Using his Blue Zones research, Buettner created Blue Zones Project® to work with cities to make healthy choices easier through permanent changes to a city's environment, policy, and social networks. In 2009, the city of Albert Lea in Minnesota was selected as a pilot community. Albert Lea, a community with high smoking rates and low activity levels, began to pattern their routines and environments after the world's longest living people. Blue Zones Project brought in a “walkability” expert named Dan Burden. With Burden's guidance, Albert Lea established more than 10 miles of bike lanes and new sidewalks. Community partners, such as grocery stores, restaurants, schools, and workplaces, also made changes that supported well-being. What are the results? According to a case study:
- $7.5 million in savings in annual health care costs for employers as a result of a decline in smokers
- 45th place in the Minnesota County Health Rankings (up from 68 out of 87 counties)
- 2.9 years added to lifespans (projected) within one year of participating in the Blue Zones Project
Currently, 42 communities in nine states in America have joined Blue Zones Project, impacting millions of Americans nationwide. Even here in my adopted home country of the Netherlands, Healthy Aging Network Northern Netherlands (HANNN) is bringing companies, knowledge institutions and local authorities to work together on solutions for a longer, healthier life based on the Blue Zone principles.
Do we all want to live to be 100+? Maybe not … but we all do want to have a good life no matter how old we are. When I think about my mother, it is the social network she lives in that creates the basis of her longevity and not exercise bikes, diets, and wrinkle cream. I agree with Buettner, “When it comes to longevity there is no short-term fix. Perhaps the most significant thing you can do to add more years to your life is to add more life to your years.”
Original research and findings were released in Buettner's bestselling books: The Blue Zones Solution, The Blue Zones of Happiness, The Blue Zones, and Thrive, all published by National Geographic books.
For more information, visit the Blue Zones website or watch Dan Buettner's Ted Talk.
by Mary Adams, AWC The Hague