Most people who follow the western lifestyle and at the same time want to do something good for their health, usually follow a diet, join the gym and take vitamins. In 2021, in fact, Americans spent more than $151 billion on vitamins and supplements to ensure their health. But in reality, the most reliable studies show that those who take supplements end up living less than those who don’t. Protein supplements, in fact, give and take, to the point that according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average American is getting twice as much protein as they need. In fact, no supplement, pill, hormone, or vitamin has been proven to increase life expectancy.
When it comes to exercising and trying to maintain or improve our health and fitness, there is indeed a trend. And those who exercise regularly have been found to have a 30% lower chance of dying at any time than people who don’t exercise. In America specifically, however, despite the $160 billion Americans spend a year, only 1\/5 of adults get the minimum recommended amount of exercise, which is about 11 minutes a day. So that means exercise doesn’t work for more than 200 million Americans, but also for everyone who might go to the gym occasionally and not be active at all otherwise in their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the same way, diets may be well-intentioned, but most are ineffective in maintaining health and longevity even though some may help with weight loss.<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-6-1024x640.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is happening in the Blue Zones?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The author of the book I mentioned to you went around the world looking for these areas of longevity in order to understand what was different going on there. In Okinawa there were already the longest living people in the world, while centenarians were also found in Sardinia. In some villages on the island, in fact, there were 10 times more centenarians per capita than in the United States, for example, with findings published in the Journal Experimental Gerontology. In the USA, 30 thousand participants were studied in Loma Lima, California, as part of the Adventist Health Study, for 20 years and it was found that these supporters of the church lived 7 years longer than the rest of their fellow citizens. In Ikaria and the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, residents followed a mostly plant-based diet of whole foods from their local area, and instead of going to the gym, they exercised for about 20 minutes a day. On top of that, daily rituals such as prayer, naps, and honoring their ancestors helped reduce stress and the resulting inflammation. There is also a tendency in these places to have parents and grandparents close by, while in Okinawa there are also social support groups from childhood to\u2026 100, as well as a strong sense of the meaning of life. Also important is that the people living in the Blue Zones do not have better genes or superior bodies and in most cases this was not the case. However, they manage to avoid chronic diseases from diabetes and cardiovascular to dementia and some types of cancer that shorten our lives. And they achieve this not with any discipline or sense of greater responsibility, but because they live in an environment that facilitates them. Their longevity comes from the environment they live in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This tells us that if we want to live longer in health, we need to focus on the environment we live in, from our community and work to our home. Which is also evidenced by the fact that decades ago, when the National Institutes of Health funded projects in cities across the country with diet, exercise programs and health information, the results were a small improvement in health indicators in the short term and no substantial change long term.<\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, when a different approach was taken by the author, aiming to shape the environment, in a project that took place in the community of 18 thousand people in Albert Lea, Minnesota, the results were spectacular. The project was supported by local actors in order to improve the walking and cycling infrastructure in the area and make it more citizen-friendly. Programs with healthy choices instead of Junk food have worked in schools – something I have also tried through free seminars for daycare centers and parents – while something similar has been done in restaurants and food stores. On top of that, residents were given the opportunity to volunteer, for workshops and community participation activities that gave them a purpose in their daily lives \u2013 so new behaviors were more likely to be adopted more strongly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first projects “ran” for about 18 months with spectacular results, while according to the data, life expectancy increased by an average of 3 years, while the health budget was reduced by 30%. And the most basic thing is that all this succeeded because they did not try to change the minds of the people, but the environment in which they lived. The project was then implemented in 72 cities in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today the Blue Zones are certainly not what they were 20 years ago. Like any other place in the world, things have changed there too due to modernization and western lifestyle. But scientists continue to study them and find that along with diet, socializing, swimming, gardening, sleeping and resting confirm how important they are to longevity. The value of living more relaxed, chatting with the neighbor, eating with the family, cooking at home, choosing foods from the base of the food pyramid is priceless. And the value of life lies in them and not in matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In some parts of the world there is a large population that exceeds the usual life expectancy, without magic recipes and superfoods, just with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2957,6,2993,2811],"tags":[4741,2968,3214,3094,3318],"class_list":["post-15564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diet","category-health","category-life","category-wellness","tag-blue-zones","tag-health","tag-life","tag-longevity","tag-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15568,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15564\/revisions\/15568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Let’s say, of course, that the Blue Zones do not promise to help us live beyond the biological limits of man, but if we take into account that the life expectancy in the modern world is around 93 – a little more for women, a little less for men – when in the US the life expectancy reaches 77, it means that 16 years are wasted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-7.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n