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Blue Zones: Healthy Ageing ……….. Myth or Legend?

12 January 2024 | Living Well

Would you like to live to 100 and have a healthy life?

With diets, cosmetics, medical research and pharmaceutical industries hell bent on prolonging quality lives, the broad response seems to be a resounding ” Yes!”

Some years ago, I came across the Blue Zones research which began in 2004…..that’s 20 years ago now. I recently revisited the work of Dan Buettner, CEO of Blue Zones LLC via a Netflix series called ” Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones.” Buettner was one of the people researching Blue Zones. Before him Gianni Pes and others were doing similar research in Sicily. But let’s recap…….

What are so- called Blue Zones?

In 2004 a Danish twin study concluded that how long we live relies 20% on our genetics and 80% on our lifestyle. That’s a very significant conclusion, because it means lifestyle and therefore our health can be changed and improved dramatically to give us a longer, better quality life.

Dan Buettner asked the question..Where in the world are there  people living to 100 or more? He gathered a team of scientists and they discovered pockets- whole communities where there was a remarkably high  concentration of centenarians. These areas were called ” Blue Zones.”

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