One day in 1976, Stamatis Moraitis of Boynton Beach, Florida, felt short of breath. Climbing stairs was a chore; he had to quit working midday. After reviewing his X-rays, his doctor concluded that Moraitis had lung cancer. As he recalls, nine other doctors confirmed the diagnosis.
They gave him nine months to live. He was in his mid-60s. Moraitis, a Greek war veteran who had arrived in the United States in 1943, considered staying and seeking aggressive treatment.
That way, he and his wife, Elpiniki, could be close to his adult children. But he decided to return to his native island, Ikaria, where he could be buried with his ancestors in a cemetery that overlooked the Aegean Sea.
He and Elpiniki moved in with his elderly parents, into a tiny, whitewashed house on two acres of stepped vineyards on the north side of Ikaria.
At first, Moraitis spent his days in bed. On Sunday mornings, he hobbled up the hill to a tiny Greek Orthodox chapel where his grandfather once served as a priest.
When his childhood friends started showing up every afternoon, they’d talk for hours, an activity that invariably involved a bottle or two of locally produced wine. I might as well die happy, he thought.
In the ensuing months, Moraitis started to feel stronger. One day he planted some vegetables in the garden. He didn’t expect to live to harvest them, but he enjoyed being in the sunshine, breathing the ocean air.
Six months came and went. He didn’t die. Easing himself into the island routine, he woke up when he felt like it, worked in the vineyards until midafternoon, made lunch, and then took a long nap.
In the evenings, he often walked to the local tavern, where he played dominoes past midnight. His health continued to improve. He added a couple of rooms to his parents’ home so his children could visit. He built up the vineyard until it produced 400 gallons of wine a year.
For more than a decade, I’ve been organizing a study of places where people live longest. In 2008, my colleagues Michel Poulain, PhD, a Belgian demographer, and Gianni Pes, MD, a researcher at the University of Sassari in Italy, and I began investigating Ikaria. Ninety-nine square miles and home to almost 10,000 Greek nationals, the island lies about 30 miles off the western coast of Turkey.
We concluded that people on Ikaria were, in fact, two and a half times as likely to reach age 90 as Americans. Ikarian men, in particular, are nearly four times as likely as their American counterparts to reach 90. Ikarians were also living about eight to ten years longer before succumbing to cancers and cardiovascular disease, and they suffered less depression and about a quarter the rate of dementia.
Life on Ikaria
Seeking to learn more about the island’s reputation for long-lived residents, I called on Ilias Leriadis, one of Ikaria’s few physicians. On an outdoor patio, he set a table with kalamata olives, hummus, heavy Ikarian bread, and wine.
“People stay up late here,” Dr. Leriadis said. “We wake up late and always take naps. We simply don’t care about the clock.”
Dr. Leriadis also talked about local “mountain tea,” made from dried herbs endemic to the island, which is enjoyed as an end-of-the-day cocktail. He mentioned wild marjoram, sage, a type of mint tea, rosemary, and a drink made from boiling dandelion leaves and adding a little lemon.
The teas double as traditional Greek remedies. Wild mint fights gingivitis and gastrointestinal disorders; rosemary is used to treat gout; artemisia is thought to improve blood circulation.
When Ioanna Chinou, a professor at the University of Athens School of Pharmacy and one of Europe’s top experts on the bioactive properties of herbs, tested Ikaria’s most commonly used herbs, she found that they showed strong antioxidant properties. Most also contained mild diuretics, which doctors use to treat hypertension. Perhaps by drinking tea, Ikarians have gently lowered their blood pressure all their lives.
On a trip the year before, I visited a slate-roofed house built into the slope at the top of a hill. I had come here after hearing of a couple married for more than 75 years. Thanasis and Eirini Karimalis clapped their hands at the thrill of having a visitor.
The couple was born in a nearby village; they married in their early 20s and raised five children on Thanasis’s pay as a lumberjack. Their daily routine: Wake naturally, work in the garden, have a late lunch, nap.
At sunset, they either visited neighbors or neighbors visited them. Their diet was also typical: a breakfast of goat’s milk, wine, sage tea or coffee, honey, and bread. Lunch was almost always beans, potatoes, greens (fennel, dandelion, or a spinachlike green called horta), and seasonal vegetables from their garden; dinner was bread and goat’s milk. At Christmas and Easter, they would slaughter the family pig and enjoy small portions of larded pork for the next several months.
Just after sunset, another couple walked in, carrying a glass amphora of homemade wine. The ninety-somethings cheek-kissed one another and settled around the table. They gossiped, drank wine, and occasionally erupted into laughter.
The Healthy Magic of the Ikarian Diet
Meanwhile, my colleagues and additional researchers fanned out across the island and asked nonagenarians a battery of lifestyle questions. They were joined by Antonia Trichopoulou from the University of Athens Medical School, an expert on the Mediterranean diet.
She estimated that the Ikarian diet, compared with the standard American diet, might yield up to four additional years of life expectancy. Low intake of saturated fats from meat and dairy was associated with lower risk of heart disease; olive oil reduced bad cholesterol and raised good cholesterol.
Goat’s milk contained serotonin-boosting tryptophan and was easily digestible for older people. Some wild greens had ten times as many antioxidants as red wine.
Wine—in moderation—prompts the body to absorb more flavonoids, a type of antioxidant. Local sourdough bread might reduce a meal’s glycemic load. You could even argue that potatoes contributed heart-healthy potassium, vitamin B6, and fiber. And because islanders eat greens from their gardens, they consume fewer pesticides and more nutrients.
Ikarians’ sleep and sex habits might also affect their long lives. A 2008 paper by the University of Athens Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health found that napping at least three days weekly was associated with a 37 percent reduction in the risk of coronary heart disease.
In a preliminary study of older Ikarian men, 80 percent claimed to have sex regularly, a habit also linked to longevity. A quarter of that group said they were doing so with “good duration” and “achievement.”
When Thea Parikos moved from America to Ikaria and opened a guesthouse, she stopped shopping for most groceries, instead of planting a huge garden that provided most of their fruits and vegetables. She lost weight without trying to. I asked her if she thought her diet would make her family live longer. “Yes,” she said. “But we don’t think about it that way. It’s bigger than that.”
Although unemployment is high—perhaps as high as 40 percent—most everyone has access to a family garden and livestock, Parikos told me. People who work might have several jobs.
Someone involved in tourism, for example, might also be a painter. “We may not have money for luxuries, but we will have food on the table and still have fun with family and friends,” she said. “We may not be in a hurry to get work done during the day, so we work into the night. At the end of the day, we don’t go home to sit on the couch.”
Ask the very old on Ikaria how they’ve lived past 90, and they’ll usually talk about the clean air and the wine. Or, as one 101-year-old woman put it, “We just forget to die.” They have no idea how they’ve lived so long.
But if you pay careful attention, it appears that a dozen subtly powerful, mutually enhancing, and pervasive factors are at work. It’s easy to get enough rest if no one else wakes up early and the village goes dead during afternoon nap time.
It helps that the cheapest, most accessible foods are also the most healthful—and that your ancestors have spent centuries developing ways to make them taste good. It’s hard to get through the day without walking up 20 hills. You’re not likely to ever feel the stress of arriving late. And at day’s end, you’ll share a cup of herbal tea with your neighbor. Even if you’re antisocial, you’ll never be entirely alone.
The last time I spoke to Moraitis was in July 2012. Elpiniki had died in the spring, and now he lived alone. I had one last question: How does he think he recovered from lung cancer?
“It just went away,” he said. “I actually went back to America about 25 years after moving here to see if the doctors could explain it.” I had heard this part of the story before. It had become a piece of the folklore of Ikaria. Still, I asked, “What happened?”
“My doctors were all dead.”
Moraitis died in his home on February 3, 2013, at the age of 98, according to official records. By his own reckoning, he was 102.
By DAN BUETTNER FROM THE BOOK THE BLUE ZONES. Dan Buettner’s latest book, The Blue Zones Solution, reveals how Americans can adopt healthier lifestyles
Source: truth2day.com
Wonderful blog! I found it while searching on Yahoo News. Do you have any suggestions on how to get listed in Yahoo News? I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to get there! Cheers
Hi it’s me, I am also visiting this web site on a regular basis, this website is truly nice
and the people are actually sharing good thoughts.
http://slotsiteleri.guru/# canl? slot siteleri
aviator oyunu 50 tl: aviator oyunu – aviator oyna 100 tl
Hello there! I could have sworn I’ve been to this website before but after browsing through some of the post I realized it’s new to me. Anyhow, I’m definitely delighted I found it and I’ll be bookmarking and checking back frequently!
sweet bonanza indir: slot oyunlari – sweet bonanza free spin demo
pin up casino guncel giris: pin-up casino – pin-up online
울산콜걸
Have you ever thought about writing an e-book or guest authoring on other sites? I have a blog based upon on the same topics you discuss and would love to have you share some stories/information. I know my subscribers would enjoy your work. If you’re even remotely interested, feel free to shoot me an email.
울산콜걸
http://slotsiteleri.guru/# oyun siteleri slot
hello!,I like your writing so much! proportion we keep up a correspondence extra approximately your article on AOL? I require an expert in this area to resolve my problem. Maybe that’s you! Taking a look ahead to peer you.
May I just say what a relief to discover somebody who actually knows what they are talking about on the internet. You actually understand how to bring an issue to light and make it important. More people ought to read this and understand this side of your story. I was surprised that you are not more popular given that you definitely have the gift.
Thank you, I have just been looking for information about this subject for ages and yours is the greatest I have discovered till now. But, what about the bottom line? Are you sure about the source?
Sweet blog! I found it while browsing on Yahoo News. Do you have any suggestions on how to get listed in Yahoo News? I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to get there! Cheers
Intimately, the post is actually the freshest on that laudable topic. I fit in with your conclusions and will certainly thirstily look forward to your approaching updates. Simply saying thanks can not simply be acceptable, for the excellent lucidity in your writing. I definitely will immediately grab your rss feed to stay informed of any updates. Solid work and also much success in your business enterprize!
Hey there this is somewhat of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding skills so I wanted to get advice from someone with experience. Any help would be enormously appreciated!
Hi! I know this is kinda off topic but I was wondering which blog platform are you using for this website? I’m getting fed up of WordPress because I’ve had problems with hackers and I’m looking at options for another platform. I would be awesome if you could point me in the direction of a good platform.
http://aviatoroyna.bid/# aviator uçak oyunu
of course above ground pools are easier to maintain and to clean*
I was just searching for this information for some time. After six hours of continuous Googleing, finally I got it in your web site. I wonder what’s the lack of Google strategy that do not rank this kind of informative websites in top of the list. Usually the top sites are full of garbage.
I was very pleased to find this web-site.I wanted to thanks for your time for this wonderful read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you blog post.
fantastic post, very informative. I wonder why the opposite specialists of this sector do not understand this. You must continue your writing. I’m sure, you’ve a huge readers’ base already!
I was curious if you ever thought of changing the page layout of your site? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having 1 or two images. Maybe you could space it out better?
Hey there, I think your blog might be having browser compatibility issues. When I look at your blog site in Opera, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, very good blog!
pin up casino guncel giris: pin up 7/24 giris – pin up
elementor
This is really interesting, You’re an overly professional blogger. I have joined your rss feed and look forward to searching for more of your wonderful post. Also, I’ve shared your web site in my social networks!
Hello! I just would like to give a huge thumbs up for the great info you have here on this post. I will be coming back to your blog for more soon.
Appreciated to our dedicated stage in support of staying briefed beside the latest communication from the Agreed Kingdom. We take cognizance of the import of being well-versed about the happenings in the UK, whether you’re a citizen, an expatriate, or naturally interested in British affairs. Our extensive coverage spans across diversified domains including political science, economy, savoir vivre, entertainment, sports, and more.
In the realm of politics, we keep you updated on the intricacies of Westminster, covering ordered debates, government policies, and the ever-evolving prospect of British politics. From Brexit negotiations and their impact on trade and immigration to native policies affecting healthcare, education, and the atmosphere, we victual insightful inquiry and timely updates to help you navigate the complex sphere of British governance – https://newstopukcom.com/interview-with-max-webster-director-of-life-of-pie/.
Financial dirt is required in compensation reconciliation the financial thudding of the nation. Our coverage includes reports on supermarket trends, organization developments, and cost-effective indicators, offering valuable insights in behalf of investors, entrepreneurs, and consumers alike. Whether it’s the latest GDP figures, unemployment rates, or corporate mergers and acquisitions, we give it one’s all to read precise and fitting intelligence to our readers.