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Manoush Zamorodi and I'd like you to

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meet Lois. My name is Lois

0:58

Poushade Delahousie. I'm

1:01

40. I was just

1:03

there 49. I'm 94.

1:06

Lois lives in Broussard, Louisiana

1:09

and has a very active life. I

1:11

think the most important thing is

1:14

exercise. She goes to exercise class

1:16

for an hour and a half, twice a week.

1:19

She cleans her home. She gardens.

1:21

I love working in the

1:23

yard. She also plays cards

1:25

with friends, goes to mass

1:28

and eats lunch with her

1:30

family. Important things like going

1:32

to the beauty pool. And

1:35

I feel good. You know, I don't feel

1:37

old. I don't know what old feels like.

1:40

I just feel like myself. I

1:43

do have a sister that lives to be 100. And I said

1:47

if she can do it, I can do it. So

1:50

I have six more years to go.

1:53

And Lois just might make it

1:55

because all those activities are

1:57

very likely contributing to her longevity.

2:00

even more, perhaps, than just having

2:03

good genes. Only about 20%

2:05

of it is genes, the other 80% is something else.

2:10

This is writer and National Geographic fellow

2:12

Dan Butner. For the last 25 years,

2:15

he's been traveling the world to

2:17

places where groups of people have lived

2:20

well into their 90s and

2:22

beyond. We're talking about people who've

2:24

achieved the health outcomes we want,

2:27

which is to live a long time largely

2:29

without disease. And these people do it better

2:31

than anyone else in the world. These

2:34

tiny towns, neighborhoods even, are

2:37

referred to as blue zones,

2:39

places where the environment seems to

2:42

facilitate a longer life. If

2:44

you do everything right and you have an average set

2:47

of genes, you can set your financial

2:49

plan to age 95. But

2:52

in the U.S., that seems less

2:54

and less likely. Life expectancy

2:56

has declined over the past few years.

2:59

The average American makes it to about 76.

3:03

Dan thinks they could live far

3:05

longer. The reason

3:07

that people I've found are living

3:10

a long time is not because they have

3:12

a magical

3:14

diet or longevity hack. It's

3:17

simply because they're avoiding the

3:19

diseases that foreshorten their lives.

3:22

They are not dying of dementia,

3:26

cancer that GI track, heart

3:28

disease, strokes, type 2

3:30

diabetes, obesity, at anywhere

3:32

near the numbers we are today.

3:35

They have the same machines,

3:37

the same biological machines that we

3:40

do. They've just managed

3:42

to expose that machine

3:44

to an environment that has allowed them

3:47

to live out the capacity of what

3:49

we're all given. So

3:51

today on the show, we're spending the hour

3:53

with Dan Butner. He takes us

3:55

around the world to these pockets

3:58

of vitality, from mountain- top

4:00

villages in Sardinia, to islands

4:02

off the coasts of Japan

4:04

and Greece, and to

4:06

the Nokoya region of Costa Rica. We'll

4:09

learn how these places nurtured

4:11

longevity, why, as the

4:13

modern world encroaches, they may be

4:15

fading away, and how

4:17

we can apply Blue Zone wisdom to

4:20

our own homes and neighborhoods right

4:22

now. The vast majority of it

4:24

is, I argue, your environment,

4:27

much less than your lifestyle, your

4:29

environment. So Dan Butner is

4:31

now a bestselling author, and his

4:33

recent Netflix series is called Live

4:35

to 100 Secrets of the Blue

4:37

Zones. But before he was into

4:39

longevity, Dan was working for National

4:41

Geographic and always on the hunt

4:43

for a good story. It's

4:46

actually my brother Nick who stumbled upon

4:48

a World Health Organization report

4:50

in the year 1999 that

4:53

found that Okinawa, Japan, an

4:56

archipelago of 161 islands

4:59

in Southeast Asia, were producing

5:01

a population with the highest

5:03

disability-free life expectancy in the

5:06

world. So I said, aha,

5:08

now this is a good mystery. These people

5:10

are living long and there's got to be

5:12

a reason for it. So

5:14

Okinawa, it's part of Japan today,

5:16

but before about 1918, it was

5:19

called the Ruku's Kingdom. So it's

5:21

actually a completely different population than

5:23

people in Japan. Even though they

5:25

live on islands close to the

5:28

sea, they traditionally have not eaten

5:30

much or any fish. Instead,

5:33

they relied mostly on

5:35

a type of purple potato called

5:37

emo, full of complex carbohydrates and

5:40

antioxidants, the same ones that you find in

5:42

blueberries. They all see a lot

5:44

of tofu and they

5:46

developed a few social constructs that, you

5:49

know, at the time, I kind of

5:51

dismissed them, but evidence is now found

5:53

are probably better explainers of

5:55

their longevity than anything else. Number

5:58

one, they have this... vocabulary

6:00

for purpose in the word ikigai,

6:03

which roughly means the reason for which I wake up

6:05

in the morning. And

6:08

interestingly, the Okinawan dialect

6:10

has no word for retirement.

6:13

They continue to be engaged with

6:15

their brains and their bodies, and

6:17

they feel meaning in their life

6:19

into their 90s or 100s. And

6:23

that's been found to add up to eight

6:25

years of life expectancy over being rudderless in

6:27

life. Here's Dan Buettner on

6:29

the TED stage. For

6:32

this 102-year-old karate master, his

6:34

ikigai was carrying

6:36

forth this martial art. For this

6:38

100-year-old fisherman, it was continuing to catch

6:40

fish for his family three times a

6:43

week. For this 102-year-old woman,

6:45

her ikigai was simply her

6:47

great, great, great granddaughter.

6:51

Two girls separated in age by 101 and a half years.

6:56

And I asked her what it felt like

6:58

to hold a great, great, great granddaughter, and

7:00

she put her head back and she said,

7:02

it feels like leaping into heaven. I

7:07

watched your recent Netflix series

7:09

with my 80-year-old parents, and

7:11

we loved one particular woman.

7:14

I think her name was

7:16

Umito Yamahiro. She's 101 in

7:18

the show, and she

7:20

is just laughing, and she can

7:22

balance this, like, vase on her

7:24

head while she's dancing. And

7:28

she says that she

7:30

doesn't get angry, that the secret to

7:32

living a long time is having fun.

7:36

It really struck me. Yeah,

7:39

probably not coincidentally. These blue zones,

7:43

in addition to being the longest lived, they're in the

7:45

top 10 or 20% of

7:47

the happiest places in the world. So

7:49

a really nice finding is that

7:51

the same things that drive a

7:53

long life also make the journey

7:55

pleasant and wonderful. They kind

7:57

of go hand in hand. You can't often separate.

8:00

happiness and laughter and

8:02

a full rich purposeful life and

8:04

longevity. They're part of the same

8:06

mess. Okay

8:13

so you spent a lot of time

8:16

in Okinawa, you learned about how they

8:18

lived there, and then you decided to

8:20

go visit Sardinia. Why

8:22

was Sardinia next? We

8:25

had data for Sardinia. A researcher named

8:28

Gianni Pess was just beginning to

8:30

report it in this very obscure

8:32

journal. Nobody knew about it

8:34

except for the 108 readers

8:36

of the Journal of Experimental

8:39

Gerontology. It was on

8:41

the other side of the planet and

8:43

it was producing even more

8:45

male centenarians than Okinawa was

8:48

producing. So there are

8:50

a few unique aspects of

8:52

the Sardinian longevity phenomenon, but

8:54

there are more commonalities.

8:58

So first of all the Blue Zone in Sardinia is

9:01

only five villages in the Nworo

9:03

and Oliastra province and it was

9:05

a matriarchal society when the rest

9:07

of the Mediterranean is

9:10

patriarchal. And they

9:12

lived in very steep rugged terrain.

9:14

They were largely shepherds, unlike

9:17

the Okinawans who were largely

9:20

agriculturalists. But what did they

9:22

have in common? Well

9:24

if you look at dietary surveys over

9:26

time, if you want to know

9:28

what a centenarian need to live to be 100, they

9:31

were eating a very similar diet,

9:33

a whole food plant-based diet, not

9:35

sweet potatoes and tofu.

9:37

But instead they were eating lots

9:40

of beans and local

9:42

greens and some passes, a lot of

9:44

bread by the way. You

9:46

found an amazing correlation between

9:49

longevity and how steep the

9:52

people lived up in the mountains. Was it

9:54

basically the steeper the better? Yes. So

9:56

not the altitude. One of the

9:59

top correlations. was the steepest of

10:01

the village predicted making it

10:03

to 100, more than

10:05

almost everything else. The other predictor actually

10:07

was daughters you had. Turns

10:10

out the guys who had five or

10:12

more daughters, had the best

10:14

chance of making it to 100. And

10:16

you add that when people do

10:18

get older, they don't move to

10:20

nursing homes, which you say can

10:22

lead to someone dying two to

10:24

six years earlier than

10:26

if they live with their family. Yes,

10:29

I believe from having visited the

10:31

homes of over 300 centenarians, it's

10:35

because when you're living with your family

10:37

in a blue zone, you tend to

10:39

have a responsibility. You're still

10:42

in charge of the food tradition. You

10:44

help raise the children. You always

10:47

have a garden. So their

10:49

wisdom is honored and put to

10:51

work. And they have a

10:53

reason to get up in the morning. They're still

10:55

engaged with life. And I would

10:58

encourage people to at least try

11:00

to bring their aging parents nearby

11:02

or incorporate them more into

11:05

their family life. Something called the

11:07

grandmother effect has showed that families with

11:09

a grandparent in them, their

11:11

children have lower rates of mortality and

11:14

grow up healthier. You spent

11:16

time with a woman named

11:18

Juliana Pizanu who was 101,

11:20

never married. Right.

11:24

But she had an extended family

11:27

and in Sardinia extended families almost

11:30

as important as your immediate family.

11:33

And her nieces took time, basically

11:35

a day a week to come

11:38

stay with her. Do

11:40

you enjoy the time you're here or is

11:42

it work? You know, they weren't, oh God,

11:44

I go to go take care of my

11:46

aunt. It

11:49

was, oh, it's my day. I get to spend a day

11:51

with her. The

11:54

other interesting aspect of the

11:56

centenaries I met in blue zones, there wasn't

11:58

a grump in the bunch. And

12:00

it seemed that possessing a certain likability,

12:04

being interested and interesting, and

12:07

a certain generosity actually

12:09

drew people to them. I

12:11

mean, there's something that strikes me about talking

12:13

about Sardinia and Okinawa is that they're both

12:16

relatively remote. Is there something to

12:19

that with blue zones? That there

12:21

is a rhythm to their day

12:23

that doesn't include a lot of

12:26

sitting and hearing about how

12:29

awful climate change is, or

12:31

wars going on, or all

12:33

the things that consume us

12:35

every day. Their remoteness

12:37

does, to your point, afford them a

12:39

certain insulation from the bombardment of bad

12:42

news. But more

12:44

importantly, it's afforded them an

12:46

insulation from the standard American

12:48

diet and

12:51

globalization that has engineered

12:54

so much physical activity out of our lives.

12:57

Being remote allows this culture of longevity

12:59

to incubate and develop apart from what

13:01

the rest of the country is doing.

13:05

When we come back, a blue zone

13:07

that's not so remote. We

13:09

visit Loma Linda, California. I'm

13:12

Manusha Zamorodi, and you're listening to the

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TED Radio Hour from NPR. Stay with

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14:52

Hey, it's Minouche. Before we get back to the show, 2023

14:56

is coming to a close and we've been

14:58

doing some reflecting a bit here at TED

15:00

Radio Hour. We have

15:02

loved bringing you episodes about

15:04

why wolves are thriving near

15:06

Chernobyl, about how your brain

15:08

sees your future self and

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what needs to happen to fix the foster

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care system, among many other

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possible moving forward. So

15:59

join... It's the Ted Radio

16:01

Hour from NPR. I'm

16:20

Manish Zamorodi. On

16:22

the show today, a conversation with

16:24

Ted Speaker and National Geographic Fellow,

16:26

Dan Butner, about Blue Zones. This

16:30

is around the world where people have

16:32

lived well into their 90s and beyond.

16:35

We started our show in Okinawa

16:37

and Sardinia, Blue Zone havens

16:39

that benefit from being cut off from

16:42

the world. But the next

16:44

Blue Zone we'll visit isn't very remote at

16:46

all. They're right off the San

16:48

Bernardino freeway in Loma

16:50

Lina, California. Recently,

16:54

one of our producers visited the local

16:56

recreation center there and met

16:59

one couple taking their regular

17:01

exercise class. I'm Jodi

17:03

Nichols and 78 years old. Jodi

17:06

Nichols was joined by her husband, Glenn.

17:09

Glenn Nichols, 94 years old.

17:12

I think he's probably the oldest

17:14

of our group. Alongside

17:17

dozens of other regulars, Glenn

17:19

and Jodi stretched, balanced medicine

17:22

balls and stomps, along

17:24

with their instructor. But

17:26

here's what's different about this exercise

17:29

for seniors. Most of the

17:31

attendees are part of the Seventh Day

17:33

Adventist Church, a Christian denomination

17:35

whose members view their health

17:37

as sacred. They're

17:40

living about seven years

17:42

longer than their North American counterparts.

17:45

It's not so much Loma Lina that's

17:47

a Blue Zone. It's really the Adventist

17:50

culture that's a Blue Zone, the best

17:52

concentration of which is in

17:54

Loma Lina. And they

17:56

look to the Bible to inform their

17:58

diet. Mostly it's

18:01

from Genesis. There's

18:04

a passage where God articulates the

18:07

diet of the garden of Eden. Every

18:10

plant that bears seed

18:12

and every tree that bears fruit. A

18:15

little or no meat, vegetables, fruits,

18:17

nuts, things like that. That's

18:19

the original diet according to the Bible. And

18:22

from that they've derived the message that

18:24

they should be eating a plant-based diet.

18:28

And their friends are all

18:30

eating a plant-based diet. So that's

18:33

probably the biggest driver of the fact

18:35

that they're living longer. Again,

18:38

with a fraction of the rate of disease of

18:40

their neighbors living just a county over, who

18:42

are not Adventists. I've been a vegetarian

18:45

since I was 19. I

18:47

never smoked, never drank. I

18:50

don't use coffee. And

18:52

the reason they can avoid those things

18:55

better than maybe the rest of us

18:57

is because they bore

18:59

hanging out with other clean living people

19:01

who are eating plant-based foods and supporting

19:04

each other spiritually. And it becomes easy

19:06

to fall into the slipstream of that

19:09

way of life. We

19:11

have socials at the

19:13

church. We go to that on

19:16

Saturday night, play games and

19:18

socialize. It's more

19:20

socially active than I am. We

19:23

don't sit in front of the TV. The

19:25

TV is rarely, rarely on.

19:29

We play games. That

19:31

keeps our brain, we hope, moving. I

19:35

think God gave us that community. He

19:37

wants us to be in community and

19:40

prayer. Not just once

19:42

or twice a day, but throughout our game.

19:47

I'm really curious about the role

19:49

of religion for the folks in

19:51

Loma Linda, because how much

19:54

is organized religion and an

19:56

affiliation with a group, what

19:58

impacts longevity? Is

20:01

it belonging and identity that makes

20:03

people live longer, or the

20:06

spirituality connection to a higher

20:08

power that makes people live

20:10

longer? Can we tell the difference? We

20:14

don't know how to measure spirituality with

20:16

any accuracy, but we can measure something

20:18

called religiosity, which is simply measured by

20:21

how often you show up to

20:24

a faith-based community, whether it be a

20:26

church, a temple, or a mosque. We

20:29

know from meta-analyses that people who

20:31

show up four

20:34

times a month are living four to

20:36

14 years longer than people who don't

20:38

show up. But

20:40

we don't know if that's because belonging

20:43

to a faith-based community, you're less likely

20:45

to engage in risky behaviors, or

20:47

if it's because you have

20:51

a day every week where you're distressing

20:53

and thinking about a higher power, or

20:56

if it's because you have a nice social

20:58

network that you close and play.

21:01

But we do know that belonging to

21:03

a faith-based community stacks the deck in

21:06

favor of health and longevity. By

21:08

the way, those people who are making it 14 years

21:12

are inner-city minorities. I

21:14

argue that one of the best public

21:17

health interventions we have

21:19

available to us in most cities is

21:21

getting young people involved with

21:24

religious organizations. And I

21:26

say that not as a religious person myself. I say

21:28

it, look at the data. I

21:30

don't know of anything else that can convey 14

21:32

extra years of life expectancy other

21:35

than joining up for your temple, or

21:37

mosque, or church. That's

21:40

a commitment and a big decision. But then

21:42

you also say that having a handful of

21:45

nuts every day could give you three

21:47

extra years. That's from the

21:49

Adventist Health Study. That's when you follow 103,000 people

21:51

for 30 years, and you find that people who

21:53

report eating

21:57

a handful of nuts every day are living...

22:00

two to three years longer than the people who

22:02

aren't eating nuts. You

22:05

also visited a Blue Zone,

22:07

Nacoia, a rural region

22:09

in northern Costa Rica. And

22:12

you know, we've heard this for years

22:14

that in most of the world as

22:16

income rises, so does life expectancy. But

22:18

that is not the case in Nacoia.

22:20

It is one of the poorest regions

22:22

in a pretty poor country. Which is why

22:25

we should pay attention to it. This

22:28

population has the lowest rate of middle

22:30

age mortality. So they have

22:32

about a two fold better chance of reaching

22:34

a healthy age 90 than Americans do. So,

22:38

you know, once again, I go there

22:40

trying to solve a multi variable equation.

22:42

I just know that this place is

22:44

producing super long live people. And

22:47

we found that the

22:49

Nacoia Peninsula has very different

22:52

groundwater than the rest of Costa Rica.

22:54

It's limestone in Nacoia. And what burbles

22:57

up through the ground

22:59

is a type of water very

23:01

high in calcium and magnesium. So

23:03

maybe that has something to do with it. It

23:06

is a, the

23:09

race there is a blend of

23:11

Spaniards, African Americans, and,

23:13

but mostly Native

23:16

Americans, the Chorotega people.

23:19

So maybe it has to do

23:21

with this particular mix. For

23:24

most of a centenarian's life, about

23:26

80% of their dietary

23:28

intake came from three foods. They

23:30

call it the three sisters. Corn

23:33

tortillas, squash, and

23:36

beans. And those

23:38

three foods come together in absolutely

23:40

magical ways. They produce all complex

23:43

carbohydrates, lots of trace minerals,

23:45

but perhaps most importantly, all

23:48

the amino acids necessary for

23:50

human sustenance. Which

23:52

is to say it's a whole protein

23:54

without the saturated fats

23:56

and the hormones and the

23:58

other. dangerous aspects

24:01

of animal-based proteins. They

24:04

have a very strong sense of community.

24:06

Most of them are very strongly religious.

24:10

Again, this is a very remote part

24:12

of the world, so they had to stick together. I'm

24:16

thinking of one of the people that

24:18

you feature in your Netflix series, a

24:20

cowboy named Remuro who really

24:23

demonstrates how people in Nokoya

24:25

are biologically younger than people

24:27

of the same age in

24:29

other places. The scene starts

24:32

with him on a horse,

24:35

last wing, some cattle,

24:38

and it's pretty extraordinary. He's

24:40

amazing. He wakes up every morning about

24:42

5 a.m., makes his own breakfast, saddles

24:45

up his horse, trots across

24:47

town through a river where

24:49

he has a number of cattle that

24:51

are just a small herd that he takes

24:54

care of and he comes home and takes

24:56

a nap and gets his lunch together

24:58

and does it again in the

25:01

afternoon. He had

25:03

the vitality and the physical

25:06

abilities of a 50-year-old, but

25:09

yet we know because we could

25:11

check his birth certificate and

25:14

his ID that he was over 100 years old. That's

25:30

where we want to be. It's at that

25:32

level of vitality, but also making

25:34

it to our hundred, possessing all the

25:37

wisdom that he did. You

25:41

have said that in the U.S. we

25:43

hope for health, but we incent for

25:45

sickness. That kind

25:47

of bowled me over. How is the

25:49

approach to healthcare in the U.S. different

25:52

from Nokoya? The Costa Rican government in the

25:55

1990s instituted these basic

25:57

health teams where every

25:59

single single man, woman and child has

26:01

the right to a visit every year

26:03

from an ambassador from this team composed

26:05

of a doctor, a nurse

26:08

practitioner, a record keeper, and two of these

26:10

sort of wandering health ambassadors. And they actually

26:12

go to your front door,

26:14

they have your health records, they

26:17

go in your backyard and look

26:19

for standing water, which could harbor

26:21

disease-bearing mosquitoes, they look in your

26:23

refrigerator to see what you've been

26:26

eating, to look for signs of

26:28

chronic disease and they can catch

26:31

diabetes or heart disease

26:34

decades before it shows up in an emergency

26:36

room. And that's because the

26:38

government invests in health

26:40

rather than looks for

26:43

profit in health. There's

26:45

free health care for everybody no matter

26:47

how poor you are and it's proactive health

26:49

care, not reactive health care like we have

26:51

in the United States. So

26:53

interestingly, they have about half

26:56

the rate of middle-aged cardiovascular

26:58

mortality. So much better health

27:00

comes, fraction of the rate of

27:03

what we spend. We spend about $4.4 trillion

27:05

a year on health care, about 85% of it is on avoidable

27:08

diseases. And

27:15

that's because our health care system only

27:18

makes money when you get sick. All

27:21

right, let's go to our last blue

27:23

zone, Ikaria. This

27:25

is a Greek island close to

27:28

Turkey. I

27:30

feel like this one makes sense, right? Greek

27:32

cuisine is what the Mediterranean diet is

27:34

modeled after, we hear about that here. But

27:37

tell us about life in Ikaria, how it's

27:39

different from the rest of Greece. Ikaria

27:42

is again very hilly, arrives

27:45

abruptly out of the Aegean Sea.

27:48

There were no natural ports, so

27:51

it was largely overlooked by Western

27:53

civilization. You can see from

27:55

Ikaria, you can see Samos were

27:57

Epicurus and Pythagoras. lived

28:01

and created the foundations of

28:03

Western civilization. But yet, in

28:05

Korea, nobody really stopped there much. So

28:08

you don't see the whitewashed villages, like you see

28:11

in the rest of Greece. The

28:13

villages are away from the sea,

28:16

almost hidden, sometimes

28:18

in these sort of craters, and

28:21

they're scattered. You often don't even see

28:23

a town square. That's because

28:26

they were in perpetual threat

28:28

of pirates. As a

28:30

result, they had to

28:32

stick together socially, but

28:34

every family had its own

28:36

garden and its own little vineyard.

28:39

So instead of relying on

28:42

the farmer to create all the food for the village,

28:44

everybody created their own food. So they're all actively

28:47

growing food, actively

28:51

growing grapes for their wine. They're

28:53

in staying more physically active. They

28:56

didn't have money for coffee, for the most part,

28:58

so they drank these

29:00

herbal teas at higher rates than

29:02

the rest of Greece. And the herbal teas

29:04

were made of oregano, rosemary, a catnip, and

29:07

a sage. I had these herbal

29:09

teas sent to the University of Athens and

29:11

analyzed, and it turns out they were all anti-oxidants

29:16

or anti-inflammatory, and in

29:18

most cases also mild diuretics,

29:20

which lower your blood pressure.

29:24

So one of the reasons these

29:26

people are living longer might be

29:28

because they're drinking these herbal teas all

29:30

the time and have a lower inflammation

29:32

load or fewer vascular

29:35

strokes because they have lower

29:37

blood pressure. Going

29:40

back to enjoying the pleasantries of life and

29:42

another liquid that we have to talk about,

29:45

which is alcohol. The sad headlines in

29:47

the United States have recently been a

29:50

rather definitive conclusion that the

29:52

best amount of alcohol to

29:54

drink is no alcohol. But

29:56

that is not the case in Icaria. Right.

30:00

Except for the Adventist

30:02

who shun alcohol. In

30:05

every Blue Zone they're drinking, and

30:07

I'm very well aware of the

30:09

epidemiology studies, but it's

30:11

not definitive in my mind. Alcohol

30:15

or a little bit of wine

30:17

in Blue Zones bring people together

30:19

socially. In IKOREA,

30:21

I just read a survey of

30:23

90-year-olds, and 90% of them reported

30:26

drinking every day. They

30:28

suffer a fraction of the rate of heart disease, a

30:30

fifth the rate of dementia, as we

30:32

do in the United States. I

30:35

know for sure that making it

30:37

into your 90s or 100s and having a

30:39

modest amount of alcohol every day are not

30:41

mutually exclusive. So is a low

30:43

rate or even no rate

30:46

of dementia common in Blue

30:48

Zones? It's low rate

30:50

everywhere. What people don't often realize

30:52

is whether it's heart

30:54

disease, type 2 diabetes,

30:58

many cancers or dementia

31:00

or metabolic syndrome, they're all

31:03

driven by the same factors.

31:05

Lack of physical activity, eating

31:07

a standard American diet, loneliness,

31:10

social isolation, lack of purpose,

31:14

exposure to contaminants, the

31:16

same factors drive all of

31:18

these chronic diseases that are killing us and

31:20

costing us trillions a year. So

31:23

yes, in Blue Zones

31:25

they live a long time and

31:27

also suffering a fraction of

31:30

the rate of dementia for the same reasons.

31:33

I had always thought that dementia was just

31:35

inevitable, that when you got really old that

31:37

was just another – the brain begins

31:40

to atrophy. It

31:42

does, but there was a recent

31:44

article in the Journal of American

31:46

Medical Association that showed that at

31:48

least 40% of dementia or Alzheimer

31:50

is avoidable. And

31:54

all I have to do is point to Icaria,

31:56

population of 10,000 people where – They

32:01

have 20% the rate of dementia that we have

32:03

in the United States. We only found three mild

32:05

cases of dementia on the entire island. And

32:08

it just to me shows that we

32:11

should be beating dementia not by looking

32:13

for the cure, but

32:15

by investing in prevention. Another

32:18

thing you say that works as prevention is

32:20

love. You

32:22

talk about a couple who met

32:25

later in life. She was divorced.

32:27

He was widowed. And

32:30

when they met, they were really open

32:32

to embarking on another chapter of life

32:34

together. That was a beautiful

32:36

love story. First of all, it's never too late

32:38

to find love. When

32:42

my first wife passed away,

32:44

I had lost my appetite

32:46

to leave. I

32:48

wouldn't talk. I wouldn't laugh.

32:51

I wouldn't eat. I

32:55

fell to pieces. She

32:58

brought me back. When

33:00

I was looking at him,

33:04

something was tickling my soul.

33:08

I married my first husband at 16. I

33:12

had a gloomy life, but

33:15

you have made me complete and

33:17

I have forgotten the past. This

33:22

great story of how

33:24

Paniotis actually invites

33:26

his girlfriend out on their first date.

33:29

He sets up this picnic on

33:32

a blanket with a bottle of wine

33:34

overlooking this beautiful scene of the Aegean.

33:36

They made out on

33:39

their first date. When

33:42

I visited them, they're canoodling. You

33:45

could see very clearly when we visited him.

33:47

He was in his 90s. He was not

33:49

moving as fast anymore. You could see this

33:51

beautiful symbiosis between the two of them, living

33:54

a life of love and social

33:57

connectedness and eating good food and

33:59

taking care of it. each other and it you

34:02

know it underscores the central premise of Blue Zones

34:04

which is this

34:06

brand of longevity not

34:08

only offers us another decade or so

34:11

but the journey is fun

34:13

and loving and purposeful and

34:16

connected and close to nature and it's just

34:18

a beautiful way of living life.

34:22

In a minute can Blue Zones

34:24

be created manufactured even? Dan

34:27

heads to the middle of America to

34:30

find out. Stick around. I'm

34:32

Manoush Zamorodi and you're listening to the

34:34

Ted Radio Hour from NPR. Support

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35:21

today. It's

35:24

the Ted Radio Hour from NPR.

35:26

I'm Manoush Zamorodi and on

35:28

the show today, Ted Speaker and

35:30

National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner. Dan

35:33

has spent decades researching the Blue

35:35

Zones of the world. Very

35:38

different places with surprisingly

35:40

similar habits. For example,

35:43

the oldest people in these areas

35:45

just keep moving all day

35:47

long. Instead of exercising they live

35:49

in places where every time they go to work

35:51

or a friend's house or out to eat occasions

35:53

they'll walk. They have gardens

35:56

out back. They need bread by

35:58

hand and grind corn by hand. hand,

36:00

so my team figures they're moving every 20

36:02

minutes or so naturally. People

36:04

in blue zones have a sense of

36:06

purpose. Ikigai or plannedivita like

36:08

in Costa Rica. They have

36:11

regular spiritual rituals. The Adventist

36:13

pray. Costa Ricans,

36:15

Ikrians take a nap. The

36:17

Okinawans have ancestor veneration. They

36:20

eat simple plant-based diets. Whole

36:22

grains, greens and garden vegetables,

36:25

tubers like sweet potatoes, nuts

36:28

and the cornerstone of every longevity diet is beans.

36:30

And if you're eating a cup of beans a

36:32

day, it's probably worth about four

36:35

years of life expectancy over an unhealthy

36:37

source of protein. And

36:40

perhaps most importantly, they

36:42

put an enormous emphasis on their family

36:44

over their work or their

36:47

hobby. So they keep aging parents nearby.

36:50

They invest in their spouse and they invest

36:52

in their children. They

36:54

tend to belong to a faith-based community.

36:57

All but about five centenarians I met

36:59

said that they believed in a God

37:01

of some sort and showed up. And

37:04

finally, they tend to have

37:07

carefully curated immediate circles. They

37:10

surround themselves with people who

37:12

care about them on a bad day and

37:15

reinforce healthy eating or some sort of

37:17

an active hobby so that

37:19

when they get together with their friends, they're

37:21

doing healthy things instead of unhealthy things. And

37:24

those are whether you're in Asia

37:26

or Europe or Latin America, you see

37:29

these same things happening over and over

37:31

and over again. I'm

37:34

guessing that the vast majority

37:36

of people hearing what

37:38

you have to say, they're

37:41

intrigued by this idea of changing

37:43

themselves, of changing their own community.

37:46

I would love to move to Icaria,

37:48

cannot, but you are

37:51

actually trying to create blue

37:53

zones out of places

37:55

that are not blue yet. Yes.

37:58

The big insight. took me about eight

38:01

years to realize is that health

38:03

and longevity aren't something

38:05

we pursue very successfully, but

38:07

it very successfully

38:10

ensues from the

38:12

right environment. In other

38:14

words, people in blue zones are living a

38:16

long time because they live

38:19

in surroundings that nudge them

38:21

into doing the right things

38:24

and avoiding the wrong things for

38:27

long enough so they don't develop a

38:29

chronic disease. You actually started

38:32

a company to try

38:35

and replicate these

38:37

habits in places that are not blue

38:39

zones, but where you think they could

38:41

become blue zones. For example, Albert

38:44

Lee, Minnesota, about a town of 18,000

38:47

people, and you started working there in about

38:49

2009. Yeah. Tell us what

38:51

you did. In

38:55

2009, I started a pilot project in a

38:57

place called Albert Lee, Minnesota with

39:00

the idea of instead of trying to

39:02

convince an entire city to change their

39:04

behaviors, I would

39:06

recruit the best experts in changing the

39:08

environment of a city, changing

39:11

the policies, the restaurants,

39:13

the grocery stores, the workplaces, the

39:15

schools, the churches, and even people's

39:17

homes to

39:19

engineer their unconscious decisions to

39:22

be incrementally better every

39:24

single day for years and then

39:26

measure the outcome. And

39:28

remarkably, it worked

39:30

fantastically. Albert Lee

39:33

got a makeover. The first community

39:35

in the country to be a certified

39:37

blue zones community. City leaders are holding

39:39

a meeting about how friendly Albert

39:41

Lee is to pedestrians. Restaurants

39:43

in Albert Lee added healthier menu

39:46

options. People pledged to eat less

39:48

fast food. Kids walked to school.

39:50

More walking, more socializing, better diet,

39:53

happier longer life. Albert Lee

39:55

has really dropped in the percentages of people

39:57

with high blood pressure. The same with high

39:59

cholesterol. Residents report their

40:01

overall well-being, sense of community and

40:03

sense of purpose is up. So

40:06

many people report that they are

40:08

thriving. What

40:10

happened? What did you do? First we

40:13

found food policies that

40:15

favored healthy food over junk

40:17

food and junk food marketing.

40:19

We found policies that favored

40:22

the pedestrian, the cyclist over the

40:24

motorist. And we found policies that

40:26

favored the nonsmoker over the smokers.

40:29

And then through a consensus

40:31

process, we helped City Council

40:33

evaluate each one for effectiveness

40:36

and feasibility. And then once

40:38

they identified some

40:40

politically expedient policies, we got

40:42

them to implement several

40:45

of them. The big one in Albert

40:47

Lee is they were about

40:49

to widen their main street and draw

40:51

more traffic from the interstate. And we

40:53

convinced them to actually, instead of widening

40:55

the street, widening the sidewalks and

40:58

taking that street widening money and putting

41:00

a walking path around the adjacent lake.

41:03

And also put

41:05

in about three miles of

41:07

sidewalks to connect every neighborhood to

41:09

downtown. And lo

41:11

and behold, once you invited pedestrians

41:14

to walk downtown, downtown

41:16

filled up. And it

41:18

not only increased the amount

41:20

of physical activity people got by it,

41:23

we calculate between 15 and 20 percent,

41:25

downtown became a vibrant place. People

41:28

were sitting at the local cafes and

41:31

visiting the local marketing. So it created

41:34

this virtuous circle. I

41:36

have to say part of me is surprised because I think

41:38

the places where you did research, Blue Zones,

41:41

these were habits that had been

41:43

around for centuries. I

41:46

mean, isn't it really hard to change

41:48

people's habits that quickly? Absolutely.

41:52

Blue Zones, there is

41:54

zero habit modifications. Nobody

41:57

there is trying to change their habit. just

42:00

living the life that their environment

42:02

makes easy, accessible, and affordable. So

42:05

what I try to do is again,

42:07

reverse engineer, try to bring the environmental

42:10

components of Blue Zones to American

42:12

cities. And we've now done

42:14

it in 72 cities, and every city

42:16

we've worked in, we've seen the

42:19

BMI drop. In other words,

42:21

the obesity rate goes down and people report

42:24

higher levels of life

42:26

satisfaction, not because we

42:29

try to change their minds that we

42:31

do a little bit, but because we

42:33

change their environment to make the healthy

42:35

choice the easy choice. So

42:38

15 years later, after you started this

42:40

experiment in Albert Lee, Minnesota, are they

42:42

keeping it up? Has this

42:45

been a long-term change? Are people living

42:47

longer there? So they continue to

42:49

do the Blue Zone work. Their

42:51

ranking in Minnesota has continually

42:53

gone up as a healthier

42:56

city. They've

42:58

reported a drop in healthcare

43:00

costs by about 30% for

43:02

city workers, and they continue

43:04

to do the same work that

43:06

we instituted in 2009, but

43:09

more contemporary times of Fort Worth,

43:11

Texas, the city of a million

43:13

people. After five years

43:16

doing our Blue Zone project, they report

43:18

obesity has gone down, physical

43:20

activity has gone up, and they report

43:22

healthcare cost savings of about a quarter

43:24

of a billion dollars a year. I

43:26

would say projected healthcare cost savings of

43:28

about a quarter of a billion dollars

43:31

a year occasioned by our work. I

43:33

mean, people in the US don't like being told what

43:35

to do, right? It's un-American. So

43:38

you're almost doing it to

43:40

the point where they don't even realize that

43:42

their lifestyle is changing. Right. We

43:45

never tell people what to do. We don't tell city councils what

43:47

to do. We show city councils

43:50

policies that have worked elsewhere

43:52

to produce a health community,

43:54

and then we evaluate it

43:56

for effectiveness and feasibility in

43:58

their community. And they choose,

44:00

so we're not coming in with, you know, you

44:03

got to attack sodas. We

44:05

come to evidence-based things that we know.

44:08

If you make a city walkable and

44:10

bikable, we know that physical activity will

44:12

go up to as much

44:14

as 20%. And we can

44:16

show them how to do that if they want to do that. You

44:19

know, in the Netflix documentary series, I

44:22

profiled Singapore in my

44:24

lifetime. Their life expectancy has gone up

44:26

over 20 years. They

44:29

now produce the longest-lived, healthiest

44:31

people on the planet. How

44:34

does Singapore achieve that? We don't have

44:37

natural resources. People are

44:39

our natural resource. Singapore

44:42

works on nudges. There's

44:44

a war on diabetes, for instance, in

44:47

Singapore. People are taking too

44:49

much sugar. They eat the wrong foods.

44:51

So what do we do? What

44:53

does the government of Singapore do? They

44:55

try to help you help yourself. And

44:59

it's not because, you know,

45:01

they have great diet plans and

45:03

exercise programs. It's because they have

45:05

systematically gone through and made the

45:08

healthy choice easier, cheaper, more accessible.

45:11

And lo and behold, it produced a

45:14

manifestly healthier environment and

45:17

healthier people. I mean, the

45:19

key thing that's different about Singapore is the

45:21

government there. Yes, it's a democracy, but also

45:23

has autocratic tendencies, very

45:26

strict rules of behavior.

45:29

Is that the quickest way to get people

45:31

to fall in line? I mean, I remember

45:33

living in New York City and the mayor

45:36

Bloomberg trying to attack sodas, and

45:38

people were up in arms,

45:40

you know, like, we can die by any method

45:42

we choose to. You know, you can't tell us

45:45

how to do that. Okay, Bloomberg

45:47

effectively got rid of trans

45:49

fats from the New York

45:51

diet, which saved countless lives

45:54

from cardiovascular disease. Who

45:56

misses that trans fat right now?

45:58

Probably nobody. The fat... that

46:00

New York is so bikeable and

46:02

walkable was largely due to Bloomberg's

46:04

policies and that that means people

46:06

are getting unconscious physical activity

46:09

that they would otherwise be getting which you

46:12

know one of the quickest ways to raise your

46:14

life expectancy is if your sedentary is just walk

46:16

20 minutes a day it's worth about three years

46:18

of life expectancy that's all Singapore

46:20

has done smart policies for

46:23

example as we talked about earlier

46:25

we know that people who live at home with

46:28

older people live at home have higher life

46:30

expectancies than those warehoused in

46:32

retirement homes well Singapore

46:35

doesn't tell you you have to keep your

46:37

aging parent living with you but it does

46:39

give you a tax break if if they

46:41

live with you or even live nearby because

46:43

they know their kids are gonna take care

46:46

of their parents if they're nearby they are

46:48

quite happy that I'm here and I'm

46:50

happy to be here my

46:52

grandchildren I took the

46:54

opportunity to give

46:57

them tuition in mathematics because

46:59

I you're their tutor I'm quite

47:01

good in mathematics and they

47:03

will help me with my computer

47:06

because I'm a computer idiot I

47:10

love that so yet another two-way street

47:12

I mean they do heavily tax cigarettes

47:17

because you know their Minister of Health

47:19

has shown that cigarette smoking is bad

47:21

for people and it's bad for the

47:23

economy so lo and behold

47:26

lowest smoking rates they

47:28

wanted to get people on their

47:30

feet and lessen the traffic problem

47:33

so they heavily

47:35

tax gasoline and cars

47:38

but as a result they've taken

47:40

that money I'm invested in a

47:42

very clean fast efficient safe air-conditioned

47:46

subway system that's no more than about 300

47:48

yards from anybody's home so

47:50

guess what everybody gets 8,000 steps

47:53

a day without even thinking about it because

47:55

it's just easier to walk to the subway

47:57

than to get in your car and your

48:00

muscle through traffic to get places. The

48:03

original Blue Zones that you visited, you

48:06

know, you've been researching them

48:08

for 20 years now. Have

48:11

they, are they delighted

48:13

by their status as Blue Zones? Are

48:15

they committed to protecting that or are

48:18

they finding that

48:21

screen time and fast

48:23

food and sedentary habits

48:25

are infiltrating them as well? Mostly

48:28

the latter. In Blue

48:30

Zones, as soon as the McDonald's and

48:33

the Pizza Hut's arrive, they start going to

48:35

those places and eating the same junk food

48:37

we eat. You know,

48:39

as soon as that way of

48:42

eating arrives, you can already see

48:44

their longevity disappearing.

48:47

Okinawa, I would say, is no longer

48:49

even a Blue Zone. It's been so

48:52

overridden by junk

48:54

food and highways that

48:57

it is now about the

48:59

least healthy place in Japan, which

49:01

is just a tragedy. And

49:04

yeah, there are individuals that

49:06

want to preserve, but there's

49:09

not enough collective will to

49:11

hold back the corrosive

49:13

influences of the

49:16

American way of living and modernization.

49:22

I have to finish with asking about you,

49:24

Dan. How old are you? I'm

49:28

104. No,

49:32

I mean, I'm 63. 63.

49:35

And how long do you expect to live?

49:37

What is your biological age? I'm

49:40

probably a lot younger than my

49:43

peers at 63. I'm

49:45

very healthy. I don't know of any health problems.

49:47

I live in a Blue Zone neighborhood, so

49:49

I live at the southern tip of South

49:51

Beach. It's a very walkable

49:54

neighborhood. I have very easy access

49:56

to healthy food. I live

49:58

in a place where It's very

50:00

social. I know all my neighbors. Plus

50:03

I look out of my window and I see the

50:05

ocean and every morning I wake up and I swim

50:07

to the place where I get my cup of coffee

50:10

So I believe I'm gonna hit a hundred

50:13

and I'll be very happy with that I mean

50:15

there is a real aversion to being

50:17

old or growing old in the United

50:19

States a fear of Being

50:22

irrelevant or infirm and

50:24

a burden. I Feel

50:27

that that needs to change to this idea that

50:29

being older is not a terrible

50:31

thing, but something like you hope for Yes

50:35

You know in America we tend to celebrate

50:37

youth and if you look at advertising

50:39

it's almost always young people who we

50:41

aspire to and Beauty

50:44

and anti-aging industry in

50:46

blue zones the older you get the more honored you

50:48

are the more distinguished you are the biggest day of

50:50

Your life in Okinawa is your 96 birthday in? in

50:54

Sardinia I met this

50:56

centenarian named Raphael I was 106

50:59

and every day at three o'clock she'd go

51:02

out and sit on her porch which was right

51:04

in the path of kids getting out of school

51:06

and Kids would line

51:08

up to just have Raphael I touched

51:10

their forehead for a second give them

51:12

a little blessing so

51:15

kids grow up with the idea

51:17

that their grandmothers are treasures and

51:20

their grandfathers are treasures and They

51:22

really are the definition of

51:24

wisdom is knowledge plus

51:27

experience people are in

51:29

their 90s and hundreds their repositories of

51:32

Resilience of observed human

51:34

history they can help us get

51:37

through the tough times. They can help raise our children

51:40

they can help get through depression in

51:42

many ways because they've experienced it and

51:44

work their way out of it and

51:46

Survived and we ought to be turning

51:48

to these treasures More so

51:50

than AI or some new technology to solve

51:53

our problems. There's a lot of wisdom Looking

51:56

backwards that we forget about That's

52:00

Dan Butner. His Netflix show is

52:02

called Live to 100, Secrets of

52:04

the Blue Zones. He's also

52:06

written several books, including a cookbook

52:09

called The Blue Zone Kitchen. You

52:12

can see his TED talk at

52:14

ted.com. Thank you so

52:16

much for listening to our show today.

52:18

This episode was produced by Rachel Faulkner-White

52:20

and Fiona Guerin. It was

52:22

edited by Sanaz Mechkinpour, James Delahusi and

52:25

me. A special thank you

52:27

to James's grandma, Loyce Poche Delahusi,

52:29

for sharing her thoughts at the

52:31

beginning of the show. Thanks

52:34

also to Rana Anferrad and Hassan

52:36

Agdam for their voices as well.

52:39

Our production staff at NPR

52:41

also includes Katie Montelillon, Harsha

52:44

Nahada, and Matthew Koutier. Irene

52:46

Noguchi is our executive producer.

52:48

Our audio engineers were Robert

52:50

Rodriguez, Gilly Moon, and

52:53

Margaret Luthar. Our theme music was

52:55

written by Ramtin Arablui. Our

52:57

partners at TED are Chris

52:59

Anderson, Michelle Quint, Alejandra Salazar,

53:02

and Daniela Beloresso. I'm

53:04

Anoush Zamorodi, and you've been listening to the

53:06

TED Radio Hour from NPR.