 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | Book Description
With the right lifestyle, experts say, chances are that you may live up to a decade longer. What’s the prescription for success? National Geographic Explorer Dan Buettner has traveled the globe to uncover the best strategies for longevity found in the Blue Zones: places in the world where higher percentages of people enjoy remarkably long, full lives. And in this dynamic book he discloses the recipe, blending this unique lifestyle formula with the latest scientific findings to inspire easy, lasting change that may add years to your life.
You’ll meet a 94-year-old farmer and self-confessed "ladies man" in Costa Rica, a 102-year-old grandmother in Okinawa a 102-year-old Sardinian who hikes at least six miles a day, and others. By observing their lifestyles, Buettner's team has identified critical everyday choices. Amazon Exclusive: A Q&A with Dan Buettner
Question: In your book, you identify the "Power 9": nine habits or behaviors all Blue Zone populations have in common. Could you talk about one or two that the average American takes most for granted? Dan Buettner: Many Americans exercise too hard. The life expectancy of our species, for 99.9% of human history, was about 30 years. The fact that medicine has pushed life expectancy to age 78 doesn't mean our bodies were designed for three-quarters of a century of pounding. Muscles tear, joints wear out, backs go out. The world's longest-lived people tend to do regular, low intensity physical activity, like walking with friends, gardening and playing with their children. The key is to do something light every day. I also think the trend toward isolation is a mistake. Drive down any American street at 9:00 pm and you can see the greenish glow of the television or the computer in people's window. We've become an increasingly isolated society. Fifteen years ago, the average American had three good friends. Now it's down to two. We know that isolation shaves good years off of your life. In The Blue Zones, I advocate reconnecting with your religious community and proactively building friendships with the right people. Question: Is there something about the physical landscape that contributes to an area being a Blue Zone, or can people make their own personal Blue Zones, regardless of where they live? Dan Buettner: Staying young and living long is mostly a function of your environment... and the good news is that to a great extent, we each have control over that environment. In the Blue Zones around the world, people live in places where walking is the main means of transportation, where the sun shines strong all year long so they get enough vitamin D; where they have established social norms that bring people together in supportive groups or clubs. The Blue Zones book shows you how to take about two hours and set up your home, your social life and your work place to help you get up to 10 more good years out of life (and look younger along the way!). Question: Are Blue Zones about living longer, or living better? Dan Buettner: Both. The same things that get you to a healthy 100 get you there better. The Blue Zones offers a completely different way to think about longevity and youth maintenance. If you look at the Power9—the common denominators of the longest-lived people—you see that they tend to put their families first, they belong to a faith-based community and they know their sense of purpose. All of these behaviors are associated with 3-6 years of life (which is better than any diet can promise) and they're good years. In other words, the same Blue Zone tenets that will help you get to a healthy age 90 will help ensure those years are vital and enriching. Question: If considering all nine habits at once seems overwhelming, what's the first step someone could take toward living a more enriching, longer life? Dan Buettner: The good news is that the Power9 is an a la carte menu: by no means do you have to do all nine to gain more good years out of life. In fact, do six of them and get about 90% of the benefit. The most important thing you can do is building your own Right Tribe. Which is to say, all of the world's longest-lived people were born into, or consciously chose to associate with, the right people. The Framingham Studies show us that if your three best friends are obese, there's a 50% better chance that you'll be obese. The reverse is true too. If you dine with people who eat healthy food, you're more likely to eat healthy food; if the friends you spend the most time with play a sport, you're more likely to join them. As your mother said, "You're known by the company you keep." You're also likely to resemble them. |
Average Customer Rating:   The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest The concept of the book The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest overwhelmed me. Especially as I have seen the documentary film in the National Geographis channel. I was eager to learn about more indepth reseach findings in the book and was little bit disappointed by the the book subtitle - the lessons for living longer. I estimate the research idea as excellent, but the resarch itself not deeply enough presented. I miss more medical informations, more quatations from the scientists, doctors. I also expected less 'american' writing style - instructions, instant councils what to do. Nevertheless, I love the idea, the crosscountry findings which are somehow universal for all the zones. I do recommend the book! Add Ten Years to Your Life: Give up meat and smoking; eat nuts; exercise; stay thin Let me first get past the one thing I find inexcusable In Dan Buettner's THE BLUE ZONES. I refer to the book's total absence of maps. The author writes at great length about places in the USA, Italy, Japan and Central America that I have never been near. The countries? Okay, I've been to three of them. But northwestern Sardinia? Hard to find longevity pockets on Okinawa? A part of Costa Rica only now being discovered by pioneering tourists? The closest I have been to Loma Linda, California is the LA airport on international flights to places like Viet-Nam. Is it too much to ask for four measly maps from an author who gives a page of credits to his photographers? Who scatters info sidebars like Johnny Appleseed's apple trees along the western trails? I think not.
There, that is out of the way.
As I write, Tuesday October 27, 2009, amazon.com carries 57 reader reviews of THE BLUE ZONES: LESSONS FOR LIVING FROM THE PEOPLE WHO'VE LIVED THE LONGEST. This is beyond doubt a popular book. Moreover, THE BLUE ZONES deserves not only popularity but respect. The author sets out to discover and then personally explore "blue zones," a handful of places on our globe where statistically improbable concentrations of people 100 years old live and have grown up into healthy, happy old age.
He might have contented himself with reading the available scientific and speculative writings on this subject. He might have, but he did not. Dan Buettner went hands-on into his four chosen blue zones. He also persuaded the National Geographic Society to pay for much of what he did. Buettner captured the interest of AARP. He persuaded busy doctors, statisticians, journalists, psychologists, linguists, gerontologists and others to go with him and work long days in generally out of the way places. He describes their teamwork enthusiastically. He cites their opinions at length. Don't be misled by its breezy, chatty mode of presentation. This is a serious book.
There is, be it admitted, a lot of speculation in it, usually presented as conversations with author Buettner or overheard by him. Here is an example. One of the Buettner teams spent weeks in Loma Linda, California among its very large concentration of health worshipping Seventh-day Adventist Christians. Their respected university and its research arm have studied Adventist health practices for decades. One ongoing project, AHS-2, covers 97,000 cases. That's breadth and rigor! Buettner called on two of the academicians behind the work: Drs Gary Fraser and Terry Butler. He then shared with us readers some of their reflections on AHS-1 and AHS-2 work to date in the form of a dialog between the two.
How many years will good health practices add to your life?
-- "First, vegetarian status will get you about two years,' Fraser said." ...
-- 'Second, we found that nut eaters also had a two-year advantage, which seemed to relate largely to heart disease.' ...
-- 'Third is being a smoker,' added Fraser. 'Or even a past smoker, as we found among the Adventists. If you have ever been a smoker, it has a moderately strong impact on lung cancer and some impact on heart disease.'
-- 'Fourth is physical activity,' he continued, 'which again accounted for an extra couple of years. ... most of this benefit comes from modest but regular physical activity. It really flattens out once you get to the marathoner level, which is not necessary for longevity.' ...
-- 'The fifth and final recommendation is to maintain fairly normal body weight.'" (pp. 132f).
Although grounded in published works as well as the hundreds of interviews by Buettner teams, the longevity wisdom presented throughout THE BLUE ZONES is often attractively and popularly packaged along the lines of the example above.
Everyone of the 57 amazon.com reader reviews is different. Each took something unique to himself from a first reading. I, too, learned three new Japanese phrases bearing on long life that will stay with me. I was also intrigued by the early history of Seventh-day Adventism in the United States. I resolved to read a good biography of Adventist prophetess Mrs Ellen G. White and of John Harvey Kellogg whom Mrs White put through medical school and then in charge of the hydrotherapy clinic she had founded in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1866. Coincidentally, my wife and I will be in two weeks at an Adventist conference center near Chattanooga where we can once again ply the staff with health and now longevity questions.
This is a very good book with something for everyone. The author did not set out to write yet another WEIGHTWATCHERS book or focus on diet. He wanted to meet real, living centenarians from around the world and find common denominators in why they had lived so long, purposefully and contentedly. Diet and exercise turned out to be part of the answer. But so were religion, love of family, sociability and a positive world view. Dan Buettner did not force his findings into a pre-conceived politically correct Procrustean bed. He came, he saw, he reported. Better than most people I have read who have made similar attempts. -OOO- Good Gift for Seniors This book was recommended to me by a friend that I trust. I have a number of friends who are reaching their 70's in the coming months and have decided it is the perfect gift for them. Not scientific at all- Let down This book reads more like a travel book than an actual social study of factors that may increase life span in people around the world. I really is not what I expected. There was so much data they could have shared but instead kept it superficial and full of assumptions. They keep mentioning they took blood samples from people but no comments are presented on any trends. The only thing I learned is that all of these people had low body mass index all during of their lives. Wine, yogurt, goat milk, olive oil were not a common factor at all in all cultures.
I say save your money. Blue Zones fantastic book Blue Zones is a fantastic book, I could not put it down & when I finished it I read it again. It had a great mix of research info & endearing, stories & interviews with centurians in the Blue Zones. Plus it was full of good advice to help you live a long & healthy life from the folks who have done just that! What more could you want from one book? |  |
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