Most people do not look forward to death. They would like to live a long life and endeavour to stay eternally young. The peoples of each country spend billions every year on health care and beauty products.
Some individuals believe that the length of time you live is written in fate and there is nothing that you can do to change it, others think that we just have a certain number of heart beats, but most people believe that genetics, diet and lifestyle are the main influences.
However, there might be another factor worth looking at: your town of residence. There are a few places around the world where people seem to live longer, on average, than is standard for their country or globally.
Take the city of Okinawa in southern Japan. Okinawa has over a million inhabitants, 900 of whom are more than 100 years of age. Japan has an aging populace in general, but nowhere there is the same as Okinawa for longevity and the percentage of centenarians is between four and five times higher than in the UK or the USA.
Not just do Okinawans live longer, but they also tend to stay healthy until their dying days, which is everyone's dream. Diet is thought to be the main reason why Okinawans live such long, healthy lives. They eat a great deal of fish, tofu, soya and seaweed and swill it down with lots of tea.
This makes their diet low in saturated fats and pretty low in salt. However, it is also a widely-held belief in Okinawa that one should just consume until one is 80% full not 100% This may put less strain on the digestive system, but no one is quite sure yet if this has a bearing on living a longer, healthy life.
Then there is Loma Linda in California, the USA. The citizens of Loma Linda live an average of five to ten years longer than the residents of near-by towns. The town is predominantly Seventh Day Adventist, which preaches vegetarianism, no smoking and no alcohol. Some will point to these reasons as the reasons for living longer.
However, this does not account for why almost everyone, even the smoking, alcohol-drinking, meat-eating inhabitants, lives longer. Others put the longevity down to religious belief, but researchers are mystified. Perhaps going to church and depending on God relieves believers of some of the stress of daily life and stress is famous to be a reason for major diseases.
Another strange place is Owoda on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. It is just a village of less than 2,000 residents but it has far more than the average number of 100 year olds than elsewhere. What is even stranger is that there are as many old men as old women which is not the standard anywhere else in the world.
The well-known Mediterranean diet and the pleasant climate are considered to be factors at play here, but it may also have something to do with their genes. The inhabitants were virtually isolated for hundreds of years and marriage among relatives was not uncommon. Usually this is not recommended because it can cause abnormalities. It looks like the abnormality that inter-marriage caused for the Owodans is longevity.
Some individuals believe that the length of time you live is written in fate and there is nothing that you can do to change it, others think that we just have a certain number of heart beats, but most people believe that genetics, diet and lifestyle are the main influences.
However, there might be another factor worth looking at: your town of residence. There are a few places around the world where people seem to live longer, on average, than is standard for their country or globally.
Take the city of Okinawa in southern Japan. Okinawa has over a million inhabitants, 900 of whom are more than 100 years of age. Japan has an aging populace in general, but nowhere there is the same as Okinawa for longevity and the percentage of centenarians is between four and five times higher than in the UK or the USA.
Not just do Okinawans live longer, but they also tend to stay healthy until their dying days, which is everyone's dream. Diet is thought to be the main reason why Okinawans live such long, healthy lives. They eat a great deal of fish, tofu, soya and seaweed and swill it down with lots of tea.
This makes their diet low in saturated fats and pretty low in salt. However, it is also a widely-held belief in Okinawa that one should just consume until one is 80% full not 100% This may put less strain on the digestive system, but no one is quite sure yet if this has a bearing on living a longer, healthy life.
Then there is Loma Linda in California, the USA. The citizens of Loma Linda live an average of five to ten years longer than the residents of near-by towns. The town is predominantly Seventh Day Adventist, which preaches vegetarianism, no smoking and no alcohol. Some will point to these reasons as the reasons for living longer.
However, this does not account for why almost everyone, even the smoking, alcohol-drinking, meat-eating inhabitants, lives longer. Others put the longevity down to religious belief, but researchers are mystified. Perhaps going to church and depending on God relieves believers of some of the stress of daily life and stress is famous to be a reason for major diseases.
Another strange place is Owoda on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. It is just a village of less than 2,000 residents but it has far more than the average number of 100 year olds than elsewhere. What is even stranger is that there are as many old men as old women which is not the standard anywhere else in the world.
The well-known Mediterranean diet and the pleasant climate are considered to be factors at play here, but it may also have something to do with their genes. The inhabitants were virtually isolated for hundreds of years and marriage among relatives was not uncommon. Usually this is not recommended because it can cause abnormalities. It looks like the abnormality that inter-marriage caused for the Owodans is longevity.
About the Author:
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a variety of topics, but is now concerned with the cause of macular degeneration. If you want to know more, please go to our site at Macular Degenerative Disease