The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest

by Dan Buettner

“First, vegetarian status will get you about two years,” Fraser said. “Not eating meat is clearly important, and our studies have shown us it is because it seems to have an impact on heart disease and some cancers. “Second, we found that nut eaters also had a two-year advantage, which seemed to relate largely to heart disease. Of course there are causes of death not related to cancer and heart disease, and we suspect some of these behaviors might also be protective for some of those causes.” “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, and that seems to run very clearly to heart disease and to certain cancers like breast and colon cancer. The evidence is fairly clear that 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 a fairly normal body weight, an increasingly important issue in the United States. “It turns out a lot of the very active chemicals that relate to inflammation probably have some impact on increasing the likelihood of cancer developing,” Fraser said. “Those chemicals could well come from fat cells. One huge advantage of a vege...