`Just Maybe the World's Best Place to 'Live' - Olive Oil Times
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enEnglishfrFrançaiselελληνικάdeDeutscheitItalianozh-CN中文ptPortuguêsesEspañoltrTürkçehrHrvatskija日本語hiहिंदी

Just Maybe the World's Best Place to 'Live'

By Costas Vasilopoulos
Nov. 14, 2012 09:45 UTC


Ikaria, Greece

Longevity is a virtue that many pur­sue but few finally pos­sess. Our con­tem­po­rary era directs that healthy food com­bined with mod­est exer­cise and reduced stress is the way to add years to life expectancy. But it seems that instead of search­ing for low-fat food and organic veg­eta­bles in a super­mar­ket or resort­ing to gyms to burn calo­ries, the peo­ple of Ikaria island in the Aegean sea have fully grasped the mean­ing of lead­ing a healthy and happy life, often exceed­ing a cen­tury.

According to researchers the fac­tors con­tribut­ing to the unusual longevity on the island are not that com­pli­cated. They include social inter­ac­tion with friends for some chitchat and a glass of wine, a lack of stress, a slow tempo dur­ing the day and a siesta after lunch, strong fam­ily bonds, exer­cise by walk­ing on the rough hills or tend­ing the olive groves, and of course the Mediterranean diet so com­mon in places like Ikaria that have been left behind by so-called progress and devel­op­ment. It is one of those rare places where every­thing worked together to pro­duce a remark­able result.

According to the National Statistical Agency, while only 0.1 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion in Europe reach 90 years of age, in Ikaria this per­cent­age goes up by ten fold. There are sto­ries of peo­ple who suf­fered from seri­ous dis­eases who went to stay in Ikaria and their ill­nesses sub­sided. The New York Times pre­sented the case of a Greek aged man who moved to the U.S. after the war and was diag­nosed with lung can­cer in his mid 60’s. So he decided to get back to Ikaria to make the most of his remain­ing time. But years passed and he grad­u­ally started to feel bet­ter and he is still alive and kick­ing at the age of 97 with no symp­toms of his dis­ease.


A Walk on Ikaria, by John Whittle

Olive oil is the basis of the Mediterranean regime and it is con­sid­ered to be the health­i­est oil of all. It is always inter­est­ing to keep track of the var­i­ous research out­comes about dif­fer­ent foods that are good or bad for people’s health. One day red meat is good, the next day it’s bad. One day wine is good, the next it’s bad. Olive oil, on the other hand, has under­gone exten­sive research and test­ing and has proved it to be undis­put­edly ben­e­fi­cial in many aspects of life and the human body.

Fresh veg­eta­bles, fruits, legumes, fish and olive oil com­bined with the spe­cial con­di­tions of Ikaria enable its inhab­i­tants to grow old enough to enjoy play­ing with their great grand-grand­chil­dren. For the rest of us, a Mediterranean-styled nutri­tion could some­times mean an invalu­able pay­back by expand­ing our life span, but in all cases it means a health­ier and more nat­ural way of life.


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