Go to contents

A tip for longevity that costs no money

Posted October. 31, 2017 07:18,   

Updated October. 31, 2017 09:25

한국어

What is the common feature of Italy’s Sardinia, Japan’s Okinawa, Costa Rica’s Nicoya and Greece’s Icaria? These are the regions of longevity, where many elderly residents aged over 100 live in, metaphorically described as “the islands where people forgot about dying.” National Geographic Fellow Dan Buettner, who traveled around the world for seven years and studied communities where people live long and healthy, has labeled these regions as “the Blue Zone.”

Genes play an important part in longevity, but life habits and environment also have a great impact on it as well. Buettner sorted out the formula of longevity based on the common features of the elders in the Blue Zone. The first formula was to move around busily in daily lives, instead of spending time and money to exercise. The 100-year-old elders also teach people to stop eating when the stomach is 80 percent full, and to live a relaxed life without being chained to the clock.

Now is the time that requires more than these simple tips to live long. In recent days, the wealthy people have turned out to have lived longer. According to the most recent parliamentary inspection documents of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the gap between the life spans of the high-income group and the low-income group is 6.6 years. The analysis of the relationship between income and life span based on the amount of payment for health insurance showed that the life expectancy of the top 20 percent high-income group in 2015 was 85.14 years old, and that of the bottom 20 percent low-income group was 78.55 years old. The reason is because the people living in poverty are easily exposed to risks such as smoking, consumption of alcohol and nutritional unbalance, and they cannot receive proper treatment even if they catch a disease. The gap between life span based on income has risen as a social problem in many countries around the world.

In the future, the top priority for a residential area for the elders would be a city with high-tech medical equipment, instead of an isolated village of longevity. Many people desire economic wealth, but not everyone can enjoy it. But there are strategies for longevity without catching a disease that cost no money. The most basic factors are regular routines and well-controlled eating habits, and in addition, positive thoughts about life, family relationships and social connections are quite important. Even though single households are the general trends in recent days, but there is also a research result, which claims that a person who lives alone have the high chance of having his or her life span shortened by eight years, compared to a person with strong social connections. Perhaps the greatest tip for longevity is to have someone who can share happiness and sadness together, either a family or a friend.