“We are more than our genes,” that’s what Medical Chief Editor Nancy Synderman said on the Today Show this morning after a report on a Calfi. community that lives longer than usual. These types of healthy-people communities have been labeled as Blue Zone Communities.
Strong social ties, active and happy, they do not smoke, and a plant based diet, those are the characteristics along with a pristine environment protected from much air pollution and pesticides allows this community to live long and prosper. Even in their very simple lives, they have purpose and thrive! They don’t go to the doctor and get drugs very often, if ever. Many, after nearly a century of life have never been to the doctor!
Although today’s Today Show report isn’t online, here’s a report about Costa Rica earlier from ABC News on Feb. 2.
I think this is a beautiful example of what this blog is set out to prove and help people accomplish. Maybe we won’t be able to live in a Blue Zone Community, but maybe we can make as many choices as we can, similar to the way they live so that we can prevent cancer and disease with these same principals!
The people in these Blue Zone Communities are moving everyday, meaning they work, physical work, until they are 90, so exercise in their very day life. “We are blessed by our genes, but we also do a lot of things to derail them,” Synderman also said.
I don’t know about you, but this encourages me to continue my inconvenient nutrient dense diet (and supplement since I can’t grow all my own food in live soil like these communities) and reduce environmental toxicity around me, manage my stress and excercise among other things!
