Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula: Secrets to a Longer Life International Living Postcards--your daily escape Thursday, April 26, 2007 A recent commercial on CNN got my attention--health reporter Dr. Sanjay Gupta was talking about Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula (and the town of Nicoya itself). A place, he said, where people live to be 100 years old…and even older. Turns out, CNN isn't the only one reporting on the long-lived residents of Nicoya. ABC and other news organizations have carried similar reports. They're following up on research by Dan Buettner, a National Geographic writer and founder of the Quest Network, an interactive project that allows students to follow the research of scientists, explorers, and journalists as they research the secrets of longevity. In 2005, Dr. Luis Rosero (a Costa Rican demographer trained in the U.S.) presented an important paper at an international conference--he claimed that 60-year-old Costa Ricans have the longest life expectancy in the world. In other words, if you are middle aged and live in Costa Rica, you are more likely to reach the healthy age of 90 than someone living anywhere else in the world. Academics at the conference didn't believe Dr. Rosero. So, National Geographic's Dan Buettner assembled a team and launched an investigation. The result is that several "blue zones" are now identified, places where people tend to live longer, healthier lives. Nicoya in Costa Rica is a blue zone. Here, 80-year-old men still herd cattle on horseback. And their mothers? There are 100-year-old women here who chop four-foot-tall heaps of firewood…every day…and who faithfully walk a quarter-mile or more to church every Sunday. They wash their laundry by hand and make all of their meals from scratch from fresh ingredients on a traditional wood-burning stove. Men in Nicoya live to the age of 100, four times as often as men in the U.S. According to Blue Zone scientists, eight things increase life expectancy in Nicoya: * Water. Nicoya's water has Costa Rica's highest calcium content. * Family. Centenarians tend to live as a couple, with children or grandchildren from whom they get support. * Faith. Nearly every centenarian here has a strong belief in God. They relinquish the pressures of the day to a higher power. * Fruit. People eat many wildly exotic fruits, ultra-rich in antioxidants…but only once a year while in season. They eat papaya and citrus fruits all year long. * Nixtamal. Nicoya's core diet, dating back 3,500 years, is nixtamal (corn soaked in lye with beans)--a complete food high in niacin, calcium, and amino acids. * Work. Centenarians seem to have enjoyed physical work all of their lives. It is their main form of exercise and they do it almost every day. * A plan de vida. Centenarians have a clear life plan. They feel needed and want to contribute to a greater good beyond themselves. * Happiness. Costa Rica scores near the top of international well-being surveys. Happy people have higher levels of endorphins and stronger immune systems. Other factors that contribute to longevity include living at a high altitude. (Nicoya is in the dry highlands region of the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica's Guanacaste Province.) Thinner air lowers your blood pressure, and more exposure to the sun means more vitamin D. Suzan Haskins
Latin America Insider, International Living [Don't miss out. Get your free IL Postcards subscription today.]
P.S. Even if you can't move to Costa Rica right now, there are things you can do to increase your own longevity. I found two interactive programs that can help you determine your life expectancy. The "Blue Zone" Vitality Compass, created by Dan Buettner and this one, created by Dr. Thomas Perls. | 
