Longevity – Blue Zones & Telomeres
Maria Branyas Morea, the world’s oldest living person, died at age 117 in a nursing home in Spain this year. Maria was born in San Francisco in 1907 as the city was battling against a deadly wave of the Bubonic plague. She went on to survive both world wars after remaining in Spain but also had to contend with the Spanish flu pandemic and the Spanish Civil War. Brave Maria also survived COVID-19 despite contracting the virus only a few weeks after turning 113. After spending time in the hospital, she made a full recovery within days and was back to living her normal life in a nursing home.
She got married in 1931 to a Catalan doctor named Joan Moret, and the pair went on to have three children. While her husband passed away in 1976, Maria managed to outlive their only son, August, who died in a tragic tractor accident at the age of 86. She left this dimension for existence with her daughters in attendance, leaving 11 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren in the Santa Maria del Tura nursing home in northeastern Spain.
The question arises, “Would you also wish for a long life in good health?” This has been in the human mind since the beginning of history.
Longevity has been a long-sought and esteemed human trait documented in the Hebrew scriptures in accounts of Mustela, Noah, Abraham, and others. The Greek philosopher Plato wrote warmly about longevity, and explorers have long searched for the Fountain of Youth. In the modern era, the National Geographic Society (NGS) issued 5 grants, starting in 2000, designed to find geographic sites for longevity combined with good health.
Dan Buettner, the recipient of these grants, has located multiple isolated islands and peninsulas where inhabitants live independent lives into their 90s to beyond 100 years and are in good health. These sites are called BLUE ZONES. Common denominators have been found based on:
- A high plant-based diet and personal gardens.
- Routine herding farm animals over rough terrain and fishing.
- Healthy lifestyles.
- Multiple interpersonal relationships with generations of their family, neighbors, and
- Active in their community.
Beuthner, in one of 5 books published by the NGS about the BLUE ZONES, focuses on finding a Purpose in Life essential for longevity and good health. None of the people intended to live a long life; it just happened due to their environment having no electricity or motors, and personal activity was necessary. Growing their food was an essential task. He focuses on a Purpose in Life as a vital component, for one would not follow the common denominators without a valued Purpose in Life led by meaningful relationships with others. An evolvement in religious activity is highly important in Beuthner’s book.
It is the basis for longevity and good health for a 30,000 cluster of Seventh Day Adventists in Loma Linda, California. These Adventists follow Biblical guidance, citing a story in Daniel I as a key scripture for why this religious group, in a modern urban environment, has adopted the common denominators present in all BLUE ZONES.
A practical feature has been recognized for aloe leaf gel research that identified the phytonutrient made by this desert lily, acetylated mannose (acemannan). Formal legislation passed by the US Federal government in 1994 established the Dietary Supplement Industry.
Individuals who have added Acemannan to their diet have been getting degrees of health benefits found in the BLUE ZONES. If this nutrient is added to the modern diet and combined with routine weekly exercise, the benefits increase synergistically and match the good health-supporting features of the BLUE ZONES.
A clinical study was published in the year 2000 in which 670 people that added more comprehensive nutrition built around Aloe Acemannan reversed the objective biomarkers associated with the disabilities of aging. Individuals returned to mental and physical activities they had given up 5, 10, and 15 years in the past. One of these subjects was a 72-year-old, very active dentist. He had his telomeres assayed, and these caps on chromosomes averaged the value of a 55 to 60-year-old male. Telomeres protect DNA from damage and typically shorten with aging. Telomere length is the current gold standard for anti-aging research. Long-lived families and long-lived animals have long telomeres.
Families that succumb to chronic diseases at the age of 55 to 70 have short telomeres, as do short-lived animals. Current studies are underway to measure telomers in men and women over 50 who have added Aloe Acemannan to their diets for a year. Values in hand thus far indicate that a person does not have to move to an isolated BLUE ZONE to get the Personal Preventive and Interventional Health Benefits of the BLUE ZONES.
Importantly, routine exercise is synergistic and lengthens telomeres even more. There is the potential that the Fountain of Youth is not in some distant and exotic place. The path to good health and longevity is in your kitchen, and diet choices with an active lifestyle have exciting potential. Only time can determine if a longer life and good health will occur.
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