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Here's the reading passage we did together in class.

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Blue Zone Project - Research Note Catcher Document

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Blue Zone Project - Research Note Catcher Document

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This tiny island’s long history has been as rocky as its topography. An isolated culture rich in tradition, family values – and longevity.

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The Seventh-day Adventist church in this sunny pocket of Southern California was founded in the 1840s. The church flourished through the 20th century - and so did its members who view health as central to their faith.

Today, a community of about 9,000 Adventists in the Loma Linda area are the core of America's blue zone region. They live as much as a decade longer than the rest of us, and much of their longevity can be attributed to vegetarianism and regular exercise. Plus, Adventists don't smoke or drink alcohol.

Read more below about the lessons that Loma Linda, California can teach you about longevity.

Videos From Loma Linda, California

How can you live like the American longevity all-stars? Try these tactics practiced in Loma Linda to live measurably longer.

Find a sanctuary in time.

A weekly break from the rigors of daily life, the 24-hour Sabbath provides a time to focus on family, God, camaraderie, and nature. Adventists claim this relieves their stress, strengthens social networks, and provides consistent exercise.

Maintain a healthy body mass index (BMI).

Adventists with healthy BMIs (meaning they have an appropriate weight for their heights) who keep active and eat meat sparingly, if at all, have lower blood pressure, lower blood cholesterol, and less cardiovascular disease than heavier Americans with higher BMIs.

Get regular, moderate exercise.

The Adventist Health Survey (AHS) shows that you don't need to be a marathoner to maximize your life expectancy. Getting regular, low-intensity exercise like daily walks appears to help reduce your chance of having heart disease and certain cancers.

Spend time with like-minded friends.

Adventists tend to spend time with lots of other Adventists. They find well-being by sharing their values and supporting each other's habits.

Adventists who consume nuts at least five times a week have about half the risk of heart disease and live about two years longer than those who don't. At least four major studies have confirmed that eating nuts has an impact on health and life expectancy.

Like many faiths, the Seventh-day Adventist Church encourages and provides opportunities for its members to volunteer. People like centenarian Marge Jetton stay active, find a sense of purpose, and stave off depression by focusing on helping others.

Many Adventists follow a vegetarian diet. The AHS shows that consuming fruits and vegetables and whole grains seems to be protective against a wide variety of cancers. For those who prefer to eat some meat, Adventists recommend small portions served as a side dish rather than as the main meal.

Eat an early, light dinner.

"Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper," American nutritionist Adelle Davis is said to have recommended -an attitude also reflected in Adventist practices. A light dinner early in the evening avoids flooding the body with calories during the inactive parts of the day. It seems to promote better sleep and a lower BMI.

Put more plants in your diet.

In support of a biblical diet of grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables, Adventists cite Genesis 1:29: "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you, it shall be for meat." The Adventists encourage a "well-balanced diet" including nuts, fruits, and legumes, low in sugar, salt, and refined grains. Studies have shown nonsmoking Adventists who ate 2 or more servings of fruit per day had about 70 percent fewer lung cancers than nonsmokers who ate fruit once or twice a week. Adventists who ate legumes such as peas and beans 3 times a week had a 30 to 40 percent reduction in colon cancer.

Adventist women who consumed tomatoes at least 3 or 4 times a week reduced their chance of getting ovarian cancer by 70 percent over those who ate tomatoes less often. Eating a lot of tomatoes also seemed to have an effect on reducing prostate cancer in men. A new study has found that adherents to this way of life have the nation's lowest rates of heart disease and diabetes and very low rates of obesity.

The AHS suggests that men who drank 5 or 6 daily glasses of water had a substantial reduction in the risk of a fatal heart attack -60 to 70 percent-compared to those who drank considerably less.

This is an excerpt from Blue Zones: Lessons For Living Longer From The People Who've Lived The Longest by Dan Buettner, copyright 2008, all rights reserved.

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They live as much as a decade longer than the rest of us, and their longevity can be attributed to vegetarianism and regular exercise.

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A cluster of villages in a kidney-shaped region on this island make up the first blue zones region we ever identified. In 2004, our research team set off to investigate a rare genetic quirk carried by its inhabitants. The M26 marker is linked to exceptional longevity, and due to geographic isolation, the genes of the residents in this area of Sardinia have remained mostly undiluted. The result: nearly 10 times more centenarians per capita than the U.S.

But even more importantly, residents of this area are also culturally isolated, and they have kept to a very traditional, healthy lifestyle. Sardinians still hunt, fish and harvest the food they eat. They remain close with friends and family throughout their lives. They laugh and drink wine together.

Read more below about the lessons that Sardinia, Italy can teach you about longevity.

Videos From Sardinia, Italy

Set up your lifestyle and environment like a Sardinian centenarian to live a longer, healthier life. Following these practices will promote habits that can keep you living well to 100+.

Eat a lean, plant-based diet accented with meat.

The classic Sardinian diet consists of whole-grain bread, beans, garden vegetables, fruits, and, in some parts of the island, mastic oil.
Sardinians also traditionally eat pecorino cheese made from grass-fed sheep, whose cheese is high in omega-3 fatty acids. Meat is largely reserved for Sundays and special occasions.

Put family first.

Sardinia's strong family values help assure that every member of the family is cared for. People who live in strong, healthy families suffer lower rates of depression, suicide, and stress.

Celebrate elders.

Grandparents can provide love, childcare, financial help, wisdom, and expectations/motivation to perpetuate traditions and push children to succeed in their lives. This may all add up to a healthier, better adjusted, and longer-lived children. It may give the overall population a life expectancy bump.

Take a walk.

Walking five miles a day or more as Sardinian shepherds do provides all the cardiovascular benefits you might expect, and also has a positive effect on muscle and bone metabolism without the joint-pounding of running marathons or triathlons.

Drink a glass or two of red wine daily.

Sardinians drink wine moderately. Cannonau wine has two or three times the level of artery-scrubbing flavonoids as other wines. Moderate wine consumption may help explain the lower levels of stress among men.

Laugh with friends.

Men in this Blue Zone region are famous for their sardonic sense of humor. They gather in the street each afternoon to laugh with and at each other. Laughter reduces stress, which can lower one's risk of cardiovascular disease.

Drink goat's milk.

A glass of goat's milk contains components that might help protect against inflammatory diseases of aging such as heart disease and Alzheimer's.

This is an excerpt from Blue Zones: Lessons For Living Longer From The People Who've Lived The Longest by Dan Buettner, copyright 2008, all rights reserved.

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A cluster of villages in a kidney-shaped region on this island make up the first blue zones region we ever identified. In 2004, our research team set off to investigate a rare genetic quirk carried by its inhabitants.

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The islands at the southern end of Japan have historically been known for longevity, once called the land of immortals. Okinawans have less cancer, heart disease and dementia than Americans, and women there live longer than any women on the planet.

Perhaps their greatest secret is a strong dedication to friends and family. They maintain a powerful social network called a "moai," a lifelong circle of friends that supports people well into old age. Okinawans also have a strong sense of purpose in life, a driving force that the Japanese call "ikigai."

Read more below about the lessons that Okinawa, Japan can teach you about longevity

Videos From Okinawa, Japan

Despite years of hardship, Okinawans have established a lifestyle and environment to live long, healthy lives. Follow these common centenarian practices to promote your own longevity.

Embrace an ikigai.

Older Okinawans can readily articulate the reason they get up in the morning. Their purpose-imbued lives gives them clear roles of responsibility and feelings of being needed well into their 100s.

Rely on a plant-based diet.

Older Okinawans have eaten a plant-based diet most of their lives. Their meals of stir-fried vegetables, sweet potatoes, and tofu are high in nutrients and low in calories.

Goya, with its antioxidants and compounds that lower blood sugar, is of particular interest. While centenarian Okinawans do eat some pork, it is traditionally reserved only for infrequent ceremonial occasions and taken only in small amounts.

Get gardening.

Almost all Okinawan centenarians grow or once grew a garden. It's a source of daily physical activity that exercises the body with a wide range of motion and helps reduce stress. It's also a near-constant source of fresh vegetables.

Eat more soy.

The Okinawan diet is rich in foods made with soy, like tofu and miso soup. Flavonoids in tofu may help protect the hearts and guard against breast cancer. Fermented soy foods contribute to a healthy intestinal ecology and offer even better nutritional benefits.

Maintain a moai.

The Okinawan tradition of forming a moai provides secure social networks. These safety nets lend financial and emotional support in times of need and give all of their members the stress-shedding security of knowing that there is always someone there for them.

Enjoy the sunshine.

Vitamin D, produced by the body when it's exposed on a regular basis to sunlight, promotes stronger bones and healthier bodies. Spending time outside each day allows even senior Okinawans to have optimal vitamin D levels year-round.

Stay active.

Older Okinawans are active walkers and gardeners. The Okinawan household has very little furniture; residents take meals and relax sitting on tatami mats on the floor. The fact that old people get up and down off the floor several dozen times daily builds lower body strength and balance, which help protect against dangerous falls.

Plant a medical garden.

Mugwort, ginger, and turmeric are all staples of an Okinawan garden, and all have proven medicinal qualities. By consuming these every day, Okinawans may be protecting themselves against illness.

Have an attitude.

A hardship-tempered attitude has endowed Okinawans with an affable smugness. They're able to let difficult early years remain in the past while they enjoy today's simple pleasures. They've learned to be likable and to keep younger people in their company well into their old age.

This is an excerpt from Blue Zones: Lessons For Living Longer From The People Who've Lived The Longest by Dan Buettner, copyright 2008, all rights reserved.

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Okinawans have less cancer, heart disease and dementia than Americans, and women there live longer than any women on the planet.

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This Central American nation isn’t that far from the U.S. geographically, but it is way ahead of us in longevity. The Caribbean nation is economically

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Write down 1 *fun fact your group learned about your Blue Zone.

*A fun fact is a piece of information that is interesting, unusual, or entertaining, and that people often find surprising or amusing.

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What are some questions you still have about Blue Zones?