Researchers discover another place where people live very long

There are regions where an atypically high number of people benefit from a much longer lifespan than elsewhere on the planet. In these so -called blue areas – like Oglistra in Italy, Ikaria in Greece, Okinawa in Japan and Martinique – the population tends to eat healthy, to stay physically active, to engage with a community and to live with a meaning. (Why are we surprised that they live longer?).

An international team of researchers has studied how these lifestyle principles in the blue zone apply in four regions of western Finland – Ostrobothnia speaking of suission, Finnish Ostrobothnia, Swedish and Ostrobothnia speaking Finnish. The new research highlights a new potential blue zone, but also reveals more broadly than longevity in the Nordic regions is not necessarily associated with the lifestyle of the blue area.

“The potential coherence between longevity, health and lifestyle can vary in different cultural, political, social and economic contexts,” wrote researchers in a study published last month in the Journal of Aging Research. “This study aims to examine whether adhesion to the principles of the lifestyle in the blue area and good health is the highest in the most lonely region.”

The principles of the blue zone do not always apply

By analyzing the survey data of the regional gerontological database of 2021 and 2022, the researchers found that the Swedish Ostrobothnia strikes most of the blue zone control points with the long life expectancy of its population, good health and lifestyle in the blue zone. Interestingly, Åland does not respond to all the lifestyle principles in the blue area and is nevertheless the most long region in Finland. He obtained a higher score in environmental pleasantness and had the healthiest population among the regions studied.

On the other hand, South Ostrobothnia, as well as the Swedish Ostrobothnia, followed the lifestyle of the blue area, and yet had the poorest health and the weakest life expectancy of the regions studied. The Finnish ostrobothnia has demonstrated the fewest lifestyle principles in the blue area.

The study does not determine the clear reasons for regional differences in the way that longevity, health and lifestyle are connected. But this shows that the principles of the blue zone do not strictly define the most lounge region in Finland – although the country can still accommodate a newly described blue zone in the Swedish Ostrobothnia.

However, “we need additional demographic studies to verify the extraordinary life expectancy in Ostrobothnia, in particular among the Swedish community,” said Sarah Åkerman, study co-author and principal researcher of the University Declaration of the University of Åbo Akademi in the Nordic project, in a university declaration.

Long Healthspan is the goal

Åkerman and his colleagues also point out that longevity does not necessarily mean good health or a healthy lifestyle. We have all heard of the 98-year-old grandmother of the friend of friendship who had smoked 15 cigarettes per day for seven decades. My own grandmother is 94 years old, rarely leaves her chair and drinks a big glass of red wine with almost all her meals (she claims that her doctor prescribes him, but we are obviously skeptical).

If you hope for a long life, however, I think it is prudent to say that you should not set up to be like these grannies. In addition, people are increasingly interested than long lives – the new Saint Grail is now long health of health.