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Loma Linda, California
Highest Longevity In USA
Loma Linda (Spanish for Beautiful Hill) is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The population was 23,000 at the 2010 census. The city is located about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.
Loma Linda was featured by National Geographic Magazine as one of the five places in the world with the highest longevity. Dan Buettner considers this community to be a Blue Zone. Residents of this small community routinely live to 100. Majority of the residents are Seventh Day Adventists.
The National Institute of Health funded a study of 34,000 California Adventists from 1976 to 1988 to learn if there is a link between their lifestyle and their life span. The study found that their diet, which includes tomatoes, fruits, soymilk and beans, lowered their likelihood of developing certain cancers. Eating whole wheat bread, drinking plenty of water and eating at least four servings of nuts per week lowered their risk of heart disease. The study also correlated lower cancer rates and the avoidance of red meat.
The Seventh Day Adventist faith prohibits caffeine, alcohol, smoking and unhealthy eating. Most practitioners are vegetarians, and the city requires all food establishments to offer vegetarian choices. Sylvie, a clinical nutritionist is currently leading a fight to keep McDonald’s out of the community. One restaurant, Demiana Deli offers salads, pasta and other non-meat dishes. “They are prepared like my grandmother used to cook,” the owner claims.
Loma Linda was featured by National Geographic Magazine as one of the five places in the world with the highest longevity. Dan Buettner considers this community to be a Blue Zone. Residents of this small community routinely live to 100. Majority of the residents are Seventh Day Adventists.
The National Institute of Health funded a study of 34,000 California Adventists from 1976 to 1988 to learn if there is a link between their lifestyle and their life span. The study found that their diet, which includes tomatoes, fruits, soymilk and beans, lowered their likelihood of developing certain cancers. Eating whole wheat bread, drinking plenty of water and eating at least four servings of nuts per week lowered their risk of heart disease. The study also correlated lower cancer rates and the avoidance of red meat.
The Seventh Day Adventist faith prohibits caffeine, alcohol, smoking and unhealthy eating. Most practitioners are vegetarians, and the city requires all food establishments to offer vegetarian choices. Sylvie, a clinical nutritionist is currently leading a fight to keep McDonald’s out of the community. One restaurant, Demiana Deli offers salads, pasta and other non-meat dishes. “They are prepared like my grandmother used to cook,” the owner claims.
“Being able to define your life meaning adds to your life expectancy.”
~ Dr. Robert Butler, Director, National Institute on Aging
Normally, eating healthy is thought to be expensive, but the price of foods are relatively inexpensive in Loma Linda because most of their beans and nuts are locally grown and sold in big bins. That way the buyers don’t have to pay a lot of money for marketing and packaging.
A new study shows American woman are not living as long these days as they did a generation ago, but Loma Linda is bucking the trend. A casual visit to a grocery store explains why the residents here live such long and healthy lives. It’s full of bins of locally grown beans and nuts and aisles of fresh fruits and vegetables.
A light dinner early in the evening is another Adventist practice. It avoids flooding the body with calories during the inactive parts of the day and seems to promote better sleep and a lower BMI (body mass index).
A new study shows American woman are not living as long these days as they did a generation ago, but Loma Linda is bucking the trend. A casual visit to a grocery store explains why the residents here live such long and healthy lives. It’s full of bins of locally grown beans and nuts and aisles of fresh fruits and vegetables.
A light dinner early in the evening is another Adventist practice. It avoids flooding the body with calories during the inactive parts of the day and seems to promote better sleep and a lower BMI (body mass index).
"It does certainly raise the question if there's something about spiritual life that also has an impact on longer life," says Dr Gary Fraser, who is researching the community.
"At this moment we don't really know that but there's been one interesting fact that's been known now for 20 or 30 years and that is that people that go to church regularly - whatever faith they have - live longer and there's no question about that."
It seems that regular churchgoers have significantly lower levels of stress hormones and so may be better equipped to cope with the challenges in life, say scientists.
"Religion and connection to something higher than oneself, connection to the sacred, connection to a tight-knit religious community allows you to modulate your reactions and your emotions to believe there is a broader purpose," says Dr Kerry Morton, who is involved in a longer-term study on Adventist health.
"Therefore your body can stay in balance and not be destroyed by those stressors and traumas over time." -BBC News
Seventh Day Adventist Church emphasizes a very strict observance of the sabbath. “For 24 hours every week no matter how stressed out, no matter where the kids need to be driven to, they stop everything,” Dan says. “From Friday night until Saturday night, they focus on their God, their family, their community and nature.”
Loma Linda is also home to Loma Linda University, a Seventh-day Adventist health sciences institution of higher learning with a world-renowned medical center. Notable firsts at this center include baboon-to-human heart transplant and the first split-brain surgery.
Maintaining a healthy body mass index (BMI) is equally important. Adventists with healthy BMIs who keep active and avoid meat, have lower blood pressure, lower blood cholesterol, and less cardiovascular disease than heavier Americans with higher BMIs.
Loma Linda is also home to Loma Linda University, a Seventh-day Adventist health sciences institution of higher learning with a world-renowned medical center. Notable firsts at this center include baboon-to-human heart transplant and the first split-brain surgery.
Maintaining a healthy body mass index (BMI) is equally important. Adventists with healthy BMIs who keep active and avoid meat, have lower blood pressure, lower blood cholesterol, and less cardiovascular disease than heavier Americans with higher BMIs.
The healthful plant-based diet that Seventh-day Adventists eat has been associated with an extra decade of life expectancy. It has also been linked to reduced rates of diabetes and heart disease. Adventists’ diet is inspired by the Bible — Genesis 1:29. (“And God said: ‘Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed . . . and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food.’ ”)
But again, the key insight might be more about social structure than about the diet itself. While for most people, diets eventually fail, the Adventists eat the way they do for decades. How? Adventists hang out with other Adventists. When you go to an Adventist picnic, there’s no steak grilling on the barbecue; it’s a vegetarian potluck. No one is drinking alcohol or smoking. As Nicholas Christakis, a physician and social scientist at Harvard, found when examining data from a long-term study of the residents of Framingham, Mass., health habits can be as contagious as a cold virus.
~ Dan Buettner
Work Outs At 103
While investigating the longevity of the Loma Lindans, Dan Buettner met Marge Jetton who was 103 at the time. Marge’s secret to staying healthy is daily exercise, prayers and volunteerism.
Marge’s daily exercise routine consisted of weight lifting and riding a stationary bicycle for 7 or 8 miles at 25 mph! Marge demonstrated her dumbbell workout and how strong her arms looked
After 77 years of marriage, Marge’s husband passed away. As most people would do, Marge mourned her loss, but then realized that there was more for her to do. She realized the world was not going to come to her, she needed to go to the world. At the time of the interview, she was still volunteering for seven organizations.
Dan Buettner believes that being a member of a community where everyone has the same values can add quality years to your life. Also showing gratitude is another reason why people in these communities have such long and healthy lives.
Marge’s daily exercise routine consisted of weight lifting and riding a stationary bicycle for 7 or 8 miles at 25 mph! Marge demonstrated her dumbbell workout and how strong her arms looked
After 77 years of marriage, Marge’s husband passed away. As most people would do, Marge mourned her loss, but then realized that there was more for her to do. She realized the world was not going to come to her, she needed to go to the world. At the time of the interview, she was still volunteering for seven organizations.
Dan Buettner believes that being a member of a community where everyone has the same values can add quality years to your life. Also showing gratitude is another reason why people in these communities have such long and healthy lives.
Heart surgeon Ellsworth Wareham is a 94-year-old Adventist who can still be found in the operating room. “I think it’s important for an individual to have some security and peace in his life. And I get that from believing in a loving, caring God, you see. And so if he’s in charge of my life, why sit around and worry? I mean, he takes care of the universe, he can certainly take care of me, so I don’t worry.”
Dr. Wareham also follows a vegan diet, which means he doesn’t eat any meat, fish or eggs. He also spends about 10 hours a week working in his garden. “I’ve been fortunate, first, but I do try to follow a good lifestyle,” he says. Having performed more than 12,000 operations in his life, Dr. Wareham says it may not just be the work that’s keeping him heathy. “It’s more about a sense of purpose”.