Living to 100 in Loma Linda, California: Blue Zones Pt. 3/4

Welcome to part 3 of our 4 part series on how to live to 100! If you’ve been following along the last few weeks, pat yourself on the back because you’re 2 weeks closer to 100, well done. Over the past two weeks, we’ve traveled to the mountain villages of Sardinia for some pecorino cheese (read here) then to the warm coastal waters of Okinawa, Japan (read here). This week we travel to the less exotic (or very exotic, if you live in Canada like us) Loma Linda, California to see what the Seventh-day Adventists are up to.

‘Blue zone’ has quickly become the buzz word for areas where people live significantly healthier and longer lives. Popularized by New York Times bestselling author and National Geographic fellow Dan Buetter, the study of blue zones gives us a glimpse into the mindset & lifestyle of the long living.

‘Do you not know that your bodies are temples…’

The Freedom Blog has embarked on a 4 part blog series, in which we explore 3 remarkable blue zones and then neatly tie them together to help you live a healthier and longer life.

Our ‘Blue Zone‘ series:

• Part 1. Mountain villages of Sardinia, Italy (read here)
• Part 2. Pacific Island of Okinawa, Japan (read here)
• Part 3. The Adventists of Loma Linda, California (today’s article)
• Part 4. How you can live to 100. What do they all have in common?

Live longer in Loma Linda

California has been a progressive state for some time, still, a fascinating group called the Adventists (for the Seventh-day Adventist sect of Christianity) have been progressive in their health habits since the 1880s. Many members of this Protestant Christian denomination live in the city Loma Linda, California, and have been featured in a number of newsworthy studies as the rest of America starts to notice the extraordinarily long and healthy lives these individuals lead.

Famously featured in a series of studies aptly called the Adventist Health Studies (AHS), tens of thousands of Californian Adventists have been tracked over the course of 40 years.

The AHS findings have been nothing short of impressive. The first of many studies to come was the Adventist Mortality Study (1960), which followed 22,940 Californian Adventists. Researchers found that Californian Adventist men lived 6.2 years longer than non-Adventist males, while women lived over 3.7 years longer than the average female in America. A later study (AHS-1) from 1974-1988, confirmed that Adventist men and women lived 7.3 and 4.4 years, respectively, longer than other California residents.

Your body was a gift

A Corinthians verse in the bible reads, “Do you not know your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” Seventh-day Adventists, much like members of the Jewish and Muslim faiths, treat their body and soul as one – avoiding food and activities that are impure. Living by this maxim is likely a major reason the life expectancies of the Seventh-day Adventists are such anomalies in a U.S. population plagued by heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.

Why so healthy?

1. Vegetarians. It’s hard to bring home the bacon in Loma Linda, that’s because even some the largest grocery stores don’t carry meat. It’s simply not popular. Feeling like McDonalds or KFC? You better stay on the interstate, because you’ll be hard pressed to find a drive-thru in this healthy city. According to the Adventist Health Studies, over 52% of Adventists are a type of vegetarian or vegan. Compare this to the rest of the United States where it’s estimated only 3.2% are vegetarians – many of which are probably Adventists.
2. Taking Saturdays off. Many religions take Sunday, often known as the Sabbath, off from the world – Seventh-day Adventists take off the Saturday. Although a different day of the week isn’t the reason Seventh-day Adventists live extraordinarily long lives, it’s the fact that they take an entire day off to spend with family, friends, and worship. By now, you’ve probably heard that having social contact is good for the mind and the body. There’s a reason solitary confinement is such a harsh punishment. On the flip side, you can’t seem to get enough benefits out of genuine friend and family time. And apparently you’ll have more of it if you devote at least a day each week.
3. The health benefit of nuts is nuts. Eating nuts several times a week can reduce the risk of heart attack by up to 50%, according to the Adventist Health Study 1. For over 100 years, eating nuts several times per week has been promoted by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. For vegetarians, nuts are an excellent source of protein. Almonds, and cashews, and peanuts, oh my! There are so many healthy nuts options, this is definitely one of the easiest lifestyle tips to implement.
4. Smoking is prohibited. This will come as no surprise, but still there are still some people that question the thousands of studies citing how bad smoking is for you. But it’s hard to argue against it when you compare Adventist cancer rates compared to regular Americans. The AMS study compared death rates of Adventists to the rest of California. According to their findings, the mortality rate from cancer was 24% lower for Adventist women and 40% lower for men. More specifically, the death rate from lung cancer, a type of cancer common to smokers, is 79% lower for Adventists compared to other Californians.
5. They are religious. If you haven’t guessed by now, the Seventh-day Adventists are religious. You might think we’re cheating with this answer, but being religious often promotes other healthy habits. Particular to the Seventh-day Adventists, a healthy diet, socialization, and no cigarettes leads to a healthy life, however, if you’ve read the other two Blue Zone articles you’ll remember the importance of purpose. Most religious or spiritual individuals draw purpose from their beliefs. Your sense of purpose could be anything, but if you are religious or spiritual, you often believe in something greater than yourself, and that purpose could help you live to 100.

There you have it! That’s the last of the 3 blue zones articles. Next week we tie them all together to provide you our version of a checklist for living to a healthy 100. What are your tips for a long and healthy life? Please share! As always, it was a pleasure!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it on Facebook or Twitter below.

P.S. We’d love to meet you on Twitter here or on Facebook here