Rosemary-flavoured Mediterranean diet is secret why 10% of Italian town residents reach 100 years old
In July, Stanford University released a study that identified not acquiring chronic ailments as the secret of some centenarians. However, scientists found that in an Italian village where 10 percent of its 700 residents reach 100 years old, the secret was flavouring their Mediterranean diet with the herb rosemary.
The residents of Acciaroli not only live lone lives, most of them are healthy in their old age, there is low level of dementia, fewer cases of cardiovascular diseases and other chronic ailments that causes aging. Besides their high level of consumption of the pungent herb, they are also physically active, says Alan Maisel, a San Diego cardiologist.
Maisel leads a project made up of a team from Sapienza University of Rome and the San Diego School of Medicine studying residents of Acciaroli to discover the secret of their long lives. He observes that most of them are doing something every day such as fishing, walking or gardening, reports News.com.au. He says the residents eat rosemary almost daily from their gardens, noting that the herb improves brain function.
The team also discovered that the capillary blood vessels of people, not only in the town but the entire Italian region of Cilento coast – where US nutritionist Ancel Keys established convincing evidence of the Mediterranean diet’s health benefit – had youthful capillaries similar to people in their 20s. From the town’s senior residents, the team focused on 80 elderly people of whom 25 were centenarians.
They are now creating a clinical scoresheet that would provide a guideline on diet, level of physical activity, type of social life and way of thinking for people who want to live long enough without diseases, discloses Salvatore Di Somma of Sapienza University.
Maisel says women in Acciaroli did not outlive men since there was an even number of old males and females. He explains, “It may have something to do with the fact the older men do nothing but sit around all day outside cafes and are less stressed.”
And contrary to the finding of a Michigan State University study that sex for old men is risky but okay for old women, in this Italian town, sexual activity among the elderly appears to be rampant, points out the cardiologist. Maisel opines, “Maybe living long has something to do with that, it’s probably the good air and the joie de vivre,” quotes The Sun.
VIDEO: Residents of Italy’s Acciaroli famed for living beyond 100 years
Source: AFP news agency
