Читать книгу How to Live to a Hundred - Ian Durham - Страница 5

Introduction

Is there a secret to living a hundred years or longer? Cookbook author and TV presenter Michela Chiappa traveled to two places with the highest percentage of centenarians in Europe and asked the experts—people who lived beyond 100, and the scientists who study them. What she discovered could give the rest of us a lot of food for thought.

In 2015, Doris Griffiths had a rare and unusual birthday party. It was her 105th. Born in Neath, Wales, in 1910, Doris was one of 679 people over the age of 100 living in Wales in 2015. This is the highest number ever recorded there, and is quite remarkable considering the population as a whole numbers only about 3 million. “When I look at my life, I have what I want to eat, and my favorite breakfast is a nice bit of toast,” Doris told me.

Is that what it takes for longevity—satisfaction with one’s lot in life? I met another centenarian on the Italian island of Sardinia, in a valley with the highest percentage of 100-year-olds in Europe. When I asked him for the secret of living until age 100, he said, “Not to die before then.”

Maybe a sense of humor then, is the key? What I’d like to know is, What’s their secret? What’s the magic? Doris Griffiths is clearly living proof that a growing minority of people in Wales are living healthier and longer lives. But what can we do to help guarantee the same for ourselves and our families? It’s part of being a mother to want to give your children the best possibilities in life from the minute they’re born—especially when an alarming number of us are already struggling at an early age. As Lee Tandem, a 31 year-old father of two living in Wales who struggles with his weight, told me: “I could have a heart attack any day. I could be a ticking time bomb.”

So what is it about the Welsh lifestyle that got Doris Griffiths to the grand old age of 105, while young Lee Tandem feels that every day could be his last? Do we have any choice in avoiding an early grave? It’s a life and death question I hoped to answer by traveling from South Wales to Sardinia: How can we live to 100?

I’m a proud Welshwoman with strong Italian roots, and I’m hoping to use those roots to try to unearth the secrets to a long and healthy life.