Dan Buettner: Zonas azuis não é assim tão simples | vídeo

🗣️ Transcrição automática de voz para texto.

We are delighted to be back for another episode of It’s not that simple from the Francisco Manuel D Santos Foundation where today we’re going to be exploring a topic that really should interest everyone listening or watching this episode we are going to talk about life expectancy and life quality we all want

To live as long as possible right we all want to live our best life so how can we do that that’s exactly what we’re going to discuss with today’s special guest Dan Butner who is a renowned Explorer National Geographic fellow award-winning journalist and producer and New York

Times bestselling author as well Dan I could go on with your resume because it is quite impressive but I’ll bring you in here and introduce the topic of the blue zones which are five areas on our planet that you’ve been able to identify as places where people have not only the

Longest lives but the best versions of their lives and before we explore uh uh this topic in in more depth and of course it’s it’s something which I had an opportunity to um to watch on on Netflix recently and and I know a lot of a lot of people who are interested in

This topic have been following your work for several years now but let’s start with a basic definition of what the blue zones are and what characteristics that they have yeah I think it’s useful to start with the Genesis so the idea was to in a sense reverse engineer

Longevity uh knowing that only about 20% of how long you live is dictated by your genes the other 80% is something else like colleagues and I at National Geographic reason that if we could find the statistically longest lived areas in the world in other words people achieve

The outcomes we want uh and look for the common denominators we we’d have a pretty good idea and um so the first step was identifying these places where people live the longest the way we measure it is they have the lowest rate of middle-aged mortality and or the

Highest centenarian rate it’s usually an and and um that took two years and it was a result of a careful analysis of worldwide census data and then actually confirming the ages other efforts hadn’t taken that extra step of confirming ages and and once we have these populations who’ve achieved the outcomes we want

Which is a long life largely free of chronic disease uh then we went about using anthropology and epidemiology and and foot Lether Sho leather um in investigative journalism work to to try to piece together the formula for reaching the the capacity of the human machine there’s so much to to Really

Explore here but um I I did want to talk about these five areas you were able to discover uh from the research that that you and your team conducted and the relationship between the lifestyle the environment and the longevity so what can you tell us about what the these

Areas had that others didn’t and what people were doing right most of the blue zones are remote so just very quickly okanawa Japan home to the longest live women in fact the longest live human population of the history of the earth Sardinia Italy the the highlands an area known as the noral

Province in oostra uh they have the highest concentration of male centenarians on the island of ikaria Greece you have a population of 10,000 people live about eight years longer than Americans do uh but no discernable dementia which is a major source of uh premature death and also premature

Vitality uh in the ncoa peninsula of Costa Rica very poor area by the way uh they spend 115th the amount we do on health care and they have half the rate of middle-aged mortality and because our editors at National Geographic wanted to find the American Blue Zone we found one

Among the seventh day Adventist in lolina California and all these places to answer your question tend to be remote uh they tend to be off the Beaten Track uh largely left alone throughout history to incubate a unique lifestyle that there may be some Randomness into it I believe there’s some evolutionary sort

Of U trial and error or natural selection at a societal level that produces is remarkably long life expectancy and through the same techniques and same uh factors now when you when you talk about the the the what health is what well-being is today we’re bombarded with a lot of information about diet so

Nutrition and exercise and from other interviews I’ve seen you’ve talked about how there really shouldn’t be too much of a difference of how people lived and exercised 30 years for example how they’re exercising and living now but there’s a drastic change in the level of disease that we see and

There’s especially a a a big difference in in the way in which uh uh today’s society is is is counting more on medication than ever before what can you tell us that that people are doing wrong in a lot of the modern and developed world that in these remote

In these remote areas uh they’re not I would say putting too much emphasis on diet and exercise I mean in America here uh it has been a priority it’s heavily marketed to us it’s a it’s a a multi- uh billion dollar industry and for the most part uh it’s not

Working America continues to be plagued with chronic disease and and diabetes in blue zones uh people aren’t exercising in the way we exercise uh yet they’re still making it to uh age 100 at the at the highest rates uh they’re moving naturally uh they’re they’re not trying

To live a long time they’re making the right choices on a dayt day momentto moment basis uh because their environment nudges them in the right way and that and that’s the way I think we ought we we need to be thinking yeah because I I think it’d be fair to say

Not only in America but in increasingly around the world we’re all tempted multiple times by fast food and the availability and the comfort that comes along with that choice is very is very difficult to resist sometimes obviously you’ve done a lot of work now in in North America in partnership with with

Governments employers health insurance companies and you’ve tried to implement blue zones in different in different regions tell us about that project and and how it’s gone and how it’s worked yeah so just to get back to this point of changing people’s environment in the United States since since 1980

We’ve seen obesity rates triple from about 15% to 42% uh rate of diabet diabetes has gone up by a factor of seven that’s not because people U have somehow degraded or they lack discipline or or or or they’re lesser people than they were 40 years ago our environment

Has changed the number of fast food restaurants has gone up exponentially you cannot Escape cheap calories processed foods the amount of time we spend in our automobile is about doubled so that’s time we’re behind a wheel and not on our feet uh in blue zones people are walking they’re eating basically

Whole Food plant-based the the five pillars of every longevity diet in the world are whole grains greens or garden vegetables tubers like sweet potatoes nuts and beans I would say if there’s one longevity food it’s beans It’s associated with about 4 extra years of life expectancy people aren’t lonely in

The Blue Zone because every time they go to work or a friend’s house or out to eat it occasions a h a a walk and they’re bumping into their neighbors they’re expected to show up at festivals we know that if you’re lonely it shaves about eight years off of your life

Expectancy as opposed to having three good friends now if you live in America in most parts of Europe these things do not come naturally in blue zones they do because it’s an outgrowth of the proper environment so if you begin with that lens and you look at any American city

And you start saying to yourself well how can I change comprehensively this city so people are nudged into moving more eating less and eating more plant-based socializing more and knowing and living their purpose um we’ve developed a team we have full-time team of about 150 people uh one part of that

Team works with city government to uh identify and and get consensus around uh policies that favor healthy food over junk food favor The Pedestrian over the motorist and favor the nonsmoker over the smoker and if and if you come in not telling governments what to do but rather finding identifying the policies

That number one are feasible and number two are effective in that area you can you can get a lot implement mented in five years and then we go through and we certify all the restaurants grocery stores workplaces schools and churches that are willing to optimize their environment to nudge people to move more

And eat better Etc and then a third Squad goes in and works with about 15% of the adult population not to hound them or guilt them to change their diet or to you know start running marathons but to uh Rec curate their immediate Social Circle because we know what our

Friends do has an enormous impact on what we do so rather than changing your lifestyle we change your social network because that’s a constant nudge and it measurably impacts your your health behaviors and then how to set up their home so the Common Thread to all three

Of these is we we don’t try to change people’s behavior like everybody else does we change their environment to set them up for unconscious success and in every one of our 73 cities we’ve seen the BMI go down and Gallup measures the BMI at a at a set point and then every

Year therea well-being goes up the amount of physical activity goes up vegetable consumption goes up and uh we’re in America we can’t sell our program on health alone we have to sell it on economic indicators and in Fort Worth Texas for example a city of a million people our work occasioned about

A quarter of a billion dollars savings from projected health care costs so we were able to pay for our program several times over and and I I think it’s a good model for other other countries to consider wow well congratulations for that and you mentioned other countries

And I have to bring in Portugal I know you’ve been here a few times um our diet I would say is similar to the Greek right where you found one of the blue zones the Mediterranean diet so we are a a uh pre predisposed to have perhaps an advantage over the American public

Depending on where you go but in general terms if if the the the people responsible for the government of Lisbon let’s say we’re going to come to you and say Dan um traditionally we’re reasonably happy with the way that that people that people have lived that people have conducted themselves across

Nutrition and and across across Health but we’ve noticed some issues over the last decade what can we do to improve you want to get back on track how does that work how does your work uh uh uh relate to advising these these local governments on the pathway they should

Follow first of all the government has to want us so our approach necessarily requires a government willing to limit freedoms around unhealthy choices and if they’re like this we we can’t really help so our process would be to come in and do an assessment and talk to the

Mayor and and whatever sort of city council’s in place the CEOs the local both official and unofficial leaders to see if there’s an appetite we find most of the time there is an appetite and that it’s getting everybody at the table agreeing that we’re going to measure

This at the population level and once you come in with a good metric you can usually get uh stakeholders to come in because it’s measured and then the key this is the big key you don’t come in and tell city council what to do you don’t necessarily advise them you come

In and you show them menus policy menus evidence-based that have worked elsewhere and the the concession or the commitment you need to extract from them is they’re going to sit down and go sit with your team of experts to look at each policy for Effectiveness in Lisbon

And feasibility in lis has been in five years and every time we’ll go through 30 policies a half a dozen float to the top that would you we not even considered and you can get a lot done that way and um and then it’s just the the certification process is just foot on

The ground going to visit every restaurant every grocery store every workplace every school and if you have a full-time staff working for five years you can get you know you can get you can get to every one of them and it’s not until you take that comprehensive environmental approach

That you’re G to you’re going to change anything every other project that has tried to make a city healthier by trying to convince people to change their behavior has failed the National Institutes on Aging tried six of them in the 70s and they all fail that’s why the

US government doesn’t fund these things anymore so we tried to you know take a different route an environmental route and so far it’s working splendidly when I hear you talking about the these programs I I do think a little bit of the the Fountain of Youth right

All of us would love to have access to a uh uh some kind of magic formula that that can make us live longer but it’s not just about living longer it’s it’s living our best life do you think that people are a little bit too obsessed with just the amount of years rather

Than the quality of years and how do you try to to uh maybe add value to the conversation of of it’s not just whether you live to 90 but how did you make it there yes so I applaud the innovation in Silicon Valley in the United States with

These genetic interventions and these U billionaires wanting to live to 150 and um yeah but in in many lot terms they often just prolong a crappy life and um what I noticed in these blue zones the way people are making making it to a 100 you alluded to in alluded to

This in our introduction they know their sense of purpose and they’re living their sense of purpose they’re social um they’re and by the way those two things we know that people wake up with a strong sense of purpose live about eight years longer than people who

Are rudderless in life if you could put that in a pillar supplement it would be a billion dollar Blockbuster drug yeah but nobody can make money on purpose so it’s not marketed to us same thing with loneliness loneliness shaves eight years off your life expectancy as bad as a bad

As a smoking habit if you if you can orchestrate your life so you’re surrounded by people who care about you on a bad day whose idea of recreation is gardening or pickle ball or bicycling or playing golf um you’re going to do those things naturally and with joy um uh

Focusing on your family we see that very clearly in blue zones that’s a priority aging parents are kept nearby so they have a nice older life connected to their grandchildren the thing is the way we make money in America here is by selling you something that’s going to make you

Less sick whether it’s a pharmaceutical company whether it’s a doctor giving you a procedure whether it’s a hospital who wants to rent you a bed so you have to be very careful when the incentives are misaligned with the outcome we want the incentives in America for the most part are count on getting

You sick and then fixing you later and what we’re trying to do is find a a business model for uh getting paid to keep people healthy in the first place it’s a little easier to do in Europe by the way your health care system is better aligned and I think more open to

This sort of thing and by the way Costa Rica has a very good uh program that uh Portugal might take a look at it’s that’s their basic health camp teams where uh every man woman and child in the country has the right to one visit a

Year from a member of a five member basic health Team who shows up to your door with your with your health records um Can screen you for diabetes for heart disease for depression and catch a major chronic disease before it blows up and it’s $100,000 problem in the emergency room

We don’t have that in the United States we you know the economics of Health in this country they want you to show up in the hospital with an expensive uh disease because that’s where the money’s going to be made I’m not saying there’s anybody bad here I’m just saying the

Incentives have been misaligned for 60 years here and it’s so hard to fix this in trench system now that um we have to work around the edges but no no doubt about that and that’s a very interesting model in in Costa Rica no doubt about that um now obviously throughout your

Career you’ve done documentaries you’ve written books uh you’ve done uh uh TV series as well what’s the importance especially in today’s digital age where everyone is bombarded with so much misinformation and overin formation for you for you to be out there and trying to cut through all the speculation cut

Through all the hype cut through all the propaganda in a way with science with facts yeah and you not only need more than science and facts that you you have to somehow Dazzle people I mean this uh Netflix documentary that living to 100 which done very well it’s done very well

Because we hired a a team that produces absolutely top production values I called it longevity porn in other words I wanted to make look into a 100 sexy and um because being aren’t sexy um socially connecting aren’t sexy um knowing your s none of this stuff is

Sexy what’s sexy is shooting yourself up with you know a child’s blood or you know cracking some genetic code but that so far hasn’t worked what’s working today are are these time honored lessons we get from populations that are living the longest and um you not only have to

Underpin it with science and I work for National Geographic and the the um uh fact Checkers occupy the corner office we’re very buttoned up and then you have to make it look gorgeous and you have to make it look aspirational unless you have those two uh it’s hard

To get people to pay attention so so here’s the the million dooll question how how old do you want to live until are you gonna make it to 100 well I’ve actually done the math But but so by the way everybody listening right here right now if you have an

Average set of jeans and you do everything right if you’re a female you should be able to make 95 and if you’re a male you should be able to make 91 or 92 wow and I think I’m in that category of making 92 I’m four decades away from

My potential death if since 1840 life expectancy has risen two years per decade um so given my life expectancy is 92 I have 40 years left um if we get those extra two years per decade I should make it to 100 yeah and I’ll be very happy with 100 then I’ll be very

Happy to get out of the way and let somebody from the Next Generation take over this work look before we get into the quick fire uh section here I I did want to also ask you about what a longer life means for all of us right because does that mean that

We’re going to work longer uh because what did you notice in the blue zones as far as you mentioned the communities and and and the importance of that and I’ve seen it in my own family I was away for for for 20 years on and off and my

Mother’s health wasn’t great when when I returned and I’ve seen a drastic improvement there just by being around and having family around I’ve definitely seen that but then there’s the work uh uh area of it as well and what do you notice out of the extra years that we

Have and how long we should stay busy right because you mentioned purpose and there’s the personal purpose of family of friends of community then there’s the professional purpose what what have you noticed around that because I know you’re busy so how how do you correlate

That and how do you see an extra 40 years then of work or not so the first thing people say I don’t want to live to 100 actually you do want to live to 100 because that the cohort of people who make it to 100 only suffer about six months of morbidity at

Least in okanawa in other words they die pretty quickly in their sleep the cohort who dies at age 60 are suffering about eight years of morbidity so you want to live as long as you can the longer You’ live the healthier you’ve been so first of all in Okinawa for example the they

They had produced the longest live population in the history of humankind they don’t even have a word for retirement in their vocabulary instead one word eeky guy the reason for which I wake up in the morning and abused their entire adult life and I think that’s the

Way you want to live you want to identify what you love what you’re good at and what you can get back give back and ideally that’s in a job you’re doing but if it’s not in a job you’re doing it could be uh unleashing that in your

Family or with uh some sort of volunteer activity but but it’s really important to get clear on your purpose and putting that to work that’s a I asked the question of every Centenary I meet I’ve interviewed 350 of them how do you make your third act count and it’s always

Some variety of find uh something you love and find a way to be useful and give back and I think those are sort of guiding lights um for for making the most out of it um I went to something called the modern Elder Academy U which

Is a great place to find your purpose and um I met an 85y old guy who was still uh writing screenplays his name was Jim and uh writing a novel and uh writing a TV show and uh I said well what what drives you Jim and he said you

Know at a certain point I realized that work is more fun than fun and I think that’s where you want to get when it comes to uh to to the third act no no doubt about that and if you can make work where it’s not work obviously

That’s a huge Advantage if you can have fun doing it um Dan I’m going to be selfish here for maybe a minute or two and um I’m I’m going to since I have access to to speaking with you here and it is a privilege I’m coming to you and I’m

Saying okay I want to live longer so I need to move I need to eat largely a plant-based diet and I need to have a community around me in order to be able to do that is that is that in a nutshell three key pillars of of being able to

Guarantee it I’ll put a finer point on all of those uh number one a plant-based you want a whole food plant-based diet essentially you want a a peasant diet and you can look at go to any Village in Portugal and see how their grandmothers ate and you’re going to be pretty close

To that okay uh number two you want to curate your immediate Social Circle and I wouldn’t necessarily tell you to dump your your old friends because they may need you but I would say that if you could put bring on two or three friends whose idea of recreation something

Physical people who truly count about care about you on a bad day and people who are already vegetarian because they’re going to teach you how to find and eat good plant-based food and then get clear on your purpose and make sure that if if the job you’re doing now

Isn’t providing your purpose and you don’t absolutely need that income or you can find that income doing something that FS your purpose you should quit and the easy cheat for all three of those is usually moving uh if you’re not finding your community in Lisbon you know move

Down to abua or something where it’s a smaller Village and uh it’s easier to make human connections uh and it’s easier to walk places uh we know for example in the United States there are ZIP codes in Kentucky where life expectancy is 20 years less than they are in walkable uh Boulder Colorado

Where you have easy access to Recreation and easy access to good food so moving is actually a very good strategy for living longer well I definitely feel privileged to get that uh advice from you and then I’m sure everyone watching and and listening uh do too we’re going to wrap

Up with the quick fire okay I’ve got four questions and one word or one sentence uh answers uh uh please so first is what is one personality trait that a good leader could really benefit from having comp passion all right what is the biggest challenge that humanity is facing now too many

Humans uh if you could change one thing about the Planet about Humanity today what would that be the the polarization bringing people together that that is a around a common cause yeah increasingly polarize this this Society at the moment and uh what is the most important learning of your

Life the realization that my purpose lies in finding the traditional peoples of the world taking the time from to learn from them and then spreading the wisdom that they uh that they’ have taught me that’s that’s been the backbone of my professional life for 40 years and and

And it served you well uh Dan Butner it’s been an absolute uh pleasure to have an opportunity to discuss a a life longevity quality of of life with you congratulations for everything you’ve been able to to achieve and yes those three Guinness World Records as well

That obviously we didn’t get a chance to uh get into uh today but uh all the best continued success and uh hope you continue to to preach the word and and and uh Humanity will thank you for it and we’ll see you when you’re a 100 I

Don’t think it’s gonna happen but Dan all the best thank you so much all right Dan uer um such a a fantastic opportunity to have a chance to to speak with him about about life I mean that’s that’s what we’re all involved in here and and get to know more about the blue

Zones what makes them special and what we can learn from them as well how they can be replicated in various areas of our society as well so hope you enjoyed another episode of It’s not that simple see you Soon a