The Ikarians, Another Community That Benefits From A Plant-Based Diet
AnimalCare 
Oct 26, 2012 
AnimalCare, NGOs 
0 comments
| Tweet |  |
We have heard about the Okinawans, now, it’s the Ikarians on a small little island in Greece:
This article in the N.Y. Times about the superhealthy community on the little Greek island of Ikaria is enlightening.
Ikarians are living much older than most other Westerners, and are healthy, active, purposeful and happy well into old age. What’s their secret? Is it diet, or exercise, or no smoking, or a little bit of red wine?
Sure, it’s a bit of those things, but more importantly, it’s the community.
Ikarians live in a community where it is the norm to eat mostly plant foods (beans, potatoes, veggies from the garden), drink some wine with neighbors, walk everywhere, garden during the day, take naps in the afternoon, not stress about time, wake naturally, socialize with the community every day.
Source and full article: http://zenhabits.net/superhealth/
From another article about them:
Their diet was also typical: a breakfast of goat’s milk, wine, sage tea or coffee, honey and bread. Lunch was almost always beans (lentils, garbanzos), potatoes, greens (fennel, dandelion or a spinachlike green called horta) and whatever seasonal vegetables their garden produced; dinner was bread and goat’s milk.
Dr. Ioanna Chinou, a professor at the University of Athens School of Pharmacy, is one of Europe’s top experts on the bioactive properties of herbs and natural products. When I consulted her about Ikarians’ longevity, she told me that many of the teas they consume are traditional Greek remedies. Wild mint fights gingivitis and gastrointestinal disorders; rosemary is used as a remedy for gout; artemisia is thought to improve blood circulation. She invited me to give her samples and later tested seven of the most commonly used herbs on Ikaria. As rich sources of polyphenols, they showed strong antioxidant properties, she reported. Most of these herbs also contained mild diuretics. Doctors often use diuretics to treat hypertension — perhaps by drinking tea nightly, Ikarians have gently lowered their blood pressure throughout their lives.
…..
Pes and Poulain were joined in the field by Dr. Antonia Trichopoulou of the University of Athens, an expert on the Mediterranean diet. She helped administer surveys, often sitting in village kitchens to ask subjects to reconstruct their childhood eating habits. She noted that the Ikarians’ diet, like that of others around the Mediterranean, was rich in olive oil and vegetables, low in dairy (except goat’s milk) and meat products, and also included moderate amounts of alcohol. It emphasized homegrown potatoes, beans (garbanzo, black-eyed peas and lentils), wild greens and locally produced goat milk and honey.
As I knew from my studies in other places with high numbers of very old people, every one of the Ikarians’ dietary tendencies had been linked to increased life spans: low intake of saturated fats from meat and dairy was associated with lower risk of heart disease; olive oil — especially unheated — reduced bad cholesterol and raised good cholesterol. Goat’s milk contained serotonin-boosting tryptophan and was easily digestible for older people. Some wild greens had 10 times as many antioxidants as red wine. Wine — in moderation — had been shown to be good for you if consumed as part of a Mediterranean diet, because it prompts the body to absorb more flavonoids, a type of antioxidant. And coffee, once said to stunt growth, was now associated with lower rates of diabetes, heart disease and, for some, Parkinson’s. Local sourdough bread might actually reduce a meal’s glycemic load. You could even argue that potatoes contributed heart-healthy potassium, vitamin B6 and fiber to the Ikarian diet. Another health factor at work might be the unprocessed nature of the food they consume: as Trichopoulou observed, because islanders eat greens from their gardens and fields, they consume fewer pesticides and more nutrients. She estimated that the Ikarian diet, compared with the standard American diet, might yield up to four additional years of life expectancy.
Of course, it may not be only what they’re eating; it may also be what they’re not eating. “Are they doing something positive, or is it the absence of something negative?” Gary Taubes asked when I described to him the Ikarians’ longevity and their diet. Taubes is a founder of the nonprofit Nutrition Science Initiative and the author of “Why We Get Fat” (and has written several articles for this magazine). “One explanation why they live so long is they eat a plant-based diet. Or it could be the absence of sugar and white flour. From what I know of the Greek diet, they eat very little refined sugar, and their breads have been traditionally made with stone-ground wheat.”
Following the report by Pes and Poulain, Dr. Christina Chrysohoou, a cardiologist at the University of Athens School of Medicine, teamed up with half a dozen scientists to organize the Ikaria Study, which includes a survey of the diet of 673 Ikarians. She found that her subjects consumed about six times as many beans a day as Americans, ate fish twice a week and meat five times a month, drank on average two to three cups of coffee a day and took in about a quarter as much refined sugar — the elderly did not like soda. She also discovered they were consuming high levels of olive oil along with two to four glasses of wine a day.
Full story: The island where people forget to die: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-where-people-forget-to-die.html?pagewanted=2&pagewanted=all&_r=0
I called Moraitis a few weeks ago from my home in Minneapolis. Elpiniki died in the spring at age 85, and now he lives alone. He picked up the phone in the same whitewashed house that he’d moved into 35 years ago. It was late afternoon in Ikaria. He had worked in his vineyard that morning and just awakened from a nap. We chatted for a few minutes, but then he warned me that some of his neighbors were coming over for a drink in a few minutes and he’d have to go. I had one last question for him. How does he think he recovered from lung cancer?
“It just went away,” he said. “I actually went back to America about 25 years after moving here to see if the doctors could explain it to me.”
I had heard this part of the story before. It had become a piece of the folklore of Ikaria, proof of its exceptional way of life. Still, I asked him, “What happened?”
“My doctors were all dead.”
I enjoyed reading the two articles above and thought the sharing might be beneficial to some of you. However, all said, it pays to be cautious when adopting “foreign” diets because I learnt that the most suitable diet for each of us is very dependent on our genetic make-up, our cultural lifestyle and especially where we are located.
About 25 years ago, I was very, very interested in health (was a complete health-nut) and at that time, eating oats was in fashion. It was hailed as THE health food in many ways. So I dutifully and almost religiously ate a whole cup of oats every day….for decades.
It was also round about that time that I started getting periodic attacks of depression. VERY bad depressions (with suidical tendencies and the whole works) until I was finally diagnosed as having a condition called Bipolar 2 which actually warranted medication, but being as stubborn as I was, I refused.
Then I went on a mission to find herbal cures. I tried flower teas, Chinese herbs, etc. Nothing worked until a friend showed me an article about something called the “orthomolecular” link to depression and the Bipolar condition. In the article, it mentioned that some people are allergic to gluten and oats was mentioned.
A food link to depression?
That’s when I made a concerted effort to cut off oats ENTIRELY from my diet. I avoided it like the plague. At that point, I was determined to find a cure for my depression as the periodic attacks were getting worse and I almost could no longer function normally.
It is coming to two years now, and I haven’t had any severe attack of depression so far. Touch wood, touch metal, touch all elements of the earth. I’ll wait until 5 years before making a conclusion (that oats was the culprit in my case). I only had one mild attack this year which merely lasted a few weeks and believe me, it was milder than the mildest of my depression attacks for the last 25 years. I consider it a total blessing.
I also consulted a trusted Chinese herbalist on this and he only had this to say to me: You’re Chinese, for heaven’s sake. What business do you have eating oats? Eat rice!
I sure needed that hard knock and am thankful for it!
So, my point in sharing this with you is to drive home the point that in whatever we do (or eat!), do so in moderation and listen to your body. It will tell you what it needs. That is why we promote eating LESS meat, not total vegetarianism, unless our body is ready for it.
All things in moderation and….listen to your body. Sometimes the body knows more than the head.
But hey, don’t animals already know that?
Disclaimer: This is only a sharing and does not serve as any advice on nutrition, depression or Bipolar 2. You are strongly advised to consult a professional on these issues.
| Tweet |
|
Facebook Comments