Here's an intriguing fact.
In the developed world,
everywhere, women live an average of six to eight years longer than men do.
Six to eight years longer.
That's, like, a huge gap.
In 2015, the Lancet published an article
showing that men in rich countries
are twice as likely to die as women are
at any age.
But there is one place in the world
where men live as long as women.
It's a remote, mountainous zone,
a blue zone,
where super longevity
is common to both sexes.
This is the blue zone in Sardinia,
an Italian island in the Mediterranean,
between Corsica and Tunisia,
where there are six times as many centenarians
as on the Italian mainland,
less than 200 miles away.
There are 10 times as many centenarians
as there are in North America.
It's the only place where men live as long as women.
But why?
My curiosity was piqued.
I decided to research the science and the habits of the place,
and I started with the genetic profile.
I discovered soon enough
that genes account for just 25 percent of their longevity.
The other 75 percent is lifestyle.
So what does it take to live to 100 or beyond?
What are they doing right?
What you're looking at is an aerial view of Villagrande.
It's a village at the epicenter of the blue zone
where I went to investigate this,
and as you can see, architectural beauty
is not its main virtue,
density is:
tightly spaced houses,
interwoven alleys and streets.
It means that the villagers' lives constantly intersect.
And as I walked through the village,
I could feel hundreds of pairs of eyes watching me
from behind doorways and curtains,
from behind shutters.
Because like all ancient villages,
Villagrande couldn't have survived
without this structure, without its walls, without its cathedral,
without its village square,
because defense and social cohesion defined its design.