Mediterranean diet As the renowned medical journal Lancet points out, eating habits play a key role when it comes to Italians and longevity. A large part of the population can easily bring fresh and healthy food to the table, regardless of social status and income. This is what makes the difference.
There are two main explanations for Italy's aging population; a high life expectancy and a low birth rate. The result is that people live longer, alongside a declining number of births. Italy is among the countries with the highest life expectancy at birth worldwide.
Most of the factors about life expectancy in Italy are positive. The lifestyle and the Mediterranean diet has consistently been cited as a strong influence in their life expectancy. Also, the national health system is among the best in Europe and the world, depending on which metrics you use to rank countries.
Reason 1: Italians Eat Fresh Food
The first reason Italians are so healthy is that they eat food that is fresh. It's been that way for generations. Unfortunately, supermarkets are now slowly taking over the small, family-run shops which primarily dominated the market in previous times.
Home to the world's longest-living men. mostly undiluted. The result: nearly 10 times more centenarians per capita than the U.S.
Long lifespan and few births
There are two main explanations for Italy's aging population; a high life expectancy and a low birth rate. The result is that people live longer, alongside a declining number of births. Indeed, Italy is among the countries with the highest life expectancy at birth worldwide.
According to one tradition, Epimenides of Crete (7th, 6th centuries BC) lived nearly 300 years.
Italy is home to some of the best cuisine in the world. Food is deeply embedded into their culture and the classic Italian diet encompasses plenty of vegetables, olive oil, pasta, lean meats and fresh fish. This resulted in Italians having lower blood pressure and cholesterol than other developed nations.
Italians, French, Greeks, Spanish, Croatians, and Israelis all enjoy high life expectancy, and good health with overall fewer health problems than their American counterparts due to their very simple common sense approach to food and lifestyle.
In Italy, overweight and obese people constituted almost 47 percent of the overall population in 2021. In particular, 12 percent of Italian adults were obese, while 34.2 percent of them were overweight.
On life expectancy we came 14th - slipping down two places since 1990. Italy, by contrast, rose from 5th to 2nd - ahead of France, Germany, and Sweden.
Healthy life expectancy (HALE) at birth
Italy, both sexes, 2000 - 2019. In Italy, healthy life expectancy at birth has improved by ▲ 2.88 years from 69 years in 2000 to 71.9 years in 2019. Worldwide, healthy life expectancy at birth has improved by ▲ 5.36 years from 58.3 years in 2000 to 63.7 years in 2019.
Males born in San Marino or Monaco had the highest life expectancy in the world as of 2022. San Marino also had the highest life expectancy for females with on average 89 years. In Japan the life expectancy was 88 years for females and 82 years for males.
Life expectancy at birth has risen rapidly during the past century due to a number of factors. These include a reduction in infant mortality, rising living standards, improved lifestyles and better education, as well as advances in healthcare and medicine.
Italy's population is aging and shrinking at the fastest rate in the West, forcing the country to adapt to a booming population of elderly that puts it at the forefront of a global demographic trend that experts call the “silver tsunami.” But it faces a demographic double whammy, with a drastically sinking birthrate ...
After Japan and Korea, Italy is the country experiencing the fastest population ageing, with 37 people older than 65 per every 100 working-age individuals (aged 15-64) in 2022 and will rise to 65 by 2050.
Besides portion control, Italian culture plays a huge role in the success of the Mediterranean diet. Rarely do Italians eat on the go; meals are sit-down affairs that are — whether formal or informal — a social occasion. Food is often shared family-style, and sad desk lunches are unheard of.
The Nordic diet is a strong contender for one of the healthiest diets in the world for both people and for the planet. The Nordic diet typically focuses on minimally processed, locally sourced foods found in the Nordic countries – Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland.
Southern Italians are closest to the modern Greeks, while the Northern Italians are closest to the Spaniards and Southern French. There is also Bronze/Iron Age West Asian admixture in Italy, with a much lower incidence in Northern Italy compared with Central Italy and Southern Italy.
Researchers in Italy say they've found a cholesterol-blocking gene in three southern Italian families. The families, from Sicily and Calabria, are the first white bearers of the gene, ANSA said in a news release. ANSA said the mutated gene is found in 2 percent of African-Americans.
In the 'health' department, Greek is in fact superior to all cuisines when considering nutritional and health benefits which lead to longevity as confirmed in many scientific studies. With fewer sauces and more vegetables than Italian, the Greek cuisine is very attractive to vegetarians as well.
carbs never seem to end in Italy! All these delicacies play such a huge part in the Italian diet and hedonistic Italian lifestyle in general. Yet Italians somehow stay fit and healthy, boasting the Mediterranean diet as the healthiest in the world.
Jeanne Calment set the absolute record for long life. She died when she was 122, in 1997. Since then, no one has lived any longer. Vijg's team looked at global databases on lifespan and found it peaks at around 100 and then falls back down again.