Page 15 - Winter2009

Letters

someone has pituitary damage, it can- Some of that generation have emi- Some seaside villages ate more seafood,
not make growth hormones and needs a grated to the Greek mainland or abroad, if isolated from pastures by topography.
replacement. For more information, visit some may still be alive elsewhere, and Mountain villages consumed more
www.centerforhormonescienceandedu- some may have died elsewhere, but there meat, because they had more grazing
cation.com. is no reliable, verifiable, comprehensive land and raised more livestock, so they
Jackie Springer, MD information about their longevity or also supplied some seaside areas, wher-
Overland Park, Kansas about some identical lifestyle or a uni- ever accessible.
form nutrition regimen they maintained, However, both mountain and sea-
THE IKARIA PARADOX. regardless of where in the world they side villages consumed healthy amounts
Regarding Caustic Commentary on had moved. Was the nutrition of their of game in the fall and spring. There
an NPR-aired report by Dan Buettner on generation better or worse than that was much less shipping of perishable,
longevity on the Greek island of Ikaria of subsequent generations? It’s hard to fresh foodstuffs, because there was no
(Fall, 2009), it seems Buettner failed to say, but there are historical and cultural refrigeration and because transportation
take into account the demo- was costly, time consum-
graphics of the island, or was ing and limited to only few
fed inaccurate information by road-accessible locations.
locals, perhaps only intended Different areas had
for tourist consumption. different sources for their
According to various essential nutritional choles-
sources, in the early 20th cen- terol intake. Mountainous
tury, Ikaria had a population areas sustained flocks of a
of about twenty to twenty-five variety of free-grazing, fat
thousand, which declined sheep and goats. In fact, the
steadily to the current level Maltese goats were famous
of six to eight thousand, due everywhere in the basin for
to emigration to mainland producing the most and the
Greece, the US and other des- fattest milk, while Anatolia
tinations in the world. So, the sheep were prized for their
one-third of today’s residents plentiful storage of fat on
on the island said to have their tails.
reached 90 years of age, is Without refrigeration,
about twenty-two hundred to twenty- indications that show it was not what the meat was preserved by cooking it well
seven hundred people. That’s not one- cholesterol-mythology “science” in the in kebab-size pieces and storing it in
third of the population of which they West has inventively defined in modern lightly salted, melted fat, which acted as
were part at the time they were born. times as “The Mediterranean Diet.” a healthy, edible preservative. The meat
Today’s super-annuated Ikarians on First of all, it’s important to note was kept in big, wax-sealed, earthen jars
the island are at best only 2-2.7 percent that there never was one Mediterranean in basements for at least several months
of their generation. Is that an amazing diet anywhere in the Mediterranean. at a time. The practice continued in
longevity feat? I don’t think it is much Nutrition was always dependent on lo- many areas in the country even after
different from longevity figures for cal production and local consumption the end of World War II. Mountain vil-
other parts of Greece and, probably, for numerous reasons, and it varied lagers also provided the nearby plains
many other parts of the world. according to proximity to food sources. and seaside populations with dairy

WINTER 2009 Wise Traditions 13