Last night Dan Buettner was in New Ulm talking about his book the Blue Zones.  He was the keynote speaker for the kick-off of New Ulms Heart health project.  They are sure this is going to be followed nationally and possibly internationally.  They want New Ulm “to be a model for the world” -Lori Wightman

Here are the highlights of my notes in case you did not make it there.  I saw a few of you there.

…According to the CEO of Allina hospitals, the U.S. healthcare system costs 2.5 times more than any other country and we get to be #24 on the list of countries for longevity.

Basically our medical money is wasted.  The nice thing is he recognizes the problem and wants to do something.  They are looking to “focus upstream on wellness.”

According to the CEO, 60% of the resources are wasted in chronic diseases like heart disease.

And I thought this was shocking!

The hospitals don’t get any payments for wellness visits, only for E.R. visits.  Basically there is no financial incentive to promote wellness.  I have no idea how they intend to solve that one.

Wait, wait, wait they answered this question on KARE 11.  They are getting 40 million for the project.

The next speaker was Dr. Kevin Graham, Cardiologist and President, Minneapolis Heart Institute .

“1/3 of the people with a heart attack never make it to the E.R.”

“1/3 of the deaths in Brown County are from heart disease”

We could create a dramatic  reduction in risk if “everyone took an aspirin and 2 fish oil capsules a day”  I couldn’t believe that they would recommend something besides a drug.  I have to give them a lot of credit, that’s a big jump.  This time a year I will argue that cod liver oil would be a better choice, so if you aren’t taking any everyday, get down here and get some.

85 people died last year of Heart attacks in New Ulm.  They are trying to get that down to zero.  A very noble effort, but I think they have the wrong focus in HOW to do it.

Dr. Graham is looking to make heart disease a “medically treated disease”  He talked about this on KARE 11 last night.  They are looking for a magic drug to treat heart disease or to early detect people to get them on a drug cocktail that will hopefully prevent heart attacks.

One thing I found impressive was that Dr. Graham talked about calcification  (plaque) in the arteries as being a MORE important indicator of heart disease than cholesterol.  It “trumps” cholestrerol.  I loved it.  Maybe the great cholesterol myth will finally die.  Plus, Dr. Graham said that diabetes makes it all worse.

Well if diabetes makes it all worse, we can also focus on preventing diabetes.  Which is purely a nutritional issue.

Now, stay tuned to my emails because I am going to fill some gaps for you on plaque, on cholesterol, on heart attacks and ways to prevent them and ironically the next Bruce West newsletter (which you will see shortly) has a lot of these very issues in there.

PART 2 of New Ulm’s Heart health project was a lecture from Dan Buettner on the BlueZones.  Areas in the world that outlive the rest.  This is very similar to the work Dr. Weston Price did in the 1930’s.  There were more places back then that hadn’t had modern influences.

Here are some of my notes from the BlueZones.

The 4 BlueZones are Loma Linda, California;Okinawa, Japan; Saldinia, Italy; Northwest corner of Costa Rica.

In Sardinia, the cheeses were very high in omega-3 fatty acids (decreases inflammation and pain) compared to our cheese which is higher in omega-6 fatty acids (pain, inflammation).  Why?  Because their animals are still grass-fed.  Most of ours are grain fed.  Products from grass-fed animals are healthier for you.  They also drink wine regularly.

In Okinawa, they have a saying they say before every meal kind of like our Grace.  I couldn’t repeat the Japanese, but this was the rough translation.  “Stop eating when your stomach is 80% full”  they say that before each meal.  It takes 20 minutes before your stomach realizes what you have eaten, so the message here is eat slowly.  If you remember to stop at 80% you will consume about 400 calories less per day which = about 8lbs. a year.

Also, they have a social circle that is setup when they are 5 years old.   Basically given friends that they are expected to take care of for life.  Dan had slides of a group of ladies that had beengetting together regularly for 96 years.  They all were 101.

They also have an “ikigei”  .  The rough translation is “why I wake up in the morning?”  What is your purpose?

Off the cuff he said the longest lived people sleep 7 hours a day.

In Loma Linda, they were only the 7th day Adventists.  They took their diet from the bible.

Grains, seeds, nuts, green plants, no meat, and some fish.  They had regular routines they followed and they focused on keeping the sabbath.  They focused on God, family and going for nature walks together.

In Costa Rica, they had a special diet, very hard water, family focused, a light dinner, dry climate, strong social network, worked into older age and had a strong PURPOSE in life.

Dan Buettner summed up his findings for living to 100 and beyond in a few simple terms.

#1 Move naturally.  They didn’t run marathons or any other extreme.  They all lived inn walkable communities.

#2 They had the right outlook.  They had positive attitudes and lived a downshifted life.  They either prayed everyday, or napped, or meditated.

#3 They didn’t diet.  They eat wisely.  They ate a lot of plants.  They followed the 80% rule and ate slowly.  This may surprise some of you.  They had a few alcoholic drinks / night.  Mostly wine.

There has been a long association between alcohol and a decrease in heart disease.  2 drinks max.

#4 They put their family first.  All of them.  Grandparents on down.

#5 They had a strong sense of belonging.  All but 5 of them believed in God.  Being religious adds 4-7 extra years to your life.

#6 The hung out with the RIGHT people.  Positive people like them.  He noted that you are your peer group.  Smokers tend to be with smokers.  Overweight people cluster together or influence others in the group to gain weight.  BBC NEWS

For some fun 
Take their longevity test.  Here was mine.

Now realize that telling the future is impossible, but it is still a fun look at your lifestyle.  See how you are doing at bluezones.com

My Biological Age and life expectancy from the BlueZones.com

If you are looking at the above numbers and thought, “Dr. Altman could squeak out 2.2 more years.”  Well, I have a few nit-picks with their questions.  So I don’t think this is perfect but it has many admirable qualities.  They don’t differentiate between salts.  They just assume all salt is bad, and that isn’t true at all.  They also want people to regularly consume whole grain bread, and I don’t, and you shouldn’t either.  3-6 servings of grain a day is no way good for you.

#1 Grains have omega-6 fatty acids that contribute to inflammation and heart disease.

#2 Grains are considered simple carbs for all practical purposes.  The more carbs you eat the easier it is to gain weight.  Every extra 1lbs. of fat takes 100 miles of blood vessels to support that.  Simple math tells you that isn’t good for your heart.

So that is where I got docked some points for their scale.  But, I thought I’d share it with you
Have fun,