So so good news: οι φωτογραφίες 10 υπερηλίκων από την Ικαρία στην πρώτη σελίδα των New York Times

Διαβάστε την ιστορία του Σταμάτη Μωραΐτη, που ξεπέρασε τον καρκίνο επιστρέφοντας απλώς στην γενέτειρά του Ικαρία.

Ο Σταμάτης Μωραΐτης, ανάμεσα στα αμπέλια και τις ελιές που φροντίζει στην Ικαρία
The Island Where People Forget to Die

By DAN BUETTNER

Το νησί που οι άνθρωποί του ξεχνούν να πεθάνουν, είναι ο τίτλος του αφιερώματος που δημοσιεύεται σε μία από τις μεγαλύτερες εφημερίδες παγκοσμίως, τους New York Times.

Ο ρεπόρτερ Dan Buettner, αναφέρεται στην απίστευτη ιστορία του 97 χρονου σήμερα Σταμάτη Μωραΐτη, που ξεπέρασε τον καρκίνο και ενώ το 1973 οι γιατροί του έδιναν μήνες ζωής.
Η διάγνωση καρκίνου στους πνεύμονες, έγινε στις Η.Π.Α. αναφέρει το συγκλονιστικό αφιέρωμα και συνεχίζει: Ο Σταμάτης Μωραΐτης, αποφάσισε να γυρίσει στη γενέτειρά του για τις τελευταίες στιγμές της ζωής του. Το μέλλον ωστόσο, του επιφύλασσε διαφορετική τύχη.  Ξεπέρασε την προθεσμία 9 μηνών ζωής που του είχαν δώσει οι ιατροί και μάλιστα κατά πολύ. Σχεδόν τέσσερις δεκαετίες μετά, ο υπερήλικας στέκει ευτυχισμένος και φωτογραφίζεται στο κτήμα με τις ελιές και τα αμπέλια που φροντίζει.

 
Ο συντάκτης του αφιερώματος, κάνει μεγάλη αναφορά στις διατροφικές συνήθειες των κατοίκων της Ικαρίας, στον καθαρό αέρα του Αιγαιοπελαγίτικου νησιού και εκθειάζει τους υπερήλικες αυτούς θεματοφύλακες, της υγιεινής ζωής και των παραδόσεων.

Εκεί που οι άνθρωποι φτάνουν την ηλικία των 90 σε μέσο όρο 2,5 φορές μεγαλύτερο από τους Αμερικανούς, σημειώνει το άρθρο των New York Times και συμπληρώνει πως οι υπερήλικες της Ικαρίας σε σχέση με τους αντίστοιχους  συνομήλικούς τους Αμερικανούς, έχουν τέσσερις φορές λιγότερες πιθανότητες να παρουσιάσουν άνοια.

Γρηγόρης Τσαχάς ετών 99, ένας από τους υπερήλικες της Ικαρίας.

Αξίζει να διαβάσετε το άρθρο αυτό στα αγγλικά, όπως δημοσιεύτηκε στους New York Times.

In 1943, a Greek war veteran named Stamatis Moraitis came to the United States for treatment of a combat-mangled arm. He’d survived a gunshot wound, escaped to Turkey and eventually talked his way onto the Queen Elizabeth, then serving as a troopship, to cross the Atlantic. Moraitis settled in Port Jefferson, N.Y., an enclave of countrymen from his native island, Ikaria. He quickly landed a job doing manual labor. Later, he moved to Boynton Beach, Fla. Along the way, Moraitis married a Greek-American woman, had three children and bought a three-bedroom house and a 1951 Chevrolet.

One day in 1976, Moraitis felt short of breath. Climbing stairs was a chore; he had to quit working midday. After X-rays, his doctor concluded that Moraitis had lung cancer. As he recalls, nine other doctors confirmed the diagnosis. They gave him nine months to live. He was in his mid-60s.
Moraitis considered staying in America and seeking aggressive cancer treatment at a local hospital. That way, he could also be close to his adult children. But he decided instead to return to Ikaria, where he could be buried with his ancestors in a cemetery shaded by oak trees that overlooked the Aegean Sea. He figured a funeral in the United States would cost thousands, a traditional Ikarian one only $200, leaving more of his retirement savings for his wife, Elpiniki. Moraitis and Elpiniki moved in with his elderly parents, into a tiny, whitewashed house on two acres of stepped vineyards near Evdilos, on the north side of Ikaria. At first, he spent his days in bed, as his mother and wife tended to him. He reconnected with his faith. On Sunday mornings, he hobbled up the hill to a tiny Greek Orthodox chapel where his grandfather once served as a priest. When his childhood friends discovered that he had moved back, they started showing up every afternoon. They’d talk for hours, an activity that invariably involved a bottle or two of locally produced wine. I might as well die happy, he thought.
In the ensuing months, something strange happened. He says he started to feel stronger. One day, feeling ambitious, he planted some vegetables in the garden. He didn’t expect to live to harvest them, but he enjoyed being in the sunshine, breathing the ocean air. Elpiniki could enjoy the fresh vegetables after he was gone.

Six months came and went. Moraitis didn’t die. Instead, he reaped his garden and, feeling emboldened, cleaned up the family vineyard as well. Easing himself into the island routine, he woke up when he felt like it, worked in the vineyards until midafternoon, made himself lunch and then took a long nap. In the evenings, he often walked to the local tavern, where he played dominoes past midnight. The years passed. His health continued to improve. He added a couple of rooms to his parents’ home so his children could visit. He built up the vineyard until it produced 400 gallons of wine a year. Today, three and a half decades later, he’s 97 years old — according to an official document he disputes; he says he’s 102 — and cancer-free. He never went through chemotherapy, took drugs or sought therapy of any sort. All he did was move home to Ikaria.

I met Moraitis on Ikaria this past July during one of my visits to explore the extraordinary longevity of the island’s residents. For a decade, with support from the National Geographic Society, I’ve been organizing a study of the places where people live longest.

Aspasia Plystaka, 98 years old

The project grew out of studies by my partners, Dr. Gianni Pes of the University of Sassari in Italy and Dr. Michel Poulain, a Belgian demographer. In 2000, they identified a region of Sardinia’s Nuoro province as the place with the highest concentration of male centenarians in the world. As they zeroed in on a cluster of villages high in Nuoro’s mountains, they drew a boundary in blue ink on a map and began referring to the area inside as the “blue zone.”

Grigoris Tsahas, 99, one of the residents of Ikaria, an island about 30 miles off the western coast of Turkey where people are reaching the age of 90 at two and a half time the rate Americans do, and suffering about a quarter the rate of dementia.

Starting in 2002, we identified three other populations around the world where people live measurably longer lives than everyone else. The world’s longest-lived women are found on the island of Okinawa. On Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, we discovered a population of 100,000 mestizos with a lower-than-normal rate of middle-age mortality. And in Loma Linda, Calif., we identified a population of Seventh-day Adventists in which most of the adherents’ life expectancy exceeded the American average by about a decade.
This article is adapted from new material being published in the second edition of “Blue Zones,” by Dan Buettner, out next month from National Geographic.
Editor: Dean Robinson

Δείτε εδώ, το φωτογραφικό αφιέρωμα http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/10/28/magazine/ikaria-centenarians.html?ref=magazine#1