The Sardinian Blue Zone is growing, now the centenarians of Bolotana are being studied

For some time researchers had noticed that the municipality is home to an unusual concentration of centenarians: in 2024 there were six. The team thus reviewed the data contained in the municipal registry office and that of the parish registers, retracing the history of the community for over a century and arriving at an unexpected discovery. In Bolotana the average life expectancy is higher than in the rest of Italy. However, unlike the other longer-lived Sardinian municipalities, it is not the men who make the difference here but the women who, once they reach 70, have an average life expectancy of almost another 21 years, over 2 years more than in the rest of Italy. Furthermore, those who reach 70 have a 13.8% chance of reaching 100.

The comparison with the rest of Italy

For comparison, the percentage in the rest of Italy is around 3.5%. Furthermore, the values ​​are slightly higher than the municipalities of the Sardinian 'Blue zone'. These data, according to researchers' estimates, place the women of Bolotana immediately behind those of Hong Kong in the ranking of female longevity in the world.

For Jay Olshansky, one of the authors of the study, there is the hypothesis (indicated in a note issued on the case) that this is the "longest-lived population in the world, or almost".

A little more caution

Naturally, there is still caution among researchers also because they believe it is necessary to understand whether the trend found is not the result of a statistical fluctuation in recent years. The factors that centenarians have in common are being examined by researchers. One of the hypotheses could be that of genetics which could be associated with physical activity, mainly due to walking along the streets of the town. And then a diet made up of mainly plant-based foods grown locally. Without forgetting the sense of community that unites the inhabitants of the town immersed in a natural environment with a variety of climate, fauna and botany as well as landscape.