Finding the Keys to Longevity

April 10, 2008 — -- Dan Buettner gets off the phone with people by saying, "live large."

It's a motto he's followed. A writer and adventurer, he has bicycled around the world, started several ventures to teach young people about different cultures and is now traveling to different countries with a team of doctors and demographers, pinpointing the places where people live longest.

"I just became obsessed with finding out what it is that helps these people," he said as he made plans for another trip.

Find out how you can follow Dan and his team on their quest to the next Blue Zone, visit www.bluezones.com.

Buettner's newest expedition is to the Nicoyan Peninsula, on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.

For reasons doctors are striving to understand, men in Nicoya live to age 100 four times as often as men in the United States -- even though their medical care costs only about 7 percent as much.

Click here to see the AARP's Longevity Quest Web site.

Buettner labels Nicoya a "blue zone," a place where many factors combine to allow people to live longer and better.

"There's no one silver bullet," he says, "but there are about eight things people can do, and each can give them six to 18 additional good months of life."

Buettner has already profiled three other blue zones: