In one mountain village, women are three times likelier to reach 100

Women in Bolotana, a mountain village of about 2,300 people in Sardinia, are roughly three times as likely to reach 100 as women in the United States, researchers reported October 4 in Frontiers in Aging. A 70-year-old woman there has a 13.83 percent chance of living to 100, against 3.6 percent in the US. The team verified ages using civil and parish records stretching back more than a century, confirming that 38 of the 3,060 people born in Bolotana between 1900 and 1925 reached 100. Nobody there goes to a gym, because there isn't one. Residents just walk the steep streets, eat mostly plants they grow themselves, and live in multi-generational homes where men share the housework. Lead author Giovanni Mario Pes points to Giovanna Marras, 101, who lives with her sister. "They live together, they cook together, they talk to each other easily," Pes said. "There was absolutely no sign of cognitive decline."