Expert Insights: The Anti-Aging Secrets of Longevity from 100-Year-Old Men

There have been reports of extraordinary life spans in some individuals, notably in inhabitants of the island of Sardinia where, it is believed, a larger proportion of men than anywhere else in the world survive to 100-plus. According to recent studies, Sardinia is the best place for grandfather! Our Guinness Record is to have more than 135 ultra-centenarian per million inhabitants and this is an underestimation. There, surprisingly, the men and women longevity ratio is 1:1 while all over the world it's 1:7. The great strength of this beautiful island is the almost pollution free environment and the natural food for a balanced diet. In the village of Tiana in the Sardinian mountains Antonio Todde celebrated his 112th birthday on January 22 this year. Antonio was the oldest documented man in the world in 2000-2002, and briefly the oldest person in the history of Italy.

Antonio is a shepherd living high in the mountains, where he has welcomed hundreds of pilgrims wishing to congratulate him on his extraordinary longevity. Similar phenomena reported from the Caucasus, the Andes, western China and the Japanese island of Okinawa have been doubted, since no proof of date of birth has been available, but in the Sardinian instance there seems little reason to doubt the years claimed. Age in Roman Catholic countries has always proved more reliable than elsewhere, since certificates of baptism have been available for many generations and guesswork is ruled out.

In most countries where reliable data are available, five women reach their century for every man who does so. But researchers at the University of Sassari have found that in Sardinia the female–male ratio is only about two to one, and that in its mountains there are roughly equal numbers of men and women centenarians. The isolation of villages there provides an area of genetic restriction where...