“The Island Where People Forget to Die”

Ok, this is a different kind of cancer survivor story, the story of a cancer survivor who’s now in his early nineties…or maybe over a hundred, it’s hard to tell (actually I think he looks more like the 102 that he claims he is). It’s also the title of an NY Times article that caught my eye - “The Island Where People Forget to Die.”

The story starts with Stamatis Moraitis, a WWII veteran from Greece who immigrated to the US. In 1976 he finds out he has terminal cancer and returns to his hometown on the tiny Greek island of Ikaria to die…only he doesn’t. And as it turns out Ikaria is home to a high concentration of folks who live a lot longer than average. Since I’m hoping to make it to the average, I read this to see if I could gleam any hints on how to do so.

The author, reporter Dan Buettner, dug into this because “For a decade, with support from the National Geographic Society, I’ve been organizing a study of the places where people live longest.”

For his detailed article, try this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-where-people-forget-to-die.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp&goback=.gde_4196068_member_179399663