Lifestyle and nutrition related to male longevityin sardinia: an ecological study

Background and aims: A demographic analysis in the Mediterranean island of Sardiniarevealed marked differences in extreme longevity across the 377 municipalities and particularlyidentified a mountain inner area where the proportion of oldest subjects among male populationhas one of the highest validated valueworldwide. The cause(s) of this unequal distribution of malelongevity may be attributed to a concurrence of environmental, lifestyle and genetic factors.Methods and results: In this studywe focussed on some lifestyle and nutrition variables recorded inthe island’s population in early decades of 20th century, when agricultural and pastoral economywas still prevalent, and try to verify through ecological spatial models if they may account for thevariability in male longevity. By computing the Extreme Longevity Index (the proportion ofnewborns in a given municipality who reach age 100) the island’s territorywas divided in two areaswith relatively higher and lower level of population extreme longevity. Most nutritional variablesdo not show any significant difference between these two areas whereas a significant differencewas found with respect to pastoralism (P Z 0.0001), physical activity estimated by the averageslope of the territory in each municipality (P Z 0.0001), and average daily distance required bythe active population to reach the usual workplace (PZ 0.0001).Conclusion: Overall, these findings suggest that factors affecting the average energy expenditureof male population such as occupational activity and geographic characteristics of the area wherethe population mainly resides, are important in explaining the spatial variation of Sardinianextreme longevity