The valley of the Hunza River on the border between India and Pakistan is known as an "oasis of youth". The life span of the inhabitants of the valley reaches 110-120 years. Those people are hardly ever sick and they look young even at respectable age. This suggests the existence of an ideal lifestyle, when people feel healthy, happy, and they do not look old by the age of 40 or 50. Curiously, residents of Hunza Valley, unlike peoples of neighboring nationalities, look very like Europeans.
The Hunza people (also known as Burusho) bathe in ice-cold water even at 15 degrees below zero, play sports games till very old age, their 40-year-old women look like girls, they keep slender and graceful figures at 60 and can give birth to children at 65. In summer, they eat raw fruit and vegetables, whereas in winter they prefer sun-dried apricots, sprouted grains, sheep's cheese.
Interestingly, the Hunza people have a period of time when the fruit has not yet ripened. They refer to this season as "hungry spring" - it lasts from two to four months. They hardly eat during these months and limit themselves to dried apricot drinks once a day. They strictly observe this diet at all times.
Researchers say that the model of nourishment among residents of Hunza Valley is based on vegetarianism and raw products. Vegetables and fruits predominate in the daily ratio, all food products are 100% natural, without any chemicals whatsoever, and all of them are cooked or treated to preserve all biologically valuable substances. Alcohol and delicacies are extremely rare, the Hunza people practice a very moderate salt intake, they eat only the products that they grow on their own native soil. Plus, they practice regular periods of fasting. Researchers believe that nutrition plays the most important role in contributing to healthy longevity.
In 1963, a French medical expedition visited Hunza Valley. They conducted a population census, in which it was found that the average life expectancy of the Hunza people was 120 years. The number exceeds that of European nationalities twice. In August 1977, it was announced at an international cancer congress in Paris that the absolute absence of cancerous diseases had been found only among the Hunza people.
In April 1984, a Hong Kong newspaper published a curious article. One of the Hunza people, a man named as Said Abdul Mobut, arrived at London's Heathrow Airport, where he puzzled passport control officials when he presented his passport to them. The man's passport said that he was born in 1823 and had thus turned 160 years old.
The Hunza people have a simple recipe for their healthy longevity: be a vegetarian, always work physically, move constantly and do not change your rhythm of life. In this case, they say, people can live up to 120-150 years.
Mikhail Zagorsky
National Journal