Turkey's coastal residents have always known that they have it good, and a study
published by Antalya's Akdeniz University this week has made it clear just how
good.
On
average Turks living on the Black Sea coast live five years longer than inland
Turkey's average of 64 years for men and 68 years for women. Researchers put the
health benefits down to the built-in exercise regime necessitated by the rugged
terrain and harsh weather conditions. The runners-up in the great longevity
contest were those pensioners who had the funds to retire to the Aegean and
Mediterranean coasts, where a total of 4.5 million out of the country's total 9
million elderly live. Not everyone in the survey was so lucky: Those living in
the East and Southeast had the shortest life expectancy, which is likely related
to disproportionately high poverty in these rural regions.
Living in mountainous terrain doesn't just benefit Turks; other studies have
found pockets of people with longer-than-average life spans in Sardinia, Andorra
and Athens. In 2005 the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health published
the results of a 15-year study of the inhabitants of three villages not far from
Athens. One village was 1,000 meters above sea level, the other two were on the
plains, but all of the residents were largely occupied with farming. Blood
samples taken from the mountain villagers showed a higher risk for heart disease
than lowlanders with higher blood pressure and rates of circulating blood fats
for both men and women. However, when the death statistics for the groups were
analyzed, they revealed that the mountain village residents (despite being more
likely to die from heart trouble) had lower death rates and lower rates of death
from heart disease than their peers in the lowlands. The researchers concluded,
like their Turkish colleagues, that the exertion required to walk uphill
regularly on rugged terrain could give the heart a better workout and speculated
that living at moderately high altitude produces long-term physiological changes
in the body that enable it to cope with lower levels of oxygen.
So
if living on a mountain saves you, what is likely to kill you in Turkey? The
Turkish Health Ministry commissioned a nationwide study in 2005 to find the 10
most common causes of death in the country. In some ways this grisly top 10
resemble similar European lists: The top cause of death is heart and circulatory
system disease. But with one vital difference: Turkish women are more likely to
die of heart disease than men. Until this report was published it was assumed
that Turkey's heart disease patterns followed those in Europe. The second most
common cause of death was cerebrovascular disease and, again, more Turkish women
die of strokes and brain hemorrhages than men. Third on the list were serious
respiratory diseases, such as chronic bronchitis. All of these conditions are
the greatest European killers, too, and in this respect Turkey's health profile
resembles that of a developed Western country.
However, the list also highlighted Turkey's status as a developing country. The
fourth most common cause of death was complications at birth or infection
afterward resulting in the death of mothers. These deaths reflect the fact that
27 percent of women in Turkey give birth at home in unhygienic environments with
no hospital nearby and no transportation to get them there should something go
wrong. Perinatal causes don't feature in the UK, for example, as a common cause
of death. Also in Turkey, diabetes was number eight and traffic accidents were
number nine. An English man is almost as likely to die of leukemia as he is of
diabetes or from a road accident. If the Turkish figures are broken down further
and analyzed by age, traffic accidents in the 15-59 age group move up from the
ninth place to a frightening third.
Despite Andorran and Turkish mountain dwellers both having longer-than-average
life spans, there is still a huge difference between the average life expectancy
of 83.5 years for the Andorrans and that of 66 for the Turks. One factor is, of
course, the relative wealth of Andorra compared with Turkey, but Andorra is not
as rich as many other European countries where people die younger.
Out on the Black Sea mountains, sport and activity is most likely to come from
moving your animals from one pasture to another or the backbreaking labor of tea
and hazelnut gathering. Perhaps another factor enhancing the life span of
Andorrans is seven centuries of war-free history. Andorran Minister of Public
Affairs Juli Minoves Triquell believes this is a key factor: "So many years of
peace, no army. I think that gives a lot of peace of mind to people." His words
may be very reasonable; Turks often pride themselves on their war-like demeanor
and on their successful military past. This martial legacy does not lend itself
to a wholly peaceful, stress-free society. It seems that the Black Sea
sexagenarians may have stumbled across the hallowed fountain of youth, but
circumstance leaves their cup only half full.
