Is it any wonder that Andorrans have the longest life expectancy in the world? Clean Air. Take your breath away with the mountain views. Wealthy, with almost non-existent crime levels (a jail with 50 prisoners for the whole country), more than 700 years of peace and a temperate climate of cold and snowy winters and hot and dry summers; In fact, this small nation may hold the secret to staying young, living longer, and better.
Just 2.5 times the size of Washington, DC, the country sits between France and Spain, a landlocked nation of narrow valleys surrounded by the staggering Pyrenees mountains.
With a population of just over 82,000 inhabitants, Andorra has been a democracy since March 1993. Tourism represents 80% of the income of this wealthy country, the banking sector; with its status as a “tax haven” it also contributes to the prosperity of the country.
And if all of this makes you want to take a chance and move … this next piece of news is sure to tip the balance. Andorrans live longer than anyone else in the world according to the World Health Organization. The average life expectancy for natives in this small, almost hidden country is 83.5 years, compared to the US life expectancy of 78.14 and the UK’s 78.85. Maybe we can learn a thing or two from these people.
Recently, BBC reporter Paul Henley paid a short visit to this mountainous country recently to try to find out what sets them apart from the rest of the world. And what he found were many reasons for the long and healthy life of the Andorran population.
For starters, there is a great emphasis on staying physically active. These people do hard, active work well beyond the age at which we would retire. Each of the seven parishes in the country has state-of-the-art public leisure centers (free to use).
It’s not uncommon to see people in their 80s and 90s very active, whether it’s taking fitness classes at the centers, herding livestock on rough terrain, or in some other active occupation.
Another important difference is diet …
In Andorra, people tend to eat the classic Mediterranean diet: lean meats, fresh vegetables, fruits, olive oil is used for cooking.
People know what is healthy and look for it. Restaurants also offer delicious healthy meals. Interestingly, Andorrans drink a lot of red wine (even in hospital) and continue to smoke cigarettes, something completely unexpected considering their longevity.
Another key to living longer here is the quality of medical care that citizens receive. The World Health Organization estimates that Andorra has the third best public health system in the world. The same report ranks the UK at 24th, Canada at 35 and the United States at 72.
To reporter Henley, the hospital seemed more like a private clinic, and the doctors there are now used to performing surgeries on people in their eighties and nineties.
“They go back to their normal life. And a very frequent question, before the operation, is’ when will I be able to walk in the mountains again, tend my garden, go to the forest and pick mushrooms?” says Luis Pallares, Andorran consulting surgeon.
Centuries of peace and the absence of violent crime complete the picture, giving Andorran citizens a peace of mind and a capacity for compromise that may well be part of the secret that allows them to stay young and makes them live much longer.
