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by atourgates 1434 days ago
I assume your comment is semi-tongue-in-cheek, but Loma Linda's the counter to several of those points.

Loma Linda's core contributing factors seem to be:

* High incidence of vegetarianism

* High incidence of non-smokers and non-drinkers

* Strong religious / social community

* Access to great healthcare

All while having birth records that are just about as accurate as anyplace else in the United States.

1 comments

But it conforms to many of the others... it's only 20 miles inland from the pacific, and has an (albeit warmer than normal) Mediterranean climate... "winter" lows are rarely below the mid 40s.
I grew up in the Loma Linda area as a Seventh-day Adventist (though my family left Adventism when I was a teenager after reading some books that explained why some of its core teachings are unbiblical). My grandparents all lived past 90, and my great-grandfather died at 100.

Epidemiologically speaking, I think SDAs in general live longer because they don't smoke, don't drink, and don't eat meat -- and have a religious community in which doing so is against God's law. It also doesn't hurt that they keep Sabbath, which means everyone who doesn't work in healthcare or emergency services has a mandatory day off, no work allowed.

Smog in the whole Inland Empire area is still pretty bad, especially in the summer. It gets pretty hot in the summer, not very cold in the winter - a lot like LA, but hotter :)

Which makes sense, if you assume that any given cohort will have some percentage hit 100 years; and then the cohorts that somehow have people removed "early" will have lower percentages.

For example, the cohort that includes people sent to WWII will have many that died in that war, even if they would have hit 100 otherwise.

And a group that "outlaws" some of the major causes of premature death (alcohol, smoking) would then have more cross the line.

Loma Linda is more like 60 miles from the pacific.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Loma+Linda,+CA/Huntington+Be...