Loma Linda, USA [National Geographic; CD EUDNews]. Loma Linda, California, halfway between Palm Springs and Los Angeles.. Here, radiating from the Loma Linda University Medical Center, surrounded by orange groves and usually blanketed in mustard-colored smog live North America’s highest concentration of Seventh Day Adventists. Since 1976, the National Institutes of Health has funded the Adventists Health Study which has followed 34,000 California Adventists to relate their lifestyle to the risk of heart disease, cancer and life expectancy.
Earlier Adventists studies established that consuming tomatoes, fruit, beans and soymilk lowered your risk of certain cancers, and nuts, whole wheat bread and five glasses of water per day reduce the risk of heart disease. This latest study offered a stunning summation:: Adventists who most strictly follow the church laws and recommendations church live as much 10.8 years longer than their American cohorts—making them America’s most convincing culture of longevity. Why? Born of the same mid-19th century Christian health reforms that introduced organized vegetarianism, the graham cracker and corn flakes (John B. Kellogg was an Adventist before quit the church to start the cereal company) the church has always preached a practiced a message of health. “Grains, fruits, nuts and vegetables constitute the diet chosen for us by our Creator,” wrote Ellen White, an early figure who most shaped the Adventist church.“...Cancers, tumors and all inflammatory disease are largely caused by meat-eating.”
Adventists also observe Saturday Sabbath—as opposed to Sunday— when the cut out the rest of the world to pray, relieve stress, socialize with other Adventists and enjoy a “sanctuary in time.”. Today, most Adventists follow the prescribed lifestyle—a testimonial, perhaps to the potential power of mixing health and religion. The longevity impulse may flow for the Adventist enthusiasm for the Bibilcal fable of the good Samaritan. it gives adventists a sense of purpose which seems to imbue the lives of successful centenarians.
The successful Adventist Lifestyle includes also a christian character based on patience, forgiveness, joy, respect, self-control, love. Love and forgiveness seem to be the fundamental keys for a successful and joyful life, healing human's soul from spiritual and emotional cancer and defeating human's damaging pride.
(picture: the Health-Pyramid)