The secret of the centenarians of Molochio in the province of Reggio Calabria ends up on the cover of National Geographic
MOLOCHIO (REGGIO CALABRIA) – What is the secret of longevity on the slopes of Aspromonte? The well-known scientific magazine “National Geographic” dedicated the cover of its Italian edition for the January 2023 issue to the small plain village of Molochio, where for several decades now there has been a high rate of long seniority among citizens.
At the center of the “National Geographic” article is the well-known scientific study by researcher Valter Longo, professor of gerontology and biological sciences, director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and of the oncology and longevity laboratory at the ‘Molecular Oncology Institute of Milan, considered by “Time” among the fifty most influential people in the world in the health field.
The aforementioned Italian-American professor, whose parents emigrated from Molochio in the middle of the last century to move to Genoa, has been interested in the large number of centenarians present in the Calabrian village for about a decade.
MOLOCHIO ON THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, LONGO’S STUDY
Indeed, Molochio is one of the places with the highest rate of centenarians in the world.
All this on a population of just two thousand inhabitants. According to Longo’s study, explained in the book entitled “The diet of longevity” (Vellardi, Milan 2016), the secret of the longevity of the inhabitants of Molochio lies in their diet (consisting of the habit of consuming meals with a low protein content, mainly a plant-based diet with food intake such as legumes, whole grains, vegetables, nuts and other local produce) and lifestyle.
This social condition would not only affect the town of Molochio, but also those of Varapodio and Oppido Mamertina and other small neighboring towns for a total of about twenty villages.
Hence Longo’s elaboration of a diet that combines the secrets of the centenarians of the Piana di Gioia Tauro with the modern progress of science on the subject. In the article recently published in “National Geographic”, anticipated by an editorial by the editor of the magazine, Marco Cattaneo, the study of Valter Longo is given attention through two centenarians of Molochio taken as an example: Giovanna Trimarchi, 91 years old, and Grazia Cosmano, 102 years old.
