Author: realolive

Can’t find your keys? Someone’s name is on the tip of your tongue and you’re going to have to bluff your way through the introductions? You’ve wasted twenty minutes looking for your glasses and just noticed in the mirror that they’re on your head?

We’ve come a long way since the days of Ancient Rome, when men celebrated the 13th to the 15th of February by getting drunk, slaying goats and dogs, and then using the animal hides to whip the women they lusted after. (The women, by the way, lined up for this punishment, believing it would make them more fertile).

I’ve only ever had one wrinkle…and I’m sitting on it’, was one of the more memorable quotes of Jeanne Calment, the longest-living person on record, who died in 1997 at the age of 122.

Certain countries in the Mediterranean are known for the good health of their inhabitants. And certain places within those countries are known for the extraordinary good health and longevity of the people who live there.

When I visited the Greek island of Symi, where people live ultra-long, disease-free lives, the wine-loving locals told me they like to line their stomachs with olive oil before an evening on the razzle. So it’s exciting to see that the latest in nutrition research suggests that olive oil can reduce the toxic effects of alcohol consumption – just in time for Christmas.

Years ago, renowned cardiologist Serge Renaud found that heart attack patients eating a typical Cretan diet of fruit, vegetables, fish, nuts, and olive oil had a seventy per cent lower incidence of heart attack and death after two years than other patients.