Did you know that if you are middle aged and live in the beautiful country of Costa Rica that you have a greater chance of living to a healthy age of 90+ years than those your age worldwide?  And, people who call their home in an area in northwestern Costa Rica live even longer than people in the rest of the country.  Why is this possible? 

This area is known as a blue zone, places in the world where people live longer and healthier lives than anywhere on earth.  Blue zones are also areas where the greatest number of centenarians, those who live 100+ years, can be found.  It all comes down to lifestyle.  Scientists generally agree that a certain percentage of how long we live is influenced by genetics-how long our grandparents lived.  However, the most determining factors in living longer are based on our lifestyle habits day in and day out.   Simply stated, these people live lifestyles that include healthy diets, daily exercise, and low stress.  They also incorporate family, purpose, meaning, and religion into their daily life.

Photo: iStock, used with permission.

La Joya Perfecta, a new wellness resort community that is currently being developed in the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica, will offer everything needed to enhance and improve healthier lifestyles for its residents and visitors.  This state of the art wellness community will provide facilities for improving fitness, wellness, nutrition, and lifestyle management.  By offering the same type of lifestyle practices that have proven to make Costa Ricans a country with long living residents, La Joya Perfecta is set to capture a little slice of blue zone living!

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La Joya Perfecta, "The Center of Wellness"

Minor health issues can deteriorate into major dilemmas more quickly, memories become less clear, relationships become harder to maintain – all due to stress.

How can we take time out to slow down?  Is it possible to take a step back to a simpler existence?  How can we learn to slow down and really enjoy life, get our health back, and renew our spirits?  It’s a radical thought, one that requires radical change.

That’s where a Radical Sabbatical comes in.  I’m sure you’ve heard of a sabbatical – it’s taking time off from your job, without pay, with the intention of returning at the end of a specified time.  But what is a Radical Sabbatical?  The goal is to radically change your existence.  Change your body, your mind and your soul.  You get a chance to reconnect to your inner voice and discover what the important things in your life are.

If you’re looking for a change, I’ve got the perfect place for you.  La Joya Perfecta, Costa Rica, “The Center of Wellness,” is the perfect place to reconnect with your inner voice.  The beautiful beaches, lush vegetation and Wellness Center is the ideal way to slow down and get back both your health and your sanity.  Learn more about La Joya Perfecta here: www.costaricanwellness.com.

Rose Cole, C.N.C., C.N.H.P.

In love and service,

~Rose

Certified Nutrition Coach, Rose Cole, publishes the “Natural Health & Nutrition Tips”
online e-Letter.  If you’re ready to lose the last 10 -20 stubborn pounds without dieting,
and increase your energy all naturally, get your free subscription at www.RoseCole.com.

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This post is the last of a 6-part Medical Tourism and wellness interview series with Dr. Jim Dudl, our Chief Medical Officer at La Joya Perfecta, Costa Rica.

Links to the previous interviews are below:

Part 1, Medical Tourism, the Costa Rica Hospital System

Part 2,  More about Costa Rica’s Hospitals

Part 3, Dr. Dudl’s views about factors when you are considering medical tourism

Part 4 covers the differences in wellness between folks in the US and Costa Rica

Part 5 addresses the Costa Rica ‘blue zones’ and differences in life expectancy

Q: So what would you tell someone who is on the “wrong path”, say, an American living in the US who is close to being obese? And let’s say the likelihood is they are going to live up to age 74 but maybe they are in their 50’s today and they could choose to change their course and actually extend to a very high quality of life.  Maybe extend their life 10 more years to age 84, possibly seeing their grandchildren graduate form college as opposed to never seeing that. And you are building a wellness community to be able to assist people to do that. What would you tell them?

A: First of all to do a reality check now.

• Are you overweight?
• Are you exercising?
• Are you right now living a very healthy lifestyle?

If you tend to not eat any fats, if you tend to not eat any sweets, if you are thin, if your blood pressure is normal, if your cholesterol is good, you exercise 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week, you are probably doing everything well.

If you are not doing all of those things, those are hard habits to form, to get into those good habits. It is so difficult that a majority of the people don’t do it on their own. If you can, or those who can afford to do it, immersing yourself in the new lifestyle is the best way to get a jump-start on changes. And while you are immersing yourself in the new lifestyle, learning all the important things that will help you continue that new lifestyle once you go back home, after you have this immersion in high quality life.

By the way, there is one more thing that we haven’t emphasized yet, because it is harder to quantify, and that is the stress and spiritual issues that need to be dealt with. As important as it is to live another 10 years, it is more important that you enjoy life now and in those 10 years. So those are aspects that we would want to consider, dealing with yoga, meditation, whatever.  If stress is an important part or if you are not living a high quality emotional life, that’s something else that could be attended to.

Q: And how is La Joya Perfecta attending to that?

A: La Joya Perfecta will ask you to assess yourself in these aspects of stress, of fulfillment. If you feel if you are not where you want to be, again our job would be to advise you. We’d offer ideas on things that we either provide at La Joya Perfecta, to help you get there or at least how you can further fulfill those aspects.

Q: Its 2009 today, where do you see La Joya Perfecta in 5 – 10 years?

A: Let’s just take a person and say that if you would be coming down to La Joya Perfecta at say age 45 and you, at age 45, cannot afford to stay down there for more than a few weeks, or a week or two or three, or whatever you can afford. I would see you coming down, getting an assessment, learning a quick immersion in a good lifestyle, and learning how to extend that when you go home.

I can see you coming back yearly and extending that 1-3 weeks longer each year. And every time you come back, not only do you get back into that immersion, which is, we hope, so comfortable that you are going to want to do it as much as you can, but you will also be learning and reinforcing those good habits.

So 5-10 years from that first date you will be already happier. Then when you are 65, I could see you saying this is such a wonderful lifestyle, this is so much less expensive, about a quarter of the cost for a similar environment in the US. I think I am going to settle into this community and go back to the states for a few weeks or months in the year.

Q: You said something very interesting there – Community. In a lot of cases, it’s true where ‘Like attracts Like’. Do you think that it’s important for people who are trying to make these lifestyle changes to be a part of a community of like-minded individuals?

A: The community aspect is very important. We are how we live, we become how we live. There is no question about that. The tone will be set by La Joya Perfecta. It is built on wellness that is its core central theme.  The La Joya Perfecta Community will work to make sure the staff emanates that feeling with everything they do. It will work at attracting people in the long run that want to live that way. And it will, more likely succeed, than almost any other opportunities to do this kind of thing.

Q: If you had one parting piece of advice or words to your readers, what would that be?

A: It’s time to do a quick check right now on where you are, with your lifestyle. If you are not already living a good lifestyle and eating correctly and exercising correctly, dealing with your emotional issues and stress, then this is the time to do it.

Life does not give you a second pass.  It’s time to start enjoying and building those lifelong habits that are going to let you live a longer and a high quality life.

Dr. Jim Dudl

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This is Part 5 of our series of Costa Rica Medical Tourism and wellness interviews with Dr Dudl, the Chief Medical Officer for La Joya Perfecta.

The previous interviews are located here if you’d like to review them:

Part 1 of the interview here about the Costa Rica medical system.

Part 2 here looks at how hospitals are evaluated in the US and Costa Rica.
Part 3 here addresses factors when considering medical tourism.
Part 4 here covers the differences in wellness between folks in the US and Costa Rica.

Q. When it comes to the differences in the approach to diet and wellness between the US and Costa Rica, how does that impact people? And that’s a very important distinction. It’s so commonsensical that it’s overlooked in so much of our society, I believe. How is La Joya Perfecta combating that? What kind of a need is La Joya Perfecta serving?

A: Well, just before we get onto that, is the second part of what it is about the lifestyle in Costa Rica that is so healthy and that is exercise. The people who live down there were farmers and they walk. They walk a lot everyday, they work hard. And that combination of exercise and healthy diet has kept them slim, kept their cholesterol down and kept their blood pressure down. And the proof is in the pudding. More people live into their 100’s than most places in the world.

Q: And some organizations rank Costa Rica above the US, ahead of the US, in terms of health care population. Just touch on that for a moment.

A: Yes that is true. By some organizational estimates, it’s about 33rd versus 37th, US being 37th and this is out of all the 500 countries in the world. So it’s a very high level of health care. Well first of all they have less disease because of the things we have just talked about. They have a healthier lifestyle, but they also focus on helping people make sure they get the basics of care and of course, that’s one of things we will be emphasizing at La Joya Perfecta.

Good foundations of exercise, of medical examinations and then just really the basic things. If indeed, after all your lifestyle your sugar is high in your bloodstream, and you have diabetes or your blood pressure is high, they make sure that you just get the basic medical treatments, medicines that will bring it down. And of course, the proof now is, that can of course decrease death 50-70%.

Q: So in the US today, in some states 40% of the population is obese. Just define that for me please.

A: Well, obesity, is a certain level of weight defined versus height called the BMI (Body Mass Index) and it’s over 30 for obese and over 27 for overweight and normal is about 20-22.

Q: So in the US, 70 million baby boomers have just started turning age 65 in 2009. Where do you see the obesity going in the US?

A: Well unfortunately, the trend has been absolutely continuing to go up. So unless we intervene now and change what we are doing now, there is no indication that it wouldn’t continue to go up.

Q: And what are you trying to accomplish with La Joya Perfecta?

A: Well, what we want to do is first make people aware of how dangerous this is, to continue to live the way they are living, that their lives would be shortened, that their quality of life will not be as good

Q: How dangerous is it?

A: The average person without treatments in the US would be living to about 74-75. In other parts of the world, it’s 10 years older.

Q: So in Costa Rica, if you said 10 years, so if the life expectancy with people who become obese, or are obese is 74, is it 84 in Costa Rica?

A: I don’t have good Costa Rica data. But in other countries that we know about, there is a good 10-year difference based upon people who are not obese and are living this good lifestyle that is being done in Costa Rica.

In the next section, we’ll continue talking with Dr. Dudl about his views on wellness.  Please leave any comments you’d like in our comments section below.

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In this post we talk with Dr. Dudl about factors he suggests a US patient should consider when deciding about medical tourism and wellness factors overall between the US and Costa Rica.

Q: If you were counseling a patient, who would consider and may have some reservations about traveling to Costa Rica for any medical procedure that you may have just mentioned. What would some of your counsel be? What kind of counsel would you give to that patient?

A: It is very important for you to be sure that the person doing the procedure on you and the place they are working from, are in these accredited systems that we mentioned. Obviously, there will be other quality there, just as there is in the US. And it would be very important that you do not just choose without criteria, without understanding these important aspects that I covered, and of course, that’s the kind of help that we might be able to provide you, if you are interested in those procedures.

Q: Now as the Chief Medical Officer for La Joya Perfecta, how do you see your expertise helping La Joya Perfecta?

A: Well, I am glad you asked that, because everything we have just talked about is really a very small piece, maybe a 5% piece of what I think should be important to a person, and what usually is important, and the rest is really wellness. It’s staying well, it’s getting well, it’s learning how to live a different lifestyle which is quite different from we have been experiencing in the US so that we do not become obese. Or for over weight, we slowly lose it without being deprived. And, that we switch our food to things that are healthier for us, that will drop our cholesterol and our blood pressure, but that we enjoy it, that we enjoy it as much as we enjoy our food today. Exercise is a vital part of wellness, it is equal in benefit in every way, it decreases heart attack and strokes, but on top of that it makes you feel better. Makes you enjoy your life when you learn how to burn energy in a fun way. So my role is to listen to the patient and hear where they are starting from. Examine the facts, the blood pressure, the lipids, etc. see what needs to be changed and then provide options to that person, for them to decide how they might be able to change slowly, willingly, in a way that is pleasurable to them, but will lead to a longer term enjoyment of their life and a full and healthy future.

Q: Well, and the enjoyment and the quality of life is really what La Joya Perfecta is all about. And extending that to the fullest length possible, tell me about what’s going on in the US right now, with so many people being overweight. Give me a few statistics and tell me what the current state of the union is.

A: Well, this has been perhaps the most unfortunate explosion of obesity and diabetes, because of obesity, sometimes called Diabesity. Over the last 20 years, the whole US, the whole population has been getting progressively more obese, so that we have gone form a 10% obesity in some states to a 30-40% obesity in those states, a 3-4 fold increase in obesity.

Q: Is the whole US or 40% of the population over-weight?

A: It is actually reported by states. So there are states that are markedly worse than others and some of the Southern states have the 40% rates. Some other states like California, maybe 25-30%. However these have still all doubled compared to where they were 20 years ago.

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