When Giovanna Marras opens the door to her home in Bolotana, a mountain village in central Sardinia, her eyes are bright with curiosity as she sizes up her visitors. Her sister, Mariangela, peeks out too, soon ushering her guests inside and handing out dishes of ice-cream. The sisters are full of life, talking animatedly.
Giovanna is 101 and Mariangela is 99. Sitting in their living room, Giovanna swiftly recaps her life story: she excelled at school before moving to Cagliari, the capital of the Italian island, at 18 to train as a seamstress. The sisters went on to run a successful tailoring business in Bolotana before travelling the world after retirement.
Sardinia was home to the first such zone, identified more than 25 years ago. A study by professors at the University of Sassari and the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the US, published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Aging last week, found that 13.8% of women in Bolotana who reach the age of 70 will live to 100 – placing it second in the world for female longevity after Hong Kong. Giovanna is the third eldest of six female centenarians in Bolotana, after Tonia Giglio and Maddalena Falchi, both 102.
By the end of this year, two other women are expected to reach the milestone, and in 2027 two more, including Mariangela. The last male centenarian, Giovanni Madau, died in July, a few months short of his 102nd birthday. Tore Pedde, the president of Orminas, a cultural association, played a crucial role in uncovering Bolotana as a potential longevity hotspot after painstakingly searching its demographic archives, even tracking down centenarians born in the village who had long since moved overseas.
Records of people born in Bolotana between 1900 and 1925 showed that 38 had lived beyond 100, putting their longevity rate at 57% higher than the Italian national average. Later, the number of female centenarians started to far exceed the male ones, and this trend continues today.” While it has already been well established that women live longer for biological reasons, scientists behind the study are tracing family trees in search of genetic clues to Bolotana’s female longevity. They are also exploring the roles of diet, physical activity and social connections.
A striking characteristic of Bolotana’s female centenarians is their independence. The Marras sisters still cook for themselves, eating a varied but clean diet without forsaking meat, cheese or wine. Mariangela does the shopping, which entails a walk down a hilly street and back.
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