October 9, 2026, 7:12 am | Read time: 7 minutes
“Blue Zones” are places where residents often live to a healthy old age. Currently known Blue Zones include Okinawa in Japan, the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, Ikaria in Greece, Loma Linda in California, and an area in Sardinia, Italy. Recently, another community on the Italian island—outside the original Sardinian Blue Zone—has sparked research interest. In Bolotana, a small mountain village, a study showed notably favorable survival rates in old age. Interestingly, this exceptional longevity primarily affects women.
It’s likely no coincidence that people in the so-called Blue Zones live particularly long and generally healthy and content lives compared to other regions. This is believed to be less about external factors, such as climate, and more about the prevalent lifestyle there. It is assumed that Blue Zone residents largely follow a plant-based diet and value community living. Additionally, instead of focusing on intense workouts, they incorporate sufficient movement into their daily lives. FITBOOK has gathered more information on the unofficial rules of the Blue Zones and their potential effects here.
Study examines Bolotana, Sardinia, as a new Blue Zone
Due to unusually favorable longevity indicators, the province of Ogliastra on the Italian island of Sardinia was already considered a Blue Zone. The current study examined Bolotana, a mountain community in the Marghine region of central Sardinia, regarding the longevity of its residents.1 Bolotana is about 110 kilometers from Ogliastra.
The research team responsible is anything but unknown in the field. Study author Professor Giovanni Mario Pes is a well-known name in the Blue Zone context: He, along with other scientists, some of whom were also involved in the current study, established the principle and coined the term “Blue Zones.”2
Does Bolotana also show a pattern of exceptional longevity? To explore this question, the researchers led by Prof. Pes examined survival from age 70 in Bolotana. They compared the values with the Italian province of Nuoro, also located in Sardinia, and with the rest of Italy. Specifically, they looked at two metrics: the remaining life expectancy at age 70 and the probability of surviving from age 70 to 100.
Details of the study
The study design was that of a demographic observational study. For their analysis, the researchers used data from population, civil, and church registers. This provided them with information on gender, birth and death dates, place of residence, and migration status, i.e., whether residents had ever changed their place of residence. The authors considered all residents of Bolotana who were 70 years or older between 2021 and 2025—a total of 3,138 observed person-years in this age group.
The researchers paid special attention to the centenarians in Bolotana. After all, in a study on exceptional longevity, it is important to reliably and accurately capture old age. To this end, the study authors used the official birth records of all identified centenarians. Additionally, for 97 percent of the documented deaths of centenarians, entries from church archives were checked to verify age information.
The researchers created so-called period life tables, separately for women and men. These are statistical snapshots—they depict mortality within a specific period.
To verify the reliability of the results, the researchers repeated their calculations 20,000 times, each time using slightly altered data. They also used statistical models for verification. In another analysis step, they compared the data from the time of collection with a corresponding period before the coronavirus pandemic.
They were also interested in how often people in Bolotana reached a particularly old age. They calculated the so-called “Extreme Longevity Index” for individuals born between 1900 and 1925 in Bolotana. Of 3,060 people born in Bolotana during this period, 38 reached the age of 100—equivalent to a rate of 1,242 centenarians per 100,000 births, significantly higher than the Italian comparison value of 793.
Results
People in Bolotana had a comparatively high additional life expectancy after age 70, as shown by the main analysis results for the years 2021 to 2025. Men had an average of 16.02 more years of life remaining from age 70. For women, it was even 20.85 years.
Upon reaching the age of 100, the difference was even more pronounced. The period life table showed that in Bolotana, 4.92 percent of 70-year-old men lived to 100—compared to 13.83 percent of 70-year-old women. The proportion of women was more than three times higher than the corresponding average for Nuoro, Sardinia, and all of Italy (3.54 percent). However, due to the small population size, the statistical ranges are wide: For women, the 95 percent confidence interval for survival to 100 years was between 7.33 and 23.75 percent.
Although less pronounced than in women, the remaining life expectancy for men was also above the contemporaneous average values of the comparison regions. This was also true for the probability of reaching the age of 100.
Do women in Bolotana live longer than in official Blue Zones?
In summary, the study authors particularly highlight the women’s values. In international comparison, Bolotana women ranked second in both examined metrics—only in the Blue Zone of Hong Kong do female residents achieve higher values. Compared to the U.S., women from Bolotana had three times the chance of reaching 100 years of age.
The results remained largely stable across different statistical calculations. For example, when the researchers included the coronavirus year 2020, the values only slightly decreased: Here, the life expectancy of a 70-year-old woman dropped from 20.85 to 20.37 years, and her probability of reaching 100 years decreased from 13.83 to 12.48 percent.
However, the time-adjusted analysis for the years 2015 to 2019 painted a different picture. During that period, the difference was significantly smaller, and the previously observed high level of longevity in Bolotana was less pronounced. For example, the probability for women to reach the age of 100 from age 70 was only 1.46 percent in the years 2015 to 2019, even below the Italian average. This illustrates how much the results in small communities can fluctuate depending on the chosen observation window.
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Significance of the results
According to the study’s observations, Bolotana may exhibit an unusual survival pattern in old age. The result for the women studied is particularly remarkable.
The research raises interesting further questions. The available data cannot answer why this small community, in particular, shows such a favorable survival pattern among women—the study examined demographic survival data, not the possible reasons for longevity. The authors suggest possible explanations such as genetic factors, diet in Bolotana, physical activity, family support, and social cohesion—summarized as the known “Blue Zone rules.” Whether one or more of these factors actually underlie the observed pattern remains open.
Despite everything, one should be cautious with the term “Blue Zone” in connection with Bolotana. It stands for regions with exceptionally favorable longevity patterns. The results for Bolotana do not prove that life expectancy there is permanently exceptionally high. As described, the values were less favorable in an analysis of the years 2015 to 2019.
Limitations
The authors state that they received no financial support for the present study itself or its publication. Nevertheless, the potential conflicts of interest mentioned above, particularly an author’s ownership of Blue Zones, Inc., should be considered when interpreting the study.
Another limitation is the temporal classification of the results. Especially since the analysis for the years 2015 to 2019 showed a significantly less pronounced survival profile than the main analysis. It should also be noted that the analyses differed in terms of methodologies. Because there were too few individuals in the individual age groups to evaluate them separately reliably, the authors combined the subjects into two adjacent 5-year age groups to form a 10-year group.
The authors themselves admit that the comparison between Bolotana and the already established Sardinian Blue Zone in Ogliastra is only of limited significance. This is because they did not compare the regions in the same period. For Bolotana, they used data from the period between 2021 and 2025, while for Ogliastra, data from the years 2015 to 2019 were available. When comparing both regions in the same period (2015–2019), the original Blue Zone in Ogliastra performed significantly better with an 8.76 percent survival rate for women to the age of 100 than Bolotana (1.46 percent). Therefore, the comparison cannot provide a clear statistical proof of a difference in longevity. The authors therefore initially classify Bolotana not as an established, but as a potential candidate region (“candidate longevity blue zone”).