From Matthew Manning on Facebook
MAN WITH LUNG CANCER GIVEN A YEAR TO LIVE MOVES TO GREEK ISLAND AND LIVES ANOTHER 40 YEARS
Stamatis Moraitis was in his mid-60s when doctors in the United States told him that the tumours in his lungs were incurable, and that he had less than a year to live. The diagnosis was confirmed by several specialists, and the prognosis was bleak.
Rather than pursue aggressive treatment, Moraitis made a decision to move back to the Aegean island of Ikaria, where he was born, and which is internationally famed for the long lives of its residents.
Incredibly, his health began to improve. On the island, he found he was able to gradually go back to physical work, spending time planting vegetables, tending vineyards and socialising with friends who gathered at his home, often drinking homemade wine late into the night.
Years later, he returned to the United States to ask doctors how he had survived. “My doctors were all dead,” he said.
For Moraitis, the upturn in his health came from adopting the island’s unrushed attitude, emphasising the importance of waking naturally, napping daily and spending hours chatting with friends. He was a Second World War veteran who emigrated to America in the 1940s, spent his life working difficult manual jobs, raising a family and living what appeared to be a typical life.
Studies show that people on Ikaria are more than twice as likely as Americans to reach 90 and typically develop cancer and heart disease far later. People eat a largely plant-based diet, walk steep terrain daily and place heavy emphasis on socialising and community.
Asked how he beat cancer, his answer remained characteristically simple: “It just went away.”
Moraitis lived to be 102 and passed away from old age - and not the cancer.