Outsiders here are rare. On weekdays, there is no one in the street. The children all went to school, while the adults all worked in the nearby town. The afternoon sun cast mottled shadows on the road; Vines connect the sturdy cabins in the street; Butterflies are playing quietly in the vegetable fields, enjoying the time before the gardener comes back.
Some wooden houses have an armchair or two in front of their porches, where neighbors who walk at night can rest and chat.
The villagers were self-sufficient and knew little about the outside world, and little was known about the small village until Stuart Wolf came here to look for the legendary "fountain of youth".
Professor Wolff, the director of the Medical College of the University of Oklahoma, bought a house in Pocono, a mountain resort. 196 1 summer vacation, the professor met a colleague who was practicing medicine in rossetto. After three glasses of beer, the drunken village doctor revealed a strange thing: "Since 1954, I have been practicing medicine in rossetto Village for seven years. None of the elderly under 64 in the village suffered from heart disease, but those over 64 died of heart disease. Even less than1%... "Wolff marveled-at that time, in the United States, heart disease was the number one killer of the elderly aged 55 -64, and in the village of 1500 people, there was not a heart patient under 64 for seven years. How is that possible?
Skeptical Wolff consulted the death certificates of rossetto village and several surrounding villages in the past seven years and found that the incidence of heart disease in two neighboring villages, such as Bangor and Nazareth, was equivalent to the national probability; As for rossetto, there is no doubt about what the village doctor said.
From 1962, with the support of the federal government and the state government, Professor Wolff and his partner John Bruen went deep into rossetto Village and conducted investigations year after year.
To their great disappointment, the villagers have no health secrets at all. Men there like to smoke Italian cigars with high nicotine content and strong choking taste. Both men and women like to drink, there is no other drink, and there is no milk. I ate fried sausages, greasy meatballs, sausages and all kinds of cheese, all of which were "junk food" with excessive cholesterol. The villagers lack exercise and many people are obese. Most of them work in nearby quarries and do heavy manual labor in harsh environment. Serious accidents often happen there, and some people get lung disease because of inhaling a lot of dust.
Villagers in rossetto 1882 immigrated from rossetto at the foot of Italian Apennine Mountain. Since the factors of diet structure and exercise have been denied, will Italian genetics be the key factor? Wolff began to investigate Italian immigrants from rossetto living in other parts of the United States to see if they were as immune to heart disease as their relatives in Pennsylvania. The result is still disappointing.
Is the environment at the foot of Pokono Mountain beneficial to villagers' health?
Bangor and Nazareth are only a few miles from rossetto. These three villages are similar in size and population structure. The villagers all do heavy manual labor, but the death rate of heart disease in Bangor and Nazareth is three times that of rossetto. This assumption cannot be established either.
With the exclusion of traditional theories such as gene theory, diet structure theory, exercise theory, occupation theory and environmental theory, rossetto is becoming more and more confused to outsiders. Is there really a legendary fountain of youth?
Just when the research was deadlocked, two sets of statistics jumped into the sight of Wolff and Bruen-first, the crime rate in the village was zero; Second, no one has applied for social assistance-does this mean anything?
Tracing back to the early history of rossetto, Wolff and Bruen found that these Italian immigrants were once excluded by English and Welsh immigrants who controlled the mountainous areas, and rossetto's culture gradually closed inward, forming a self-contained social ecology over time.
This small society is family-centered, with strong family ties and affection. Almost all families run in the family. The man is the head of the family, and the housewife gets due respect. The elderly are not marginalized in the family, on the contrary, their status is very high. Their role is similar to that of the Supreme Court, which is responsible for arbitration and mediation of family and business disputes. Neighborhoods are familiar with each other and are enthusiastic about helping each other. Everyone's living standards and lifestyles are similar, and they have no heart to compare.
In such a small society, the words "loneliness", "pain" and "depression" have nothing to do with rossetto people, and each of them has been properly taken care of by the big collective.
A lonely person is often overwhelmed by the burden of life, and he will internalize bad emotions into mental stress, which will further affect blood pressure and kidney function.
If a person has warm-hearted relatives and friends around him, the situation will be very different. Their care and support can relieve personal pressure. Wolff and Bruen judged that the strong interpersonal relationship within rossetto society greatly relieved the psychological pressure of the villagers and made them have magical immunity to heart disease. This is the real source of the "fountain of youth".
From 65438 to 0966, this research conclusion was published in a paper, which Wolff and Bruen called "rossetto effect".
Rossetto residents gradually began to suburbanization, separated from each other, and no longer lived in multi-generational families. 197 1 year, their first heart attack occurred when they were less than 45 years old. Hypertension has tripled and strokes have increased.
By the end of 1970s, the risk of heart disease in rossetto was the same as that in other parts of the United States.
After two strokes, grandma still lived under the care of her family and children for more than ten years, partly because of the care in life and partly because there are many children in the family community, which makes her seldom lonely.
When she lived in my house, people came to see him almost every day. Today may be her son, tomorrow may be her daughter-in-law, the day after tomorrow may be her grandson, and there are more relatives of the same age. It is absolutely impossible for her to be at home all day by herself. The children all live nearby. Every time they come, they chat with her, buy her presents and keep them eating at home. As long as she lives in my house, I can eat many things that I can't usually eat, such as bird's nest and bird's nest. ......
For grandma, it is true that generations live under the same roof.
On the contrary, I think now, my mother often comes to the city with us to take care of the children. My father is alone in the country, and he is almost alone at night. Does he feel lonely? How much does loneliness affect his health? Will it cause him a heart attack? Will it aggravate his high blood pressure?
Humans are tribal creatures, and rossetto proved the power of tribes. Loneliness hurts people more directly than we think.
Make your body healthier with love, give more love to your family, friends and neighbors around you, and make yourself and the people around you no longer lonely. This is the secret of happiness and health.