Editorial

Historically, centenarians have been a symbol of longevity in most societies [1]. Longevity is affected by many factors, such as society, life style, environment, heredity et al. Health and longevity is the results of the combined effects of many factors, such as life style, health care, heredity, environment, and psychology etc. [2-4], among which environment is an important factor for the formation of longevity phenomenon.

In general, the levels of life expectancy mainly reflects the socio-economic development level and the nutritional status of life, while the rates of centenarians, mainly reflects the impacts of regional disparities in natural environment [5,6]. Many studies showed that human health and longevity is closely related to the geographical environmental conditions that they are living [7,8].

As early as 2000 years ago, China has recognized the relationship between human life expectancy and the natural environment, pointing out that the relatively cold climate, sweet and pure natural mineral water, fertile loose soil, and quiet mountainous environment all are beneficial to human health and longevity. Environmental factors have an important impact on regional longevity level. This impact can be universal. A study on the population-based Swedish twins estimated the genetic and environmental contributions to variations in longevity, and the results showed that the hereditary factors contribute only 20-30% of average life expectancy, while the effect of environmental factor on life expectancy can account for 70% at least [9,10].The longevity phenomenon in the five longevity counties nominated by the World General Federation of Natural Medicine is closely related to the natural factors, such as local special terrain, hydrology, biology, soil etc. [11]. From the socio-economic perspective, the longevity areas can be divided into two types: one is the economical longevity area which is characterized by rapid economic development and relatively open environment, such as Chong sheng in Japan; the other is the natural longevity area which is characterized by underdeveloped economy, and relatively closed environment, such as Caucasus region, Hetian in Xinjiang China, Bama in Guangxi China [12]. So far, most of the world’s longevity areas are natural longevity area, for which the natural environment plays an important role in the formation of the longevity phenomenon.

Since most of the world’s longevity areas are natural longevity area, the natural environmental quality should be closely linked to the formation of local health and longevity phenomenon. Human being is a body of life composed of a variety of elements, including macro- and trace elements. Trace elements are micronutrients that form an important pillar in the nutrition of young and elderly persons [13]. Trace elements play an important role in the fundamental essential functions of human body. Bertrand’s rule showed that: any essential element for human body has an optimal permissible concentration range, and human health is at its best status when the elements are at the optimal concentration range [14]. Therefore a deficiency or excess in one or more trace elements could lead to a crucial impairment of organ functions [13]. The insufficient or excess intake of trace elements or the imbalance proportion between the elements in human body will have a negative impact on the body, and even lead to the occurrence of certain diseases, accelerate the aging process.

Many diseases are related to the imbalance of trace elements in human body, and the amount of trace elements in human body is closely linked to the geographical environment people are living. Four mainendemicdiseases in China arerelated to thelack or excessof trace elements in thenaturalenvironment [15]. Khan A.T. studied the concentrations of trace elements in drinking water and their possible health effects in Aligarh City, India, and showed that the higher concentration of some elements in drinking water are correlated with the poor health of local inhabitants [16]. The relationship between trace element levels in drinking water and cognitive function was investigated in a population-based study of elderly residents in rural China in 1996-1997 [17,18].The results showed that the Zn and Ca concentrations in drinking water have a close relationship with the cognitive functions of the elderly Chinese studied [17]. The relationship between long-term exposure to different aluminum forms in drinking water and Alzheimer’s disease was assessed [19].

The trace elements in the natural environment are mainly from the bedrock, and through the groundwater, soil, plants, animals, and goes into human body in the form of food [20,21]. Therefore, the trace elements in the environment can play an important role on human health and longevity phenomenon through the drinking water and food. Currently there are some studies on the concentration of trace elements in natural environment and human health and longevity. The relationship between distributions of longevous population and trace elements in the soil, drinking water and rice in a longevity county in southern China was investigated and high positive relationship was found for some elements [22]. The trace element concentrations in the staple food rice was studied in another longevity county Zhongxiang in southern China and the elements in rice was classified into three categories based on their correlation with longevity [7]. The trace element concentrations in drinking water from a longevity county Xiayi and a nearby non-longevity county was compared with support vector machine, and large discrepancies in element concentrations was found and the significance of difference in element concentrations was also analyzed with this method [23].The concentrations of trace elements in soil and the longevity index was studied at province level in China and found that Se in soil has a significant positive correlation with longevity index, and Ba and Ni concentrations in soil have a significant negative correlation with longevity indexes [24] Although there are some studies on the relationship between the essential trace elements in the natural environment and the local health and longevity phenomenon. However, more studies are needed on the mechanisms how these elements transport from the natural environment to human body and how these elements can improve the health status of the elderly people.

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