Deciphering the "Longevity Lifestyle" of the Himalayan Hunzakuts
By Dr. John W. Apsley | Published on September 5, 2025
In 776 B.C. the Olympics was first conceived and then established by the ancient Greeks. Of all the amazing feats displayed in their historical artwork, one stands out above all others. It is their pictorial and written accounts of the long jump competition. And for good reason. Of all the events in the Games, this competition was the most revered over any other feat of strength, endurance and overall physical skill.
The champion long jumper of these ancient games (480 В.С.) was Phayllos of Kroton. His longest jump at the Games was reportedly fifty-five feet in a single jump! Now, keep this in mind. The current world record for the modern-day long jump is held by Mike Powell, which remains unsurpassed since 1991. Powell jumped 8.95 m (29.4 ft). Yet, legend holds that much longer jumps were the norm at many of these competitions.
Four and a half centuries after the first Olympics, Alexander the Great (356-323 Β.C.) set his army off to conquer the known world. At the end of his conquest in India, some of his generals decided to go AWOL, fleeing into the most remote extreme elevations (~8,000 feet above sea level), into a valley surrounded by the highest Himalayan Mountains. This region where they settled is now called Hunzaland. From this point forward, their powerfully expressive Greek genes were to develop optimized human performance, and also extreme human longevity.
A New Home, A New Legacy
As the Hunzakut legends record, these Greek family mutineers eventually located what they thought would be a most perfectly remote and highly defensible region to settle. They settled in a high mountain valley at an altitude of over 7,999 feet, surrounded by a defensive cloak of mountains on all sides. This enabled their culture to remain "autochthonous," meaning they never mixed with other cultures for over two thousand years.
These warriors learned to master defensive strategies taking advantage of narrow and extraordinarily steep mountain pathways. This led to perfecting their strength and endurance even more than ever before. The low oxygen content of the air made these Greeks adapt to extract and maximize metabolically utilizing available oxygen. Their VO2 levels must have been nearly beyond measure, leading to cardiovascular health and endurance no invading army could challenge.
The Pillars of Hunza Health
The Hunzakuts were among the most accomplished of the long-living human cultures ever comprehensively studied. Their immune systems were strengthened through fasting and herbal medicines. For superior nutritional replenishment, they extracted every ounce of nutrition from the waters and land. They built elaborate terraced farmlands on the sides of their steep mountains and developed irrigation systems that carried mineral-rich water to their crops.
This band of warrior Greeks would have possessed all the known Greek agrarian technologies... this great cultural advantage would have established advanced farming methods... way more superior to anything we have in this modern era.
This system of evolving an autochthonous long-living culture was also perfected on the Greek Island of Ikaria. Even today, the Ikarians enjoy the highest number of robust nonagenarians (90+ year olds) per capita in the known world.
Observing a Pristine Culture
Major-General Sir Robert McCarrison
McCarrison (1878-1960) was a British Surgeon who spent over thirty years studying the longevity lifestyle of the Hunzakuts. He elucidated the exact set of pristine factors, traditional practices and ecologic conditions that blessed them with a near perfect human constitution.
The Encroachment of Civilization
However, between 1880 and 1911, civilization began encroaching upon the pristine people. This infiltration arrived via new roads and the gradual introduction of modern food technologies which compromised the delicate traditional food chain. As new people immigrated and dietary practices changed, a sub-population of "non-pta-Hunzakuts" emerged with inferior constitutions.
Weston. A Price, DDS
Price's research documented human degeneration via photographic records, repeatedly demonstrating the effects of modern diets on the dental arches and jaw lines of peoples who had abandoned their traditional ways.
The Problem of "Cumulative Data Corruption"
As generations passed, follow-on anthropologists observed people with degraded constitutions, leading to "compromised data." This phenomenon, which McCarrison termed “cumulative data corruption”, caused later researchers to question the original findings about Hunza longevity and vigor. One such researcher was John Clark, a geologist who visited in the 1950s and observed a population already in decline, mistaking them for the pristine culture McCarrison studied decades earlier.
Stamatis Moraitis on Ikaria Island
Documented by National Geographic, Stamatis Moraitis developed terminal cancer at age 54 while living in America. He returned to his Ikarian homeland to die, but by practicing their longevity lifestyle, he lived for another 48 years, dying at 102.
"...the enforced restriction to the unsophisticated foodstuffs of nature is compatible with long life, continued vigour, and perfect physique.”
- Sir Robert McCarrison
