Dan Buettner

Dan Buettner (born June 18, 1960) is an American author, explorer, longevity researcher and public speaker. He co-produced the 3 time Emmy Award winning documentary TV mini series Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones (2023) based on his book of the same name and holds three Guinness records for distance cycling. Buettner is the founder of Blue Zones, LLC. He is a National Geographic Fellow.

Buettner is a promoter of plant-based diets from his research on blue zones and has authored numerous books on the subject.

Biography
Buettner was born on June 18, 1960, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Buettner graduated with a BA in Spanish and Literature from the University of St. Thomas in 1983.

Soon thereafter he went to work for The Washington Post columnist Remar Sutton. Later he took a job with National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., to recruit celebrity participation in a fund-raising croquet tournament with journalist George Plimpton of Paris Review.

In 1986, Buettner launched the first of several Guinness World Records for transcontinental cycling. "Americastrek" traversed 15,536 mi, from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina; the 1990 "Sovietrek", where Dan was joined by his brother Steve, followed the 45th parallel around the world and covered 12,888 mi, as Buettner recounted the trip in his book Sovietrek. In 1992, in "Africatrek", the Buettner brothers team-cycled from Bizerte, Tunisia, to Cape Agulhas, South Africa, with cyclist Dr. Chip Thomas, covering  11,885 mi over eight months.

National Geographic Collaborations
When Buettner realized that adults were also following his expeditions, he approached National Geographic with the idea to research longevity hotspots and was given support to move forward. He then met with Robert Kane, as of 2016 the Director, Center on Aging, at the University of Minnesota, who introduced him to demographers and scientists at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) in Washington, D.C. Buettner was awarded a grant from the National Institute of Aging. Previous research identified the longevity hotspots of Sardinia, Okinawa, and Loma Linda.

In 2003, Buettner began leading trips to these destinations while collaborating with a variety of experts, including anthropologists, historians, dietitians, and geneticists. His early trips focused on Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; Monterrey, Nuevo Leon; and then Loma Linda, California.

Buettner reported on communities with increased longevity, identified as a blue zone, in his cover story for National Geographic Magazine's November 2005 edition, "Secrets of Long Life."

In 2006, under aegis of National Geographic, Buettner collaborated with Michel Poulain and Costa Rican demographer Dr. Luis Rosero-Bixby to identify a fourth longevity hotspot in the Nicoya Peninsula. In 2008, again working with Poulain, he found a fifth longevity hotspot on the Greek Island of Ikaria. In April 2008, Buettner released a book on his findings, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest, through National Geographic Books which resulted in interviews for Buettner on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Dr. Oz Show, and Anderson Cooper 360.

In October 2010, he released the book Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way, largely based on research taking a data-based approach to identify the statistically happiest regions of the happiest countries on Earth. He argues that creating lasting happiness is only achievable through optimizing the social and physical environments.

In April 2015, Buettner published The Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living Like the World's Healthiest People, which listed Ikaria (in Greece), Okinawa (Japan), Sardinia (Italy), Loma Linda (California), and Costa Rica as the places with top longevity. It became a New York Times Best Seller. The book was featured on the cover of Parade, and Buettner was interviewed extensively on national media. In 2019, Buettner and National Geographic photographer David McLain revisited all of the Blue Zones to study diet; based on this, Buettner and McLain wrote The Blue Zones Kitchen.

Blue zones
The concept of the blue zones was originally developed by Michel Poulain Professor Emeritus at the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium who is demographer and world expert in studies of longevity who proposed five of the six so-called blue zones. Given the importance of the discovery, the Blue Zones concept early on in its development, attracted the attention, and support, of Buettner.

By 2003, Buettner formed a marketing company and trademarked the name Blue Zones®. In 2020, Blue Zones® LLC was acquired by Adventist Health.

AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project
In 2008, inspired by Finland's North Karelia Project, Buettner designed a plan to apply his Blue Zones principles to an American town. He auditioned five cities and chose Albert Lea, Minnesota, for the AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project, where he believed the key to success involved focusing on the ecology of health—creating a healthy environment rather than relying on individual behaviors.

Walter Willett, chair of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, found the results "stunning". As a whole, the community showed an 80% increase in walking and biking; 49% decrease in city worker's healthcare claims, and 4% reduction in smoking. The community shed 12,000 pounds, walked 75 million steps, and added three years to their average life expectancy. City officials reported a 40% drop in health care costs.

In 2010, Buettner partnered with Healthways, a global health and well-being company, to scale the Blue Zones city work under the rubric of Blue Zones Projects. The Blue Zones Project team partnered with Beach Cities Health District in Southern California to apply Blue Zone principles to three California communities—Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Manhattan Beach. Their work occasioned the lowering of BMI by 14% and smoking by 30%, as well as increasing healthy eating and exercise.

In 2011, the Blue Zones Project joined forces with Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield to deliver the Blue Zones Project across the State of Iowa as the cornerstone of the Governor's Healthiest State Initiative and is at work in 18 cities there to effect change. In 2013, projects began in Fort Worth, Texas, and in Hawaii.

In 2014, work began in Naples, Florida; South Bend, Indiana; and Klamath Falls, Oregon. In 2018, Klamath Falls was recognized by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) as the "Culture of Health" prize winner

Documentary TV mini series
In 2023, Buettner co-produced and featured in a TV mini series Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones.

Public speaking

 * Bill Clinton's Global Initiative, 2013
 * Google Zeitgeist, 2012
 * TEDxTC 2009 (Minneapolis/St. Paul), independently organized TED event. Buettner gave a TED talk on his work sponsored by the National Geographic entitled "How to live to be 100+", which, as of 18 May 2024 had over 4.7 million views.

Personal life
Buettner and American model Cheryl Tiegs ended a relationship on January 1, 2009. Buettner described his own diet as "98% plant-based".