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Dan Buettner

Blue Zones Founder; National Geographic Fellow & Explorer

Longevity expert transforming cities at home and abroad
Work covered by USA Today, Good Morning America, and CNN
Uses lessons from international travel to re-imagine public health
Shares the keys to a happier, healthier life

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Dan Buettner is an explorer, National Geographic Fellow, award-winning journalist and producer, and New York Times bestselling author. He discovered the five places in the world – dubbed blue zones hotspots – where people live the longest, healthiest lives. His articles about these places in The New York Times Magazine and National Geographic are two of the most popular for both publications.

Buettner now works in partnership with municipal governments, large employers, and health insurance companies to implement Blue Zones Projects in communities, workplaces, and universities. Blue Zones Projects are well-being initiatives that apply lessons from the Blue Zones to entire communities by focusing on changes to the local environment, public policy, and social networks. The program has dramatically improved the health of more than 5 million Americans to date.

In his new book The Blue Zones Secrets for Living Longer, Buettner returns to Sardinia, Italy; Ikaria, Greece; Okinawa, Japan; Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula; and Loma Linda, California to check in on the super-agers living in the blue zones and interprets the not-so-secret sauce of purpose, faith, community, down-time, natural movement, and plant-based eating that has powered as many as 10 additional years of healthy living in these regions. And Buettner reveals an all-new Blue Zone—the first man-made Blue Zone yet explored.

Buettner also holds three Guinness World Records in distance cycling.

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Dan Buettner at TEDMED

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Blue Zones: Secrets of a Long Life. National Geographic writer Dan Buettner has traveled the globe to uncover the best strategies for longevity and happiness. He identified Blue Zones - places that have the greatest life expectancy and where more people reach age 100 than anywhere else. Working with a team of experts, Buettner distilled their secrets into nine common denominators he calls the Power 9™. What is the optimal diet for making it to a healthy age 90? Should you be running marathons or doing yoga? What supplements work? Does stress really shorten your life? Dan debunks the most common myths and offers a science-backed blue print for the average American to live another 12 quality years. Using National Geographic photography and a dynamic delivery, Dan takes audiences to each of the Blue Zones and leaves audience with an actionable plan to live longer, healthier lives.

Thrive: Unlocking the Secrets of Happiness. Science shows that where we live - not education, marital status or wealth - is the biggest, controllable factor that determines our happiness. So where should we live? A tropical island? Paris? Las Vegas? It’s not where you think.

Working with Gallup, The World Values Survey and the World Database on Happiness, Dan and his team found the three pockets around the world where people report the highest level of well-being - or happiness. Then, on assignment for National Geographic, he researched each of these hotspots and distilled down the common denominators in each place. What can governments do to maximize the well-being of their citizens? And more importantly, what can we do as individuals to stack the deck in our favor to maximize happiness?

His presentation incorporates National Geographic photographs and short video clips. It transports audiences to places around the globe where people are living happy and meaningful lives. It offers universal strategies on how to best achieve that life balance we all seek.

The Making of a Healthy City. In 2009, Albert Lea, Minnesota, a statistically average American city, completed a one year community health experiment that raised life expectancy by three years, trimmed a collective 12,000 pounds off waistlines and dropped healthcare costs of city workers by some 40%. USA Today, Good Morning America, AARP, ABC Nightline, CNN, U.S. News, and World Report all covered the story. Harvard’s Dr. Walter Willett, writing in Newsweek magazine called the results “stunning”. Dan Buettner, founder and director of the AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project created a “perfect storm” of health that transformed a city. He tells the fascinating story of how one typically obese American city of 18,000 reversed the trend and also got happier. Dan’s presentation takes audiences on the year long journey as this town adopts 28 evidence based ways to change their environment to live longer and better. They got healthier without thinking about it.