The secret of the

Located in the middle of Ecuador's Andes, Vilcabamba is a quiet and picturesque small village. This is a famous place called "Truong Sinh Valley". Many people also called funny "immortal valleys".

Not all of a sudden, this "mooch" is an extraordinary attraction for wealthy Westerners, many of whom are well-known scientists and medical professionals. head.

Vilcabamba is known to have the highest percentage of people living on the hundredth of the world, even some people are thought to have lived well for 140 years (?!).

Vilcabamba is a small valley located in the middle of the Andes.

The name "Vilcabamba" comes from the word "huilco pampa" in the native Quichua language, meaning "sacred valley". The area was originally a "rest" place for the Inca royal family, where the most powerful people in South America used to come to relax and improve health.

Not surprisingly, the Incas chose Vilcabamba, a "blessed" land with pristine water, fresh air, fertile soil and a "eternal spring" climate - where fruits and medicines are Data developed throughout the year.

In the language of the locals, the word "huilco" also refers to a sacred tree in the valley . Anadenanthera colubrina (also called Willka tree, Vilca or Huilca) , is considered a treasure in Ecuador, and is a holy tree for the Quichuan people.

Its leaves are used to treat respiratory diseases and asthma. In addition the plant is also capable of blocking pollutants in the air and providing pure oxygen, which is believed to have a huge effect on human health and longevity.

Vilcabamba is shielded and almost separated by a mountain called El Mandango . Local legend tells that it is the soul of the mountain that protected it from earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural disasters.

The sacred valley has been living peacefully for centuries with very little contact from the outside world. However, in 1973, Dr. Alexander Leaf of Harvard Medical School attracted international attention to Vilcabamba, after posting in National Geographic Magazine an article about the unusually long life of the people here.

Leaf legs came to Vilcabamba in 1973 with Dr. Harold Elrick from the University of California and a group of other researchers. They were surprised when so many locals said they lived over a hundred years, some claimed that it was 140 years! And people do not speak out, the evidence is still clearly stated in the birth and baptism records.

The "huilco" tree, the holy tree for the local people.

A local government census conducted the following year has produced amazing results. Of the 819 Vilcabamba people at the time, nine were over 100 years old, a man named Miguel Carpio - 123, and another man - Jose David - was determined to live to 142. year(?!).

This means that Vilcabamba has a life expectancy of over one hundred years of age of 1,100 people per 100,000 people, compared to only 3 people per 100,000 people in the United States.

Dr. Leaf's team also found that residents of Vilcabamba had very low cholesterol and almost no cardiovascular or chronic problems. Later research shows that the retina of the oldest person here is also (healthy) equivalent to the retina of a 45-year-old person elsewhere.

Since then, news (and rumors) about the life and incredible health of "Los Viejos" - "old people" in the local language, have spread everywhere. Stories about the Vilcabamba people "immune to death" are attached to scientific reports about their health and longevity.

It is said that Death teeth passed through the valley but never entered. Travel journals began calling this place "Shangri La" - the paradise paradise, the land of "Eternal Spring" , as Eden's "Eden Garden" .

Famous scientists, reporters of leading magazines in the world . began rushing to the strange small village.

In 1981, the Ecuadorian government hired a medical journalist named Morton Walker to conduct a residential investigation in Vilcabamba. Walker studied the lives of the elderly people in the village, believing that the mineral rich water here has a positive impact on their health and longevity.

British biologist Richard Laurence Millington Synge, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering amino acids, also conducted numerous studies in Vilcabamba. He said there are very strange qualities in plant life here, especially about their antioxidant properties.

Portrait of a man over a hundred years old in Vilcabamba.

It is clear that Vilcabamba has many factors that enhance people's health and longevity. However, the fact that the people here live so long . mutations, also do not make many people skeptical and cause much controversy.

Skeptics also have their own arguments. The local tradition attaches great importance to the elderly, the higher the age, the more important it is, which makes people want to exaggerate their lifespan and loved ones.

Even the evidence of "black and white paper" is a local record of birth and baptism that is also suspected, when a group of researchers found that members of the same family could identical name. This means that a person can use his or her father's birth record (who has the same name) to make false statements about his or her life (?!).

The controversy (until today) has never ended. However, although Vilcabamba people may not live longer than the rest of the world, they certainly live better.

Fresh air, pure food, good water sources, plenty of sunshine and little influence by outside life . all have kept the generations of Vilcabamba happy and healthy.

Vilcabamba is still today a favorite destination for those who want to escape stress in their daily lives, to relax, to regenerate their own energy sources . like what the Inca rulers are. still working many hundred years ago.