Dan Buettner

Dan Buettner (born June 18, 1960) is an American writer, cookbook author, explorer, storyteller, longevity researcher and public speaker, best known for his research on the Blue Zones.^[2][3] He co-produced and hosted the three-time Emmy Award winning^[4] Netflix series Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones (2023), holds three Guinness records for distance cycling,^[5][6] is the founder of Blue Zones, LLC, and is a National Geographic Fellow.^[7]

Buettner is a promoter of predominantly plant-based diets, and has authored numerous books on the subject.^{[8][9][10][11]} He has described his own diet as "98% plant-based".^[11]

Buettner was born on June 18, 1960, in Saint Paul, Minnesota.^[1] Buettner graduated with a BA in Spanish and Literature from the University of St. Thomas in 1983.^[12]

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.^[13]

In 1986, Buettner launched the first of several Guinness World Records for transcontinental cycling.^[14] "Americastrek" traversed 15,536 miles (25,003 km), from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina; the 1990 "Sovietrek", during which Dan was joined by his brother Steve,^[15] followed the 45th parallel around the world and covered 12,888 miles (20,741 km), 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 miles (19,127 km) over eight months.^[16]

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, the Director, Center on Aging, at the University of Minnesota,^[17] 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.^[18]

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.^[19]

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."^[20]

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 proposed a fifth longevity location 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.

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 utilized subjective well-being data from the Gallup Organization and the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale to study thriving populations in Denmark, Singapore, Mexico, and California. This research was supported by a multidisciplinary team of experts, including long-time mentor Dr. Robert Kane, Gallup research director Dan Witters, and pioneering psychologists such as Dr. Ed Diener, Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, and Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He argued that creating lasting happiness is only achievable through optimizing the social and physical environments.^[21]

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.^[22] It became a New York Times Best Seller.^[23] 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.^[24]

The concept of the blue zones (regions with exceptionally high lifespans) was originally developed by Michel Poulain, Professor Emeritus at the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium and a demographer specializing in longevity studies, who proposed five of the six "blue zones."^[25] Given the importance of the discovery, the Blue Zones concept early on in its development, attracted the attention, and support, of Buettner.

In 2025, researchers Michel Poulain and Anne Herm noted that following National Geographic's publication of journalist Dan Buettner's article on the Blue Zones in 2005, Buettner founded Blue Zones LLC in 2008, "and launched Blue Zone projects in several communities across the United States 4 to promote the lifestyle principles followed by populations living in BZs."^[26] Adventist Health acquired Blue Zones LLC in 2020, and in 2024, Blue Zones LLC announced a partnership with The American College of Lifestyle Medicine.^[26]

In 2008, Buettner 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.^[27]

Walter Willett, chair of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, found the results of the Blue Zones Vitality Project "stunning".^[28] 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.^[27] The community shed 12,000 pounds, walked 75 million steps, and added three years to their average life expectancy.^[27] City officials reported a 40% drop in health care costs.^[27]

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.^[29][30]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.^[31]

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.^[32] In 2013, projects began in Fort Worth, Texas,^[33] and in Hilo, Hawaii.^[34][35][36]

In 2014, work began in Naples, Florida^[37]; South Bend, Indiana^[38]; and Klamath Falls, Oregon.^[29][39] In 2018, Klamath Falls was recognized by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) as the "Culture of Health" prize winner.^[40]

In 2023, Buettner co-produced and hosted the Netflix series Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones.^[41] The series explores longevity hotspots, showcasing lifestyle habits that increase life expectancy, and was a #1 hit on the platform. It was nominated for six, and won three, Daytime Emmy Awards in June 2024.^[42]

• 51st Daytime Creative Arts & Lifestyle Emmy Awards (2024)

Winner

• • Outstanding Directing Team for a Single Camera Daytime Non-Fiction Program
  • Outstanding Music Direction and Composition
  • Outstanding Sound Mixing and Sound Editing

Nominations

• • Outstanding Lifestyle Program
  • Outstanding Cinematography
  • Outstanding Single Camera Editing

A 2026 study of factors assessing long-lived populations in Sardinia, Okinawa, Ikaria, and Nicoya cross-checked civil birth and death records, church archives, and genealogical records to minimize false-age claims and rely on population-level survival patterns rather than individual outliers.^[43] While the study acknowledged that modernization can cause longevity patterns to shift or disappear, it proposed that these regions serve as "natural laboratories" for understanding how lifestyle, diet, and social connectivity may contribute to healthy aging.^[43]

A 2025 review of the same four blue zones used a three-step method to qualify a long-life zone: strict age validation to confirm longevity; demographic indicators to identify population longevity; and longevity criteria proving a significant number of individuals with at least 50% longer lives than the national average.^[44] Core longevity factors found in this study were diet, physical activity, social support, and environment. The authors concluded "with reasonable confidence that these blue zones of exceptional longevity do indeed exist, even if there are indications that this exceptionality is transient and may be transitory. Given the rapid aging of populations in many modern societies, blue zones should be considered as a valuable model for promoting longer, healthier, and happier lives."^[44]

A 2024 review challenged the concept of blue zone communities having exceptional longevity, arguing that there is an absence of scientific evidence relating community lifestyle to longevity.^[18] The review also stated that the blue zone concept spurred a profitable business empire that produced "books, diets, a multimillion-dollar company, and a Netflix series — all aimed at imparting at least some of those secrets to an eager audience."^[18]

• Bill Clinton's Global Initiative, 2013^[45]
• 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.^[46]

Buettner dated American model Cheryl Tiegs until 2009.^[47]

• Buettner, Dan (1994). Sovietrek: A Journey by Bicycle Across Russia. Lerner Publishing Group. ISBN 0-8225-2950-5.
• Buettner, Dan (1996). Maya Quest: Interactive Expedition. Douglas Mason (illustrator). Onion Press. ISBN 0-9640334-2-9.
• Buettner, Dan (1997). Africatrek: A Journey by Bicycle Through Africa. Lerner Publishing Group. ISBN 0-8225-2951-3.
• Buettner, Dan (2008). The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest. National Geographic Books. ISBN 978-1-4262-0274-2.
• Buettner, Dan (2010). Thrive. Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way. National Geographic Books. ISBN 978-1-4262-0818-8.
• Buettner, Dan (2012). The Blue Zones, Second Edition: 9 Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest. National Geographic Books. ISBN 978-1426209482.
• Buettner, Dan (2015). The Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living Like the World's Healthiest People. National Geographic Books. ISBN 978-1426211928.
• Buettner, Dan, (2017). The Blue Zones of Happiness: Lessons from the World's Happiest People. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic ISBN 978-1-4262-1848-4.
• Buettner, Dan (2021). The Blue Zones Challenge: A 4-Week Plan for a Longer Better Life. National Geographic Books. ISBN 978-1426221941.

• Buettner, Dan (2019). The Blue Zones Kitchen: 100 Recipes to Live to 100. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic. ISBN 978-1426220135.
• Buettner, Dan (2022). The Blue Zones American Kitchen: 100 Recipes to Live to 100. National Geographic Books. ISBN 978-1426222474.
• Buettner, Dan (2023). The Blue Zones: Secrets for Living Longer. National Geographic Books. ISBN 978-1426223471.
• Buettner, Dan (2025). The Blue Zones Kitchen One Pot Meals:100 Recipes to Live to 100. National Geographic Books. ISBN 9781426224126

• Zomorodi, Manoush (December 22, 2023). "Want to live to 100? Here are the 'Blue Zone' principles you should follow". TED Radio Hour. Retrieved March 9, 2026.
• Gupta, Sanjay (November 21, 2025). "What If Comfort Food Could Help You Live to 100?". CNN. Retrieved March 9, 2026.

• Official website
• Dan Buettner at IMDb 
• Biography - National Geographic
• Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones - Netflix