Given Only Months to Live by Doctors, Greek Man from Ikaria Survives to 102
In 1976, a 60-year-old man who had spent much of his life in the United States was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and given only a few months to live. He returned to his home on the Greek island of Ikaria—where people live far longer than anywhere else in Europe—expecting to die. Instead, he survived for more than forty years, reaching the age of 102 and embodying the island’s secret to extraordinary longevity.
The Greek that forgot to die
Born on the island of Ikaria, Stamatis Moraitis left for the United States as a young man in search of a better life. There, he met and married a Greek-American woman, Elpiniki, and together they had three children. He also served in the US Army and fought in World War II. In 1976, he began experiencing difficulty breathing and went to a doctor to check for heart problems. While his heart was healthy, the diagnosis revealed something far more sinister: terminal lung cancer. Doctors told him he had only a few months to live.
Facing the same grim prognosis from multiple physicians, Moraitis faced a difficult choice: remain in the United States to undergo “aggressive” chemotherapy while staying close to his children or return to his homeland of Ikaria to spend his final months in peace. He chose the latter, also intending to be buried in his family’s plot on the island. By following the traditional and simple Ikarian burial rituals instead of an expensive procedure in the US, he could save money for his beloved wife and children.
Moraitis returns to Ikaria, a renowned Blue Zone
After the long transatlantic journey, Moraitis arrived back in his homeland of Ikaria, Greece, a renowned Blue Zone known for the extraordinary longevity of its residents, and spent his first days bedridden. When his childhood friends learned of his return, they began visiting nearly every afternoon. They would talk for hours over a glass of wine, and Moraitis quickly realized he had made the right choice.
Six months passed, and instead of declining, something remarkable happened. The doctors’ prediction that he had only months to live proved completely incorrect. Each day, Moraitis grew stronger and healthier. He got out of bed, tended to his garden, took daily walks around the village, and visited the local cafe to play backgammon (tavli) with his friends.
The months eventually turned into years, and Moraitis continued living a vibrant, renewed life. His cancer appeared to have vanished. His garden flourished, and he even added two rooms to his home so his children and grandchildren from the United States could visit. He ate well, savored the local wine, and embraced the life of abundance before him.
When he spoke to the press almost forty years later, he joked to the BBC, “I’m not a doctor, but I think the wine helped.”
Ikaria, Greece: The Blue Zone secret of longevity
The Greek island of Ikaria, Greece, a renowned Blue Zone, holds a secret that is slowly gaining recognition around the world: the extraordinary longevity of its residents. Many Ikarians live to be 100 or older, enjoying quiet, healthy lives that seem to defy the passage of time.
Often described as the “island where people forget to die,” Ikaria’s residents live on average ten years longer than those in much of Western Europe, and Stamatis Moraitis was a living testament to this phenomenon. His remarkable recovery, once considered a medical miracle, is attributed not only to his mental resilience but also to the island’s fresh air, nutritious diet, and nurturing environment.
Moraitis himself credited decades of life on Ikaria to a regimen of pure herbal foods, local wine, daily outdoor activity, and a stress-free lifestyle. He even refused to drink bottled wine, bringing his own to establishments that did not serve local vintages, claiming that commercially bottled wine contained “too many preservatives.”
Moraitis was the embodiment of all that is good about the Blue Zone life. Research from the National Library of Medicine shows that lifestyle accounts for the majority of life expectancy, with genetics contributing only about 20 percent. People living in Blue Zones like Ikaria not only live longer but are also less prone to chronic illnesses, a fact reinforced by nutrition experts, including Healthline, which has highlighted the fact that local diets in such zones align closely with physician recommendations for optimal health.
Moraitis passed away on February 2, 2013 and was buried in his family plot on Ikaria on February 6. Even up to his final day, he could not remember whether he was 98 or 102 years old.
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