Could Rosemary Be the Secret to a Long, Healthy Life?
Are wild herbs responsible for an insanely long-lived Italian village?
Researchers from the University of California, San Diego are camping out in the small town of Acciaroli, Italy, to study the remarkable people who live there. This is a town in which one out of every 60 people is aged 90 or older – compare that to the entire United States, in which only one of every 163 Americans have hit that mark. In fact, around 15 percent of the 2,000 people in Acciaroli are actually over 100 years old. Even weirder, they have very few incidences of many diseases which disproportionately affect the elderly, like cataracts, Alzheimer’s, and heart disease.
The possible reasons for their longevity are hard to nail down; a small town could possibly have some concentrated genetics, which are tricky to test, but lifestyle choices could also make a huge difference. The beautiful, mild climate encourages residents of Acciaroli to amble around outside much more than most people. And, weirdly, the Times makes special mention of the fact that the elderly of Acciaroli are extremely sexually active.
But one particular possibility is especially intriguing to us: the Times notes that the researchers have found that those in Acciaroli eat copious amounts of the herb rosemary. And this isn’t ordinary rosemary: In the dry, sunny climate, herbs like rosemary tend to produce higher concentrations of volatile oils, making them, from a culinary standpoint, much more flavorful than other varieties of rosemary. But could those compounds also contribute to a human’s long life?
Rosemary has been found to contain antioxidant properties, just like “superfoods” ranging from pomegranate to blueberry. (Antioxidants are believed to fight off new radicals, roaming beasts in the body that cause cell death.) Some studies have also indicated that rosemary oil is antimicrobial, fighting off bacteria and fungi in test tubes. Could it have the same effect when ingested by humans? Who knows?
Other studies are similarly promising while remaining not totally helpful. Aromatherapy using rosemary oil was shown in some studies to increase memory function and reduce anxiety, thanks largely to its high concentration of a compound called eucalyptol. There’s even the possibility that many of the various other compounds in rosemary – carnosic acid, rosmarinic acid – can slow the proliferation of cancer cells.
Most of the research on rosemary is in its infancy, and much of it relies on test-tube research rather than experiments on actual humans. And if there’s anything the human body is good at, it’s confounding expectations. So whether rosemary really could be a cause of long life is certainly up for debate. Whether it goes well with olive oil and crusty bread, however, is unassailable.
Follow us
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Want to republish a Modern Farmer story?
We are happy for Modern Farmer stories to be shared, and encourage you to republish our articles for your audience. When doing so, we ask that you follow these guidelines:
Please credit us and our writers
For the author byline, please use “Author Name, Modern Farmer.” At the top of our stories, if on the web, please include this text and link: “This story was originally published by Modern Farmer.”
Please make sure to include a link back to either our home page or the article URL.
At the bottom of the story, please include the following text:
“Modern Farmer is a nonprofit initiative dedicated to raising awareness and catalyzing action at the intersection of food, agriculture, and society. Read more at <link>Modern Farmer</link>.”
Use our widget
We’d like to be able to track our stories, so we ask that if you republish our content, you do so using our widget (located on the left hand side of the article). The HTML code has a built-in tracker that tells us the data and domain where the story was published, as well as view counts.
Check the image requirements
It’s your responsibility to confirm you're licensed to republish images in our articles. Some images, such as those from commercial providers, don't allow their images to be republished without permission or payment. Copyright terms are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. You are welcome to omit our images or substitute with your own. Charts and interactive graphics follow the same rules.
Don’t change too much. Or, ask us first.
Articles must be republished in their entirety. It’s okay to change references to time (“today” to “yesterday”) or location (“Iowa City, IA” to “here”). But please keep everything else the same.
If you feel strongly that a more material edit needs to be made, get in touch with us at [email protected]. We’re happy to discuss it with the original author, but we must have prior approval for changes before publication.
Special cases
Extracts. You may run the first few lines or paragraphs of the article and then say: “Read the full article at Modern Farmer” with a link back to the original article.
Quotes. You may quote authors provided you include a link back to the article URL.
Translations. These require writer approval. To inquire about translation of a Modern Farmer article, contact us at [email protected]
Signed consent / copyright release forms. These are not required, provided you are following these guidelines.
Print. Articles can be republished in print under these same rules, with the exception that you do not need to include the links.
Tag us
When sharing the story on social media, please tag us using the following: - Twitter (@ModFarm) - Facebook (@ModernFarmerMedia) - Instagram (@modfarm)
Use our content respectfully
Modern Farmer is a nonprofit and as such we share our content for free and in good faith in order to reach new audiences. Respectfully,
No selling ads against our stories. It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads.
Don’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. We understand that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarize or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
Keep in touch
We want to hear from you if you love Modern Farmer content, have a collaboration idea, or anything else to share. As a nonprofit outlet, we work in service of our community and are always open to comments, feedback, and ideas. Contact us at [email protected].by Dan Nosowitz, Modern Farmer
October 20, 2016
Modern Farmer Weekly
Solutions Hub
Innovations, ideas and inspiration. Actionable solutions for a resilient food system.
ExploreExplore other topics
Share With Us
We want to hear from Modern Farmer readers who have thoughtful commentary, actionable solutions, or helpful ideas to share.
SubmitNecessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and are used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies.
Sir
Thankyou for ur informative write up on Rosemary.
I want to order seed or a small plant of Rosemary from Acciaroli Italy.
Do u know who I would contact to order that seed etc.
Thankyou
Shirley
Does anyone know how to get their seeds?