Dan Buettner

National Geographic Buettner approached National Geographic Magazine with the idea to research supposed longevity hotspots, and was given support to move forward. In 2003, Buettner began leading trips to Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; Monterrey, Nuevo Leon; and then Loma Linda, California. Buettner reported on these communities in his cover story for the National Geographic November 2005 edition, "Secrets of Long Life."

In 2006, Buettner collaborated with Michel Poulain and Costa Rican demographer Dr. Luis Rosero-Bixby, to identify a fourth possible 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 April 2015, Buettner published The Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living Like the World's Healthiest People, which listed various places with assumed longevity. It became a New York Times Best Seller.

Blue zones The concept of the blue zones (regions suspected as having unusually high lifespans) was originally developed by Michel Poulain, a demographer specializing in longevity studies, who proposed five of the six "blue zones."

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, with city officials reporting a 40% drop in health care costs. 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.

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. In 2013, projects began in Fort Worth, Texas, and in Hilo, Hawaii.

In 2014, work began in Naples, Florida, South Bend, Indiana, and Klamath Falls, Oregon.

Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones (2023) In 2023, Buettner co-produced and hosted the Netflix series Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones, which explores the possibility of global longevity zones and lifestyle habits.

The series was nominated for six, and won three, Daytime Emmy Awards in June 2024.

Awards and nominations 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

Research on Blue Zones 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. 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. 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."

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. The review also stated that the blue zone concept spurred a profitable business empire initiated by Buettner to produce "books, diets, a multimillion-dollar company, and a Netflix series — all aimed at imparting at least some of those secrets to an eager audience." 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.

Personal life Buettner dated American model Cheryl Tiegs until 2009.