Icelandic Health

What is Icelandic health? Some measure the health in how long people live. According to United Nations Icelandic men have the longest longevity in the world, they could expect to reach 80, even longer then the Japanese men. Icelandic women could expect to be 83 which are among the longest in the world. Does this say anything about their health while they are living? Well maybe something, they could not live so long if people in Iceland had more diseases then elsewhere.

Why are the Icelandic people so healthy?
What do people in Iceland do to live so long? When people live long you can take several things to account. Your gens are one thing although lifestyle is probably what matters most. Icelandic health is often in context with our eating habits. In Iceland we eat a lot of Icelandic fish and fish oil. Fish is often talked about as one of the healthiest food of all. Both fish and fish oil are rich in Omega 3 fatty asset. And some say that is the reason for your longevity. That is one factor but there are more to consider.

It has been sat that wars of the futures will be about water, I hope that is not true, but in Iceland we have the best, purest water in the world. The tap water in Reykjavik capital is better than bottled water. It always amazes me when tourists buy bottled water in the store when they can get it for free from the tap. We do not only have the best water, we also have abandoned of it. It rains all the time here and ours supply renews it self’s again and again. I encourage you (if you visit Iceland) to go to a next spring in the nature and drink pure Icelandic nature water filled with energy.

Icelandic health is not only built on cold water we also have hot water coming out of the earth filled with minerals. Although we don’t drink that we bath in it and we do that a lot. We have many natural pools all over the country but what is our secret is we have nearly 20 swimming pools with hot Jacuzzi in Reykjavik and surrounding area. We use water for treat skin disease. The Blue Lagoon Iceland is famous for good resold on treating skin diseases.

What more could be relevant to Icelandic health? Pollution is growing problem in the world. We the Icelandic people are so fortunate to know very little about this problem, except when we travel abroad. There are some days when there is windless weather (which is very seldom) we get pollution because of the cars and it is not from the fuel burning. At winter time we put nails in the tiers and the nails scramble the tarmac up in the air and that is our biggest pollution problem. Pollutions is defiantly a health problem in the world so that is something we Icelanders are fortunate to live mostly without.

Iceland has one of the top healthcare system in the world. When you calculate the longevity in the world healthcare system has a lot to do with that. You have to take in account infant mortality rate. The lower the infant mortality is in a country the longer people live and the better the Icelandic health care system is. Iceland has only 3 infant mortality rate pr. year which is among the lowest in the world.

One more crucial thing to consider when reviewing Icelandic health is stress. In my opinion stress is a big factor in health, bigger than people dear to believe. We in Iceland have too much stress but I would think that it would be more stressful to live in a big city, like London or New York. Reykjavik is like a little town 200.000 people with the surrounding area. When I was growing up 30 years ago everybody used to get an hour for lunch. All the company closet during lunch so people could get home to eat, it is not like that anymore, not in Reykjavik but out in the country everybody get an hour for lunch (and there is less stress there). We had no TV on Thursday which gave my mother time to do housework like sewing and ironing. Most of our mothers were staying at home moms so they had plenty of time to do the house work. As for today most of the Icelandic women have a carrier and do the housework (some by them self’s) and raising 2-3 kids. All this just for a littlbit bigger house, 2 cars instead of one. vacation to Spain or Europe instead of camping at the country side. All this make the society more stressful and our kids do not get the proper upbringing.


Read more about how healthy habits of the Icelanders
Read more about Icelandic fish oil
Read more about Icelandic fish
Read more about Icelandic cod
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