Why Greek Mountain Villagers Have Healthy Hearts

A study from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, first reported by BBC News in 2017, found a genetic reason why some Cretan mountain villagers dodge heart disease despite a diet loaded with cheese, lamb and other animal fat. Published in Nature Communications, the research points to a rare inherited variant, not the diet itself, as the likely shield.

The villagers in question live around Mylopotamos in northern Crete, mainly in the isolated settlements of Anogia and Zoniana. Few people leave these mountain communities and few move in, and locals are known for reaching old age in good health. The area even holds its own cheese festival every year, a nod to how central dairy is to daily eating there.

A diet that should work against them

On paper, this way of eating looks like trouble. Saturated fat pushes up blood cholesterol, and elevated low density lipoprotein (LDL) specifically is a recognised driver of heart disease and stroke risk. Cardiovascular disease, heart attacks and strokes among them, would be the expected outcome of a lifetime of cheese and lamb.

Instead, Anogia and Zoniana residents largely avoid it. Type 2 diabetes shows up in the villages at the same rate as in the wider Greek population, yet the researchers noted the villagers seem spared from one of its common downstream problems, diabetic kidney disease. According to DestinationCrete.gr's own gastronomy pages, cheese in Crete is eaten almost around the clock, as a main ingredient, a side dish or even dessert, and no traditional Cretan meal is considered finished without it, which lines up with just how embedded cheese is in what these villagers eat.

What the Sanger Institute researchers actually found

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute scientists set out to answer a specific question: was there something written into the villagers' genes that protected their hearts. To find out, they sequenced the complete genome of 250 villagers, then checked those findings against genotyping records already collected from more than 3,000 other residents of the same villages.

That work turned up a previously undocumented genetic variant tied to lower levels of "bad" natural fats and "bad" cholesterol, both linked to reduced cardiovascular risk. The variant is close to exclusive to Anogia and Zoniana. Among the thousands of Europeans who have had their genomes sequenced, researchers found only a single other carrier, based in Italy.

Why this isn't a reason to copy the diet

The team behind the study was careful to flag the obvious risk of over-reading their own result: this is not grounds for the rest of us to start eating our own body weight in cheese and animal fat, because almost nobody outside these two villages carries the protective variant. What the discovery does offer scientists is another data point for working out which genetic variants contribute to complex diseases generally, cardiovascular disease being the leading cause of death worldwide. Why the variant exists at all in this population, whether it traces back to lifestyle, environment or simple inheritance down the generations, is still an open question the researchers haven't settled. Similar work is under way in other isolated groups, among them the Amish in the United States, the Inuit of northern Greenland and Scotland's Orkney Islanders, all being studied for their own clues to long-term health.

Seeing Anogia and Zoniana for yourself

Both villages sit well up in Crete's interior, reachable by mountain road rather than by any coastal route most visitors already know. If the story behind the cheese festival and the genetics makes the detour tempting, it is worth planning the drive as its own day out rather than a quick stop. Travellers who rent a car in Crete ahead of time can build the climb into a wider loop through the island's mountain villages at their own pace, instead of working around a tour schedule. Not every hire car suits steep mountain roads equally well, so it is worth checking the fleet before you go, and you can lock in the booking itself in a few minutes online.