Why are the Greeks living longer than we are?

The US news has been full of Greece’s troubled economy lately.  What a place to live, right?  There are two sets of prices (on and off the record) and you even have to bribe your doctor.  Life must be really tough there!

So I checked the “List of countries by life expectancy” at Wikipedia.  

From the 2006 revision of the United Nations World Population Prospects report, for 2005-2010, here are a few excerpts:

rank / country / overall / male / female

1      Japan     82.6     79.0     86.1
2      Hong Kong     82.2     79.4     85.1
3      Iceland     81.8     80.2     83.3
4      Switzerland     81.7     79.0     84.2
5      Australia     81.2     78.9     83.6
19    Greece     79.5     77.1     81.9
37    Cuba     78.3     76.2     80.4
38    United States     78.2     75.6     80.8
39    Portugal     78.1     75.0     81.2
153  Iraq     59.5     57.8     61.5
188  Afghanistan     43.8     43.9     43.8
195  Swaziland   39.6     39.8     39.4

The CIA World Factbook 2009 has the US lower, in 50th place, between Wallis and Futuna and Albania, with Greece 1.55 years ahead of the US.

There are obviously a lot of factors, but I’m betting the famed Mediterranean diet helped Greeks score above the US.  Even if we don’t think much of their financial system, there are other things to life.  And with all our resources, we don’t live longer than those other people worrying financial markets these days, the Portuguese.  There must be a lesson here….