An immortal race of people living in a peaceful paradise high in the mountains of the Himalayas, as recounted by ancient Asian legends at the end of the 19th century. Novelist James Hilton based his book Lost Horizon on these legends. During the period of the British Raj in India, explorers in the far northeast of the subcontinent discovered a valley colonized by people whose life expectancy exceeded that of all other known races. According to the stories, men and women living in the valley of the Hunza River in what is now northeastern Pakistan regularly lived to 100 or 120 years; some were believed to reach an age of 140 or more.
These stories slowly spread to the Western world helped by the British takeover of the Hunza valley in the 1890s. British scientists were intrigued by the reports of centenarian Hunzakuts. In the 1930s, health specialists first launched investigations of the phenomenon. They suggested that the Hunzas’ long lives were due to a combination of their diet, their spirituality, and their environment.