28 ms·

Blue Zones, where people reach age 100 at 10 times greater rates

693 points by ivanvas 4y ago

santiagobasulto 4y ago
This looks far from a scientific study. But it still is a fun reading and good guessing game.
throwaways85989 4y ago
Is the blue a reference to the phrase turning grandpa "blue" for pension aka keeping him post natural mortem in the freezer? Several countries on this list are "low" trust societies?" so the data could be explained very well with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=404IeUzGNZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=404IeUzGNZ4
- xcskier56 4y ago
  No, the author, Dan Buettner has a consulting practice around helping companies, orgs, municipalities implement the lessons from Blue Zones to help build healthier environments. https://www.bluezones.com/ https://www.bluezones.com/ Where the Blue came from I'm not sure.
- klyrs 4y ago
  My mind went to "blue haired grannies" https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ElderlyBlueHairedLady https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ElderlyBlueHaire...
  - bks 4y ago
    This ^^ https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/643186/why-old-ladies-have-blue-hair https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/643186/why-old-ladies-ha...
- fredski42 4y ago
  I believe it was because those areas were marked on a map using a blue marker.
- IncRnd 4y ago
  "They are called Blue Zones because when Buettner and his colleagues were searching for these areas, they drew blue circles around them on a map." [1] [1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/blue-zones https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/blue-zones
skrap 4y ago
Should be marked [2016], it seems.
jacobkg 4y ago
I lived in Loma Linda for a few years (in Southern California, 60 miles east of LA), which is one of the blue zones It is predominantly a 7th day Adventist community. Notably they prioritize healthy lifestyle and typically are vegetarian as well as avoiding alcohol, caffeine, etc. There is also a big medical school and hospital complex in the city and many people that live there work in the healthcare field. There are of course plenty of other explanations.
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  Another fun fact about Loma Linda is that it was one of the last places in the country to get USPS service on Saturdays. Up until around 2010 they had regular mail deliveries on Sunday instead.
ghufran_syed 4y ago
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/blue-zones-diet-speculation-based-on-misinformation/#:~:text=Blue%20Zones%20may%20be%20a,some%20parts%20of%20the%20world https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/blue-zones-diet-speculation....
dxbydt 4y ago
Is a 2016 National Geo docu. Features Stamatis Moraitis. Dead. Features Dr. Ellsworth Wareham. Dead. Features Marge Jetton. Dead. Features....oh well I don't want to spoil your day. They are all dead. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/photos/photos-greek-isle-residents-live-decade-longer-americans-19784159/image-19784308 https://abcnews.go.com/Health/photos/photos-greek-isle-resid... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsworth_Wareham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsworth_Wareham https://adventist.news/news/blue-zones-icon-jetton-dies-at-106 https://adventist.news/news/blue-zones-icon-jetton-dies-at-1...
- anamexis 4y ago
  What is your point? I would expect anyone over 100 would be extremely likely to die within 8 years.
  - sbierwagen 4y ago
    Per the 2019 Social Security actuarial table, a 100 year old man has a 34% chance of dying within one year: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
    - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
      Two years ago my grandmother took a photo with 3 other centenarians at her assisted living center. She was the oldest by 3 years. I just searched their names and two of the others passed away within a year of the photo.
  - khuey 4y ago
    Per the SSA actuarial tables a 100 year old man has a 95% chance of being dead 6 years later and a 100 year old woman has a 92.5% chance of being dead 6 years later.
- melling 4y ago
  They all lived to be 100. Not bad. I suppose if we hoped they’d get to 110, we might actually have to do a bit of research. At the moment, we’re simply relying on getting lucky to get to 100.
t-3 4y ago
I'm not sure I buy their list of what makes people live longer, but I found it interesting that 3/5 locations seem to be ~40 degrees north latitude (and 3/5 islands, all locations are very near oceans/seas). It makes sense that all locations would be in warmer areas, as that vastly reduces the dependency on meat consumption, but more bias towards the equator would be expected if that was all. 40 south only touches the edge of Australia and the tail of South America, but I wonder how the life expectancy compares?
- ochoseis 4y ago
  > It makes sense that all locations would be in warmer areas, as that vastly reduces the dependency on meat consumption Are you implying causation or correlation? For example, I can imagine northern latitudes having more variable stocks of animals (and other food) during bad winters, so averages matter less than extremes.
  - t-3 4y ago
    I'm just reasoning that if crops don't grow half the year, you're much less likely to eat a plant-based diet, which is one of their points for living longer.
- _vdpp 4y ago
  Maybe there’s just a higher number of elderly there in general, from people retiring to warmer climes?
k__ 4y ago
Does this account for pension fraud?
- 1-6 4y ago
  I’d like to see a post mortem on that!
tolstoshev 4y ago
My bet is blue zones are just places where they don't have good longevity records so you get a bunch of fake centenarians. That turned out to be the case in Japan: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11258071 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11258071 and I think also in Greece. People were just keeping dead relatives "alive" for the social security or rent control.
- ancorevard 4y ago
  Loma Linda in California?
  - pcurve 4y ago
    Apparently they did a study on this.. https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/health/longevity-blue-zone-wellness/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/health/longevity-blue-zone-we... high percentage of vegetarians, active lifestyle, religious folks, etc.
- margalabargala 4y ago
  Things in common across most blue zones: middle latitudes, near a coastline, consistent weather, mild diet with plenty of fish, poor record keeping...
  - pcurve 4y ago
    Also smaller stature. Large and tall people have more cells, and higher chance of cancer.
    - baal80spam 4y ago
      > Large and tall people have more cells, and higher chance of cancer. I've never looked at it like that. Is it true?
      - pcurve 4y ago
1-6 4y ago
We’re just stumbling on natural Pareto principles.
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
How do you live well over 100? Just say you do.
- schrodinger 4y ago
  It’s not impossible. I’ve got a friend who is 84 and still traveling the world and sexually active, and everyone in his immediate family has made it past 100. He also got covid twice. Really depends.
hammock 4y ago
Now do Green Zones with the highest rates of generational wealth preservation.
citilife 4y ago
The largest factors seem to be purpose and community: > Belong. All but 5 of the 263 centenarians interviewed belonged to some faith-based community. Denomination does not seem to matter. Research shows that attending faith-based services 4 times per month will add 4 to 14 years of life expectancy. > Loved ones first. Successful centenarians in the Blue Zones put their families first. This means keeping aging parents and grandparents nearby or in the home (it lowers disease and mortality rates of children in the home too.). They commit to a life partner (which can add up to 3 years of life expectancy) and invest in their children with time and love. (They’ll be more likely to care for aging parents when the time comes.) > Right tribe. The world’s longest lived people chose—or were born into—social circles that supported healthy behaviors, Okinawans created moais—groups of 5 friends that committed to each other for life. Research from the Framingham Studies2 shows that smoking, obesity, happiness, and even loneliness are contagious. So the social networks of long-lived people have favorably shaped their health behaviors.
- JackFr 4y ago
  Also, informal record keeping.
  - Terretta 4y ago
    Like Loma Linda California, as opposed to, say, neighboring zip codes?
mmaunder 4y ago
“Research shows that attending faith-based services 4 times per month will add 4 to 14 years of life expectancy.” Well shit.
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  It turns out having a community and feeling of purpose in life actually has tangible benefits, who would've thought.
  - KerrAvon 4y ago
    Or it could be that a sky demon bestows blessings on the cultists who worship it. You never do know!
  - mmaunder 4y ago
    Joining a group that believes in magical sky dwelling beings that grant eternal life in utopia provided you worship them enough isn’t the only path to community and purpose.
    - setuids 4y ago
      maybe, but it's still a pretty easy way to do it
    - latency-guy2 4y ago
      But it's one of many, and is one of the simplest ways to join a community as they are literally everywhere. For the time/effort needed to join this community (plural), its pretty much free, maintenance isn't all that much either. People a few hundred years ago already did the hard part. Not a bad deal. And all you have to do is suspend a little disbelief in something for a while.
    - bergenty 4y ago
      It isn’t but we haven’t found another system that works as well yet. The delusion really gives purpose to life. We haven’t found another way to provide a comparable delusion.
mrtksn 4y ago
There's a recent video from Yes Theory on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhtc3EX12Z8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhtc3EX12Z8 TL:DW; They go to a Blue Zone village Seulo in Italy's Sardinia Island and spend some time there. The village looks pretty normal in general, they use technology they have plastics all over the place, they eat meat drink wine - albeit locally sourced. On thing that stands out is, maybe, the active lifestyle of the old people and strong community.
- danuker 4y ago
  It could be that their diet changed in the past 100 years. There are many more studies linking diet and health. Here is a non-profit presenting them. https://nutritionfacts.org/ https://nutritionfacts.org/
pastor_bob 4y ago
It seems counterintuitive that: 1. Moderate drinkers outlive nondrinkers. Moderate being 1-2 drinks a day, which IMO is a lot. 2. Diets high in carbs seem to be ok. I guess low caloric intake and low stress outweigh any of the negative effects of the above
- jandrese 4y ago
  3. Don't get fat. Having a diet high in carbs is fine so long as it is reasonably well balanced and you aren't getting fat on it. It just really easy to get fat on carbs.
- fleddr 4y ago
  1. Indeed a controversial finding as 1-2 drinks a day being favorable was a classic finding which somehow got debunked about a decade ago. I suspect not because it isn't true, but instead because of the wildly different context. Stressed out people in a high productivity country drinking a few glasses of wine per day may soon turn into more. The alcohol acting as some kind of pain relief, rather than something to enjoy in moderation during a two hour lunch. 2. One thing that shouldn't be missed from the study is portion control. To never be full. I can personally attest that I feel at my best when empty. It's not the same as hungry, I'm talking about the state of having your last meal digested. I remember an older study about these centurions concluding that they were almost always "slightly hungry".
- ska 4y ago
  I suspect (2) only seems counter-intuitive due to relatively recent trends in nutrition marketing, this stuff is often pretty cyclic. Conversely, low(er) caloric intake relative to expenditure being probably good has been scientific consensus for many decades.
- mbil 4y ago
  The oldest living cat drank "an eyedropper full of red wine" every two days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creme_Puff_(cat)#Lifestyle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creme_Puff_(cat)#Lifestyle
- tomtheelder 4y ago
kfarr 4y ago
Interesting how #1 seems to imply but not explicitly call out the relationship (or lack thereof) with motor vehicles. Their widespread usage in the US is one of the contributing factors in obesity.
- jppope 4y ago
  And cars kill a lot of people too...
  - DoreenMichele 4y ago
    Kill and maim.
Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
Who would want another twenty years once you hit seventy five?
- dwighttk 4y ago
  Get back to me when you’re 75
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- bergenty 4y ago
  Me, I don’t want to die. Just watching the world go by is fun.
- szeil 4y ago
- TaupeRanger 4y ago
  Almost every 75 year old
- niemal_dev 4y ago
  I mean if you are 75 and you live for another 20, then you must not be suffering a lot :-).
KerrAvon 4y ago
I saw the headline and I seriously assumed someone was claiming to have discovered that people in some areas of the world experienced accelerated aging. (In case it's changed, the headline when I read it: "Blue Zones, where people reach age 100 at 10 times greater rates")
- daveslash 4y ago
  That is exactly how I took it at first. Came to the comment thread to see if I was the only one.
- q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
  Yeah, I came here for the obligatory Doppler shift joke. I don't see one, so I'll give it a try: Maybe they're called Blue Zones because they're moving towards us so quickly that we can see all their wrinkles more clearly. So they're not really centenarians, but they just look older!
  - 867-5309 4y ago
    thought you were going to say "moving towards us so quickly that their electromagnetic wavelengths are blueshifted"
    - andyferris 4y ago
      That's right - I was definitely thinking of the twin paradox! (For those that don't know, the twin paradox is a theory of relativity thing - one twin travels out into space and back to Earth near the speed of light and afterward the stationary twin is older than the travelling twin, so the blue-shifted twin "lives longer" at least from Earth's point of view).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
JackFr 4y ago
Pure nonsense. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v2 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v2 “Supercentenarian and remarkable age records exhibit patterns indicative of clerical errors and pension fraud”
- SideQuark 4y ago
  That paper has not been published, despite being posted several years, and the top comment under it seems to supply a decent counter claim with evidence. My guess is it's not as accurate as to support your claim of "pure nonsense."
  - JackFr 4y ago
    You make a fair point, but the problem is, I read the article. And it is utter bullshit, published in a fourth tier journal by a non-scientist with something to sell. “Blue zone”, “power 9”, “vitality compass” — please spare me. This is pure pseudo-scientific crap.
    - ChrisLomont 4y ago
      SJR ranked the journal in the top third - not great, but not "fourth tier." And it got published, unlike your rebuttal. It's also got 170+ citations, none of which I found to claim to debunk the paper. Many of those citations are in good journals. Do you know any papers published in good journals rebutting this one? Maybe you should carefully write up your objections and publish that. You certainly are going to great lengths to claim it's crap.
      - biophysboy 4y ago
        It’s also super common to use memorable names and phrases in scientific literature/presentations. It’s common in my field (biophysics). I don’t know why “blue zone” is so pseudoscientific.
    - mdp2021 4y ago
      > spare me Communicational style comes from environment, inclination, choice and target, and may suggest but not prove (low) quality of content. Many are irritated e.g. by the style (apparently very frequent in the USA), in articles and books, using the pattern "John one day left the house and a number of things happened; he had graduated there and does this for a living. Now, the science" - odd conflations of narrative and data following the sequences of a novelist instead of theoretical structures: nonetheless, they do frequently have juice to extract.
enviclash 4y ago
For an expat like myself, the community aspect is the most difficult part. How can you create a community if you are hopping countries every 4-6 years?
- stevesimmons 4y ago
  > How can you create a community if you are hopping countries every 4-6 years? Stop hopping before you get old and infirm. Become part of the local support network helping those older and less fortunate than yourself. In turn, you get helped by those around you.
- bergenty 4y ago
  Religion. I’m as atheist as you can get but I still go to Catholic Church on weekends just to form community. Religious people are also generally good upstanding people (if you ignore their bigotry against LGBTQ people)
  - tomtheelder 4y ago
    I get the principle, and honestly I think so many non religious folk lack that sort of community in a big way, but... > Religious people are also generally good upstanding people I think people are generally good upstanding people. I don't think religion has anything to do with it.
    - bergenty 4y ago
      Let me rephrase that, anecdotally I’ve found there is a relatively higher percentage of upstanding people compared to the general population.
- ip26 4y ago
  I don't think you do. How can you possibly build strong relationships if you're here today, gone tomorrow?
- IncRnd 4y ago
  Have a co-expat hop countries with you.
t6jvcereio 4y ago
Alcohol? Really? I thought we'd gotten rid of that urban myth...
fleddr 4y ago
"Knowing your sense of purpose is worth up to 7 years of extra life expectancy." Uh-oh. "Research shows that attending faith-based services 4 times per month will add 4 to 14 years of life expectancy." Looks like my atheism is is worse than smoking, who knew.
- mkoubaa 4y ago
  I don't like the terminology of "faith-based" here. These are religious services, and some religions don't place a big importance on faith
- pcurve 4y ago
  lol! I needed that laugh, thanks. I know you're being funny, but if you already hold similar belief systems and also practice healthy living / thinking on your own, you'll be fine.
  - fleddr 4y ago
    I'm technically a Roman Catholic. My parents told me that if I performed the rituals, like communion, I'd get a new bike and it would make grandma happy. My father's belief system: Dad: "It's freezing in this church". Mum: "Shhhht! We're in session, have some respect". Dad: "At least it will be warm in hell".
- Qem 4y ago
  Did they control for marriage and divorce? Maybe religious people are just more likely to marry and remain married when older. Lonely elderly people are at increased risk of death, as loneliness increase risk of mental disease and death from disease and accidents, when nobody is around to call help
  - fleddr 4y ago
    Maybe, but in that case they could just say "married couples live longer". I really think they're referring to the communal feeling of religion. Forget about the religion itself, it's an incredibly effective way to get to know hundreds of people, which enriches your life. We're social creatures and religion is social on steroids.
thenerdhead 4y ago
What about sleep? Do they sleep a consistent amount of time compared to industrialized zones?
fleddr 4y ago
A way to summarize it: undo many of the "advances" of the last 50 years, and live the longest. Perhaps they weren't really advances after all.
franze 4y ago
Keeping aside the record keeping issues. If you search for outliers, you will find outliers. Looking for correlation between these outliers, does not equal that the correlation between them, is the causation of each of these outliers.
- akira2501 4y ago
  It also leads you to ignore important questions. Like.. if people know fast food is "bad" for them, but they still eat it at a higher rate than some other part of the country. WHY? It's insane to think you can just go in there, remove things that have been established for one reason or another, measure weight loss and then call it success. You have no idea what you've just manipulated. I have no idea why this is in a journal. This should be on a "PR Newswire" type site.
ushakov 4y ago
> The trick is to drink 1 to 2 glasses per day here we go again -_- what are they gonna "find out" next? > "Lessons from the happiest people on planet" > The trick is to take 1 to 2 MDMA per day
gridder 4y ago
I don’t know about the other 4 locations, but regarding Sardinia, yes, it’s true. No frauds involved. It’s the climate, the food and the simple living style.
slyall 4y ago
I was thinking that if Covid continues at it's current level we are going to see a huge drop in the number of people reaching 100. Not many people are going to survive catching covid 20 times in their 80s and 90s.
- DennisP 4y ago
  Hopefully the universal covid vaccines will work out.
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  My 90 year old great uncle got Omicron when vaccinated and is still alive and kicking. A recent fall which he almost fully recovered from was probably harder on him.
nostromo 4y ago
Whenever you read a paper creating a new term (like "Blue Zones") -- you can guarantee that the author also has a book out with the same name. And so... https://www.amazon.com/dp/1426209487 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1426209487 They usually also have a company with the same name that sells speaking engagements or consulting... https://www.bluezones.com/ https://www.bluezones.com/ And of course, you need a modestly astroturfed Wikipedia article... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_zone And don't forget a TED Talk! https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100 https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100
- psKama 4y ago
  Thanks a lot for the insight. I wish, I had read your comment before reading the article so could have saved some time.
  - Terretta 4y ago
    Seems sort of the opposite of appeal to authority: condemning if making a living.
- ReaLNero 4y ago
  Master class in marketing and manufacturing desire!
- aaron695 4y ago
  Blue Zones have been talked about on HN for 13 years https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Blue%20Zone&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... pg famously talks "middlebrow" comments on this specific Blue Zones topic 10 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4692598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4692598 - "The problem with the middlebrow dismissal is that it's a magnet for upvotes." Currently the top comments are what pg was worried about (I'd say). This is an old concept. The top comments are not pulling out any big guns to say why it's wrong but are getting upvoted.
boutell 4y ago
Blinking repeatedly at the idea that Okinawa is in the “South Pacific.”
robocat 4y ago
The 9 factors: Move naturally. The world’s longest-lived people do not pump iron, run marathons, or join gyms. Instead, they live in environments that constantly nudge them into moving without thinking about it. They grow gardens and do not have mechanical conveniences for house and yard work. Purpose. The Okinawans call it Ikigai and the Nicoyans call it plan de vida; for both, it translates to “why I wake up in the morning.” Knowing your sense of purpose is worth up to 7 years of extra life expectancy. Downshift. Even people in the Blue Zones experience stress. Stress leads to chronic inflammation, associated with every major age-related disease. What the world’s longest-lived people have that others do not are routines to shed that stress. Okinawans take a few moments each day to remember their ancestors; Adventists pray; Ikarians take a nap; and Sardinians do happy hour. 80% Rule. Hara hachi bu—the Okinawan 2500-year old Confucian mantra said before meals reminds them to stop eating when their stomachs are 80% full. The 20% gap between not being hungry and feeling full could be the difference between losing weight or gaining it. People in the Blue Zones eat their smallest meal in the late afternoon or early evening, and then, they do not eat any more the rest of the day. Plant slant. Beans, including fava, black, soy, and lentils, are the cornerstone of most centenarian diets. Meat—mostly pork—is eaten on average only 5 times per month. Serving sizes are 3 to 4 oz, about the size of a deck of cards. Wine @ 5. People in all Blue Zones (except Adventists) drink alcohol moderately and regularly. Moderate drinkers outlive nondrinkers. The trick is to drink 1 to 2 glasses per day (preferably Sardinian Cannonau wine), with friends and/or with food. And no, you cannot save up all week and have 14 drinks on Saturday. Belong. All but 5 of the 263 centenarians interviewed belonged to some faith-based community. Denomination does not seem to matter. Research shows that attending faith-based services 4 times per month will add 4 to 14 years of life expectancy. Loved ones first. Successful centenarians in the Blue Zones put their families first. This means keeping aging parents and grandparents nearby or in the home (it lowers disease and mortality rates of children in the home too.). They commit to a life partner (which can add up to 3 years of life expectancy) and invest in their children with time and love. (They’ll be more likely to care for aging parents when the time comes.) Right tribe. The world’s longest lived people chose—or were born into—social circles that supported healthy behaviors, Okinawans created moais—groups of 5 friends that committed to each other for life. Research from the Framingham Studies2 shows that smoking, obesity, happiness, and even loneliness are contagious. So the social networks of long-lived people have favorably shaped their health behaviors.
tom_ 4y ago
Don't you tell me which zone is for people reaching age 100 at 10 times the normal rate!
Tade0 4y ago
My maternal grandparents are in their mid 90s and my paternal grandmother lived to 97 (minus one week). My maternal grandfather's 8 siblings are alive - save for one who died in a car accident. One thing they all have in common is that they survived a war which took 15% of the population of this country at the time. Generations after them didn't have nearly the same life expectancy. This is all anecdata, but perhaps there's some selection bias contributing to the result here.
- borroka 4y ago
  "One thing they all have in common is that they survived a war which took 15% of the population of this country at the time" I think what you are hinting at here is that war was an artificial selection event that operated on and increased the prevalence of some trait related to longevity, say "robustness" or "ability to resist deprivation" or "quality". It is an hypothesis that could be tested, and one that is based on the theory that genes primarily determine longevity and not "lifestyle", as those years of food deprivation, physical and emotional trauma, rampant spread of diseases and general "bad times" could be very well be, according to a theory that sees "lifestyle" as the major factor in the observed variation of longevity, determinants of earlier, but post-war, deaths of the affected population.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
  It must be the intermittent fasting during war!
DoreenMichele 4y ago
The Danish Twin Study established that only about 20% of how long the average person lives is dictated by our genes, whereas the other 80% is dictated by our lifestyle. And then lists 9 things that fit with the idea of moving back to the passive solar design vernacular architecture and walkable mixed-use neighborhoods that used to be more the norm before we became victims of our own success and began tearing down SROs left and right and zoning Missing Middle housing out of existence (in the US, at least). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy
- ETH_start 4y ago
  I think we need to also remember that people cannot focus on healthy living without financial security. Financial insecurity forces people to sacrifice health, safety and wellness to make ends meet. Fortunately permissive zoning not only facilitates the emergence of densely populated and walkable mixed-use neighborhoods, but also significantly increases incomes. [1] Other policies that I advocate to this end are a focus on law and order to prevent the emergence of ghettos (Thomas Sowell explains how the 1960s riots and subsequent normalization of criminality contributed to the ghettoization of many inner city neighborhoods [2]), a focus on building public transit and bike infrastructure, and market friendly policies like a light tax burden, and an absence of centralized (regulatory) control over market interaction. [1] https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 [2] https://youtu.be/dvbzIwOECmY https://youtu.be/dvbzIwOECmY
  - DoreenMichele 4y ago
    In the US, walkable mixed-use neighborhoods, more bike infrastructure and better access to healthcare for the masses would be a huge improvement and also reduce financial stress for people of limited means. Those are bits I know. This is not a rebuttal of anything. I'm simply unfamiliar with some of your points.
- dash2 4y ago
  That heritability was estimated based on Danes born 1870-1900. It's likely that heritability has increased since then because there's less variability in the environment: health care has improved, there are fewer accidents, poor Danes are unlikely to be malnourished, etc. This study shows that heritability is basically zero below the age of 60, but increases a lot thereafter: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00439-006-0144-y https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00439-006-0144-y
woevdbz 4y ago
Any statistic calculated over a large enough number of places will yield some outliers, even if nothing actually distinguishes these places other than luck. It is unclear that the characteristics described have any predictive value.
namecheapTA 4y ago
I've always wondered how many poorly documented people have registered themselves as a decade or more older than they are, to start collecting senior benefits sooner.
hartator 4y ago
> Okinawans take a few moments each day to remember their ancestors; Adventists pray; Ikarians take a nap; and Sardinians do happy hour. That seems a little of a stretch to find commonalities.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kyawzazaw 4y ago
I wonder what kind of interview process happens at Two Sigma for someone like the author.
HanShotFirst 4y ago
I read the books and enjoyed them. - To respond to one criticism seen widely here, the authors claim to have validated ages with historical municipal birth records in all the Blue Zones. I cannot speak to these particular zones, but I've been doing genealogical research on my own ancestry and I am absolutely blown away by the ubiquity and detail of both municipal and Catholic church records in Sicily in the 1800s. Preunification Italy was under the rule of various northern European countries and was heavily influenced by their standards of record keeping. I cannot say if this applies to the other countries in the book, but generally speaking, just because these records are old doesn't mean they are bad. - One thing that was very notable in the books but isn't discussed very much is that, with the exception of the Loma Linda cohort, the Blue Zone areas are all quite poor. They all primarily eat food they are able to grow or harvest themselves, out of necessity, which encourages simple and consistent diets. They have routine, simple lives that are made fulfilling by concentrating on community, family, and friends. They are content with what little they have and do not strive for more than they need. I found the books quite inspiring. I think the lessons learned are good, even if they won't get me to 100. In any case I've felt much better and lost weight on a closer-to-Blue-Zone diet than I did before.
- bennysomething 4y ago
  What are the books called, I'd like to read them too.
  - lstamour 4y ago
    https://www.bluezones.com/books/ https://www.bluezones.com/books/
    - mdp2021 4y ago
      Well, that "Registered trade mark" '®' mark added to the "evocative anchor" does give a strong sense (with much of the rest in the communicational side) that somebody is exploiting a way to pay the mortgage. ...In some cultures. Edit: Disambiguating in case of confusion, having written «Communicational style comes from environment, inclination, choice and target, and may suggest but not prove (low) quality of content» just before: style does not remove potential for good content - yet, to some cultures, if you present your work that way you give a strong image that you are there to pay a mortgage.
kosyblysk666 4y ago
mberning 4y ago
The sister in law gave us a blue zones cook book. My wife asked me to look at it and pick two recipes. I couldn’t. I would not want to live to 100 if that was what was on the menu.
- hobo_mark 4y ago
  From the recipes I can see at https://www.bluezones.com/recipes/ https://www.bluezones.com/recipes/ (which I assume to be the same) what on earth is it that you eat instead?
garyfirestorm 4y ago
One Ikarian in particular, Stamatis Moraitis, moved to America when he was 22 years old to pursue the American dream. He was a painter, and immediately started having success, bought a house, married, and had 3 kids. At the age of 66 years, he developed terminal lung cancer. Instead of dying in America, he decided to move back to Ikaria and moved in with his parents. He started breathing the air, drinking the wine, and eating a Mediterranean diet. After a few months, he planted a garden not planning on ever getting to harvest the vegetables; 37 years later he has a vineyard producing 200 L of wine a year. His secret he says? “I just forgot to die.” This is where I think the article loses its credibility significantly.
- jquery 4y ago
  Eh, someone with strong cancer fighting genes is a good candidate to live a long time.
- kashunstva 4y ago
  The story is repeated all over the internet but even reasonably thorough articles fail to bring medical clarity. It’s always “nine doctors agreed”, “x-rays showed terminal cancer”, etc. In 1976, when he was diagnosed its possible, though somewhat unlikely he had a chest CT since scanners were just becoming available then. More importantly, what no accounting of this history mentions is a biopsy. Without a tissue diagnosis and without sophisticated imaging the story is sketchy.
- Gatsky 4y ago
  This was likely tuberculosis and not lung cancer. Autopsy series have shown that TB is easily confused with cancers. 40 years ago the diagnostic tools available were very crude. There is a crackpot promoting weird cancer therapies in my country who claims to have cured himself of metastatic sarcoma, but a peer reviewed medical analysis of the details suggests that was also TB.
  - badpun 4y ago
    Didn't they have lung biopsies back then?
Maursault 4y ago
Love how headline is ambiguous, makes it sound like that from birth in Blue Zones, it only takes a decade to reach 100yo, as if only in the Blue Zones, the Earth orbits the sun 10 times faster, or there is some other effect causing rapid aging there.
- madiator 4y ago
  Yeah, I read it first as places where you unnaturally age very fast.
  - emmelaich 4y ago
    Agreed, I thought of the Ray Bradbury story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_and_Fire_(short_story) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_and_Fire_(short_story)
- blackoil 4y ago
  I was expecting some story about Interstellar like time dilation.
emmelaich 4y ago
Couple of factors not mentioned but I think matter: 1. similar latitudes - not too hot but definitely not cold 2. proximity to the sea 3. low sugar diet Some of these could be cause or effect of others.
culi 4y ago
Despite all the media attention and even research on the "Blue Zone diet" or "Blue Zone exercise regime" or other lifestyle aspects, I think the real missed point is often missed. The thing that all of these Blue Zones have in common isn't diet or exercise but community. The 7th Day Adventists of Loma Linda California are extremely communal. Icaria is a Greek Island where a bunch of Catholic communists got expelled to during the Greek Civil War. In Nicoya, Costa Rica intergenerational households are by far the norm and extremely important. I could go on about the rest The effect is called the Roseto Effect by sociologists (popularized by Malcolm Gladwell). It's likely the same effect as another sociological term called the "Health Immigrant Effect" which shows how immigrants to the US often have much better health outcomes for a few generations before matching up with the rest of the population. It also is significantly confirmed by the results of possibly the single longest running study in Sociology: The Harvard Happiness study. Which finds that the strongest predictor of good health is good social relationships It turns out community makes you live longer, have much fewer chronic health conditions, etc. It shouldn't really be surprising given humans are probably one of the only 2 known eusocial mammals
gist 4y ago
One issue that I have is that article uses 100 as an arbitrary cutoff vs. say 99 or 97 whatever. What areas have higher than average let's say 95 year olds? Nothing special about 100 vs. let's say 99 or 101 other than people love that number like they love 1 million.
flixo4711 4y ago
Guys, one of they key points seems to be too that all blue zones will have great weather and a lot of sun. There is another study which shows that more people die in the winter. Therefore if your winter is mild then it is less likely that you die https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/07/10/more-people-die-winter-summer-14146 https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/07/10/more-people-die-winter-...
- jossclimb 4y ago
  As a Brit, I am screwed then.
  - gpderetta 4y ago
    As a Sardinian living in London, it is actually not too bad. Winter in the Sardinian coast can be very very mild, but it is a large island and inland, in the mountains it can snow for weeks in the winter and be much colder than London.
- samatman 4y ago
  Iceland and Norway are two of the top five countries for life expectancy, so this is bullshit.
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    Some phenomena depend on many factors. Factors with evidence of effect weakened by absence of other factors remain factors.
jossclimb 4y ago
Seems like the authors have something against marathon running.
downboots 4y ago
There may be an analogy here to the story about the bullet holes in shot-down planes? [0] https://hackaday.com/2019/08/01/abraham-walds-problem-solving-lesson-is-to-seek-whats-not-there/ https://hackaday.com/2019/08/01/abraham-walds-problem-solvin...
stellalo 4y ago
> Research shows that attending faith-based services 4 times per month will add 4 to 14 years of life expectancy. I’m wondering what confounder is behind this
- achenet 4y ago
  community and also I suspect (but cannot prove) that various rituals which engage the "spiritual" parts of the brain (e.g. prayer, meditation, certain controlled substances) have an anti-inflammatory effect.
renewiltord 4y ago
The idea of people living that long doesn't sound outrageous. Asian American women today have an average life expectancy of 89 years. That's the average. But this shit > One Ikarian in particular, Stamatis Moraitis, moved to America when he was 22 years old to pursue the American dream. He was a painter, and immediately started having success, bought a house, married, and had 3 kids. At the age of 66 years, he developed terminal lung cancer. Instead of dying in America, he decided to move back to Ikaria and moved in with his parents. He started breathing the air, drinking the wine, and eating a Mediterranean diet. After a few months, he planted a garden not planning on ever getting to harvest the vegetables; 37 years later he has a vineyard producing 200 L of wine a year. His secret he says? “I just forgot to die.” LOL if you have ever traveled in poor places like India, you'll find a living armada of people who are all telling you this. But when the moment comes, they go to the hospital. There are no believers in foxholes.
janaagaard 4y ago
> Wine @ 5. People in all Blue Zones (except Adventists) drink alcohol moderately and regularly. Moderate drinkers outlive nondrinkers. The trick is to drink 1 to 2 glasses per day (preferably Sardinian Cannonau wine), with friends and/or with food. I thought that the “one glass on wine per day” recommendation had been debunked. Is it still debatable? Here is one source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/23/no-healthy-level-of-alcohol-consumption-says-major-study https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/23/no-healthy-l...
- oezi 4y ago
  The study which the Guardian piece is based on: https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2818%2931310-2 https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2818... A more recent follow-up that finds some benefits of low levels of alcohol for older people: https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(22)00847-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(22)00847-9/full...
hamilyon2 4y ago
When do we finally regulate sugar like we do with tobacco? I bet nobody mentioned in article drinks sugary carbonated drinks.
codeflow2202 4y ago
When speaking about Sardinia they keep saying that their diet was mostly vegetarian: "The classic Sardinian diet is plant based, consisting of whole-grain bread, beans, garden vegetables, and fruits. Meat is largely reserved for Sundays and special occasions. Sardinians drink wine moderately." Truth is that the Shepherds (the centenaries are mostly found in this group) were actually eating more animal protein and fat compared to the rest of the population. https://snipboard.io/gbi9JY.jpg https://snipboard.io/gbi9JY.jpg They can keep lying to most people just because you can't understand Italian but whenever people from those towns are interviewed they always repeat that they were not vegetarians. Here a quick translation from this yt video: Graziano who got to 102 got asked if he got to 102yo because he had always followed a mediterranean diet. He asked what's that? It means that you always ate vegetables. Vegetables are bad for you, I ate the grass of 100 sheeps because I ate the sheeps. And indeed he only ate meat, meaning that this whole alimentation thing should be checked again. https://youtu.be/LQTocSMm7tw?t=647 https://youtu.be/LQTocSMm7tw?t=647
- thorin 4y ago
  I've spent a bit of time in Sicily, Italy and Sardinia. I agree with what you're saying, but I bet the locals eat less meat and better quality meat than the average American. They're also active and outside a lot.
  - codeflow2202 4y ago
    Yes, meat consumption in the USA is huge. But I think the greatest difference between the 2 countries is our distrust towards food processing. Italy is a country very resilient to innovations which can be sometimes a sin, but some other times a blessing. But we are losing that too. When I was a kid mcDonalds could barely survive here. Nowadays new ones are popping everywhere, and young people completely lost this culture we had about genuine foods.
    - maury91 4y ago
      McDonalds in Cagliari closed recently ( I'm talking about the most popular one, the one next to the train and bus stations )
arboghast 4y ago
While I agree with most of the critics towards the article and the author (who by the way, is a friend of Peter Diamandis who also happens to run a scammy longevity clinic), (some) reasons behind the longevity of many of those centenarians have been identified: low mTOR activity and high omega 3 intake. mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) is a nutrient sensing enzyme particularly sensitive to some amino acids like Leucine found in meat and whey protein. Rapamycin (Sirolimus), an immunosuppressive drug was found to considerably inhibit mTOR activity. Past clinical trials recently showed considerable lifespan extension in multiple animal models and will likely work in humans. It’s one of the too drugs found in the ITP trials (1). If I’m not wrong, they are even starting trials now and new ones will come soon. That’s because, as the name implies, that enzyme is part of all mammals. Lots of people experiment with safe dose ranging from 5 to 10mg once a week and report lots of benefits, few side effects (doses aren't as high as if used by organ transplant receivers). I’m in my 30s so I’m not willing to take any risks with those. I move, I eat a Mediterranean-ish diet, take Vitamin D3, K2 and Omega 3d and eat no sugar. But if I was past 60 I’d definitely ask my doctor. That being said, this is not radical life extension. That would likely be possible with upcoming therapies like partial reprogramming or senolytics. But it definitely is promising and will possibly help living a longer and healthier life if repurposed for other diseases than simply immunosuppression. (1) https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/dab/interventions-testing-program-itp https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/dab/interventions-testing-p...
- wtetzner 4y ago
  > (some) reasons behind the longevity of many of those centenarians have been identified: low mTOR activity and high omega 3 intake. I wonder how true this is, given that carbs trigger mTOR harder and longer than protein, and the Mediterranean diet seems pretty high-carb. In any case, if you're worried about mTOR, intermittent fasting is probably the simplest life-style change you can make.
  - arboghast 4y ago
    Never heard of that. References? Either way, I agree that IF is the best inhibitor of mTOR. My guess is that there is much we don’t know still about the effects of Rapamycin and mTOR itself. Clearly mTOR inhibition extends lifespan considerably in mammals, but we also know that protein intake is crucial to retain muscle mass in old age. Seems like a double edged sword. Question is, using rapamycin, can you still consume adequate protein amounts and retain muscle mass?
standardUser 4y ago
"Research shows that attending faith-based services 4 times per month will add 4 to 14 years of life expectancy." No, it will not.
wizofaus 4y ago
Wasn't there some study that showed one of the main reasons the average life expectancy in Okinawa was so high was because many people had just made up their date of birth after records were destroyed in the war in order to maximize government benefits etc.?
- svnt 4y ago
  There is also incentive to lie about meat consumption as it is frequently evidence of status.
pwpw 4y ago
Further factors not discussed here that I think bear importance are gun and automobile use in these cultures. Speaking for America strictly, guns and cars account for a significant number of deaths. I wonder how those two factors look in these communities.
n0th3r-curious 4y ago
Thanks for sharing! I wish they teach this right in high school, so they can focus on healthier life choices (instead of intoxicants).
mesozoic 4y ago
Summarized it for myself and others maybe 1 Move naturally. All these activities were not widely done up to 100 years ago. I'd expect they're not much worse so just get exercise. 2 Purpose. Sure good advice have a reason to live 3 Downshift. relax and don't be a workaholic check 4 80% Rule. effectively intermittent fasting? 5 Plant slant. already disproved by other comments. anti meat propaganda 6 Wine @ 5. but is this causal or just correlational, probably goes with downshift above 7 Belong. Really seems this is just a subpart of social (below) and purpose (above) 8 Loved ones first. Free elder care is going to add years on it's own. Can try to find that other ways but get cared for when you're old. 9 Right tribe. create peer pressure to promote positive habits
mbrochh 4y ago
It's because of polyphenols from goat/sheep milk/cheese.
needle0 4y ago
Meanwhile, Okinawa has consistently had some of the nation's lowest COVID vaccination rates and worst per-population infection numbers since the start of the pandemic.
Py-o7 4y ago
My understanding is Buettner is a story teller who doesn't know much about science. His 'findings' are then often portrayed as having some scientific basis but really are much more comparable to 'case studies' in business school-- there's potentially some insight but there's a huge dose of arbitrariness (and lack of rigor) introduced by the author. In addition to survivorship bias and random variation issues (esp with isolated population's genetic) my understanding is there are arguably many more 'blue zones' than 5; but Buettner chose those 5 as they fit a narrative he wanted to give. E.g IIRC there is a town in Sweden that has very high rate of 90 plus years olds and centenarians, etc. but their dietary (and perhaps climate) pattern didn't fit the story Buettner wanted to tell so he left it out.

693 points by ivanvas 4y ago

This looks far from a scientific study. But it still is a fun reading and good guessing game.

Is the blue a reference to the phrase turning grandpa "blue" for pension aka keeping him post natural mortem in the freezer? Several countries on this list are "low" trust societies?" so the data could be explained very well with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=404IeUzGNZ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=404IeUzGNZ4

xcskier56 4y ago
No, the author, Dan Buettner has a consulting practice around helping companies, orgs, municipalities implement the lessons from Blue Zones to help build healthier environments. https://www.bluezones.com/ https://www.bluezones.com/ Where the Blue came from I'm not sure.
klyrs 4y ago
My mind went to "blue haired grannies" https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ElderlyBlueHairedLady https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ElderlyBlueHaire...
- bks 4y ago
  This ^^ https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/643186/why-old-ladies-have-blue-hair https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/643186/why-old-ladies-ha...
fredski42 4y ago
I believe it was because those areas were marked on a map using a blue marker.
IncRnd 4y ago
"They are called Blue Zones because when Buettner and his colleagues were searching for these areas, they drew blue circles around them on a map." [1] [1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/blue-zones https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/blue-zones

skrap 4y ago

Should be marked [2016], it seems.

jacobkg 4y ago

I lived in Loma Linda for a few years (in Southern California, 60 miles east of LA), which is one of the blue zones It is predominantly a 7th day Adventist community. Notably they prioritize healthy lifestyle and typically are vegetarian as well as avoiding alcohol, caffeine, etc. There is also a big medical school and hospital complex in the city and many people that live there work in the healthcare field. There are of course plenty of other explanations.

Rebelgecko 4y ago
Another fun fact about Loma Linda is that it was one of the last places in the country to get USPS service on Saturdays. Up until around 2010 they had regular mail deliveries on Sunday instead.

ghufran_syed 4y ago

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/blue-zones-diet-speculation-based-on-misinformation/#:~:text=Blue%20Zones%20may%20be%20a,some%20parts%20of%20the%20world https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/blue-zones-diet-speculation....

dxbydt 4y ago

Is a 2016 National Geo docu. Features Stamatis Moraitis. Dead. Features Dr. Ellsworth Wareham. Dead. Features Marge Jetton. Dead. Features....oh well I don't want to spoil your day. They are all dead. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/photos/photos-greek-isle-residents-live-decade-longer-americans-19784159/image-19784308 https://abcnews.go.com/Health/photos/photos-greek-isle-resid... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsworth_Wareham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsworth_Wareham https://adventist.news/news/blue-zones-icon-jetton-dies-at-106 https://adventist.news/news/blue-zones-icon-jetton-dies-at-1...

anamexis 4y ago
What is your point? I would expect anyone over 100 would be extremely likely to die within 8 years.
- sbierwagen 4y ago
  Per the 2019 Social Security actuarial table, a 100 year old man has a 34% chance of dying within one year: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
  - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
    Two years ago my grandmother took a photo with 3 other centenarians at her assisted living center. She was the oldest by 3 years. I just searched their names and two of the others passed away within a year of the photo.
- khuey 4y ago
  Per the SSA actuarial tables a 100 year old man has a 95% chance of being dead 6 years later and a 100 year old woman has a 92.5% chance of being dead 6 years later.
melling 4y ago
They all lived to be 100. Not bad. I suppose if we hoped they’d get to 110, we might actually have to do a bit of research. At the moment, we’re simply relying on getting lucky to get to 100.

t-3 4y ago

I'm not sure I buy their list of what makes people live longer, but I found it interesting that 3/5 locations seem to be ~40 degrees north latitude (and 3/5 islands, all locations are very near oceans/seas). It makes sense that all locations would be in warmer areas, as that vastly reduces the dependency on meat consumption, but more bias towards the equator would be expected if that was all. 40 south only touches the edge of Australia and the tail of South America, but I wonder how the life expectancy compares?

ochoseis 4y ago
> It makes sense that all locations would be in warmer areas, as that vastly reduces the dependency on meat consumption Are you implying causation or correlation? For example, I can imagine northern latitudes having more variable stocks of animals (and other food) during bad winters, so averages matter less than extremes.
- t-3 4y ago
  I'm just reasoning that if crops don't grow half the year, you're much less likely to eat a plant-based diet, which is one of their points for living longer.
_vdpp 4y ago
Maybe there’s just a higher number of elderly there in general, from people retiring to warmer climes?

k__ 4y ago

Does this account for pension fraud?

1-6 4y ago
I’d like to see a post mortem on that!

tolstoshev 4y ago

My bet is blue zones are just places where they don't have good longevity records so you get a bunch of fake centenarians. That turned out to be the case in Japan: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11258071 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11258071 and I think also in Greece. People were just keeping dead relatives "alive" for the social security or rent control.

ancorevard 4y ago
Loma Linda in California?
- pcurve 4y ago
  Apparently they did a study on this.. https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/health/longevity-blue-zone-wellness/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/health/longevity-blue-zone-we... high percentage of vegetarians, active lifestyle, religious folks, etc.
margalabargala 4y ago
Things in common across most blue zones: middle latitudes, near a coastline, consistent weather, mild diet with plenty of fish, poor record keeping...
- pcurve 4y ago
  Also smaller stature. Large and tall people have more cells, and higher chance of cancer.
  - baal80spam 4y ago
    > Large and tall people have more cells, and higher chance of cancer. I've never looked at it like that. Is it true?
    - pcurve 4y ago

1-6 4y ago

We’re just stumbling on natural Pareto principles.

JoeAltmaier 4y ago

How do you live well over 100? Just say you do.

schrodinger 4y ago
It’s not impossible. I’ve got a friend who is 84 and still traveling the world and sexually active, and everyone in his immediate family has made it past 100. He also got covid twice. Really depends.

hammock 4y ago

Now do Green Zones with the highest rates of generational wealth preservation.

citilife 4y ago

The largest factors seem to be purpose and community: > Belong. All but 5 of the 263 centenarians interviewed belonged to some faith-based community. Denomination does not seem to matter. Research shows that attending faith-based services 4 times per month will add 4 to 14 years of life expectancy. > Loved ones first. Successful centenarians in the Blue Zones put their families first. This means keeping aging parents and grandparents nearby or in the home (it lowers disease and mortality rates of children in the home too.). They commit to a life partner (which can add up to 3 years of life expectancy) and invest in their children with time and love. (They’ll be more likely to care for aging parents when the time comes.) > Right tribe. The world’s longest lived people chose—or were born into—social circles that supported healthy behaviors, Okinawans created moais—groups of 5 friends that committed to each other for life. Research from the Framingham Studies2 shows that smoking, obesity, happiness, and even loneliness are contagious. So the social networks of long-lived people have favorably shaped their health behaviors.

JackFr 4y ago
Also, informal record keeping.
- Terretta 4y ago
  Like Loma Linda California, as opposed to, say, neighboring zip codes?

mmaunder 4y ago

“Research shows that attending faith-based services 4 times per month will add 4 to 14 years of life expectancy.” Well shit.

SQueeeeeL 4y ago
It turns out having a community and feeling of purpose in life actually has tangible benefits, who would've thought.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  Or it could be that a sky demon bestows blessings on the cultists who worship it. You never do know!
- mmaunder 4y ago
  Joining a group that believes in magical sky dwelling beings that grant eternal life in utopia provided you worship them enough isn’t the only path to community and purpose.
  - setuids 4y ago
    maybe, but it's still a pretty easy way to do it
  - latency-guy2 4y ago
    But it's one of many, and is one of the simplest ways to join a community as they are literally everywhere. For the time/effort needed to join this community (plural), its pretty much free, maintenance isn't all that much either. People a few hundred years ago already did the hard part. Not a bad deal. And all you have to do is suspend a little disbelief in something for a while.
  - bergenty 4y ago
    It isn’t but we haven’t found another system that works as well yet. The delusion really gives purpose to life. We haven’t found another way to provide a comparable delusion.

mrtksn 4y ago

There's a recent video from Yes Theory on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhtc3EX12Z8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhtc3EX12Z8 TL:DW; They go to a Blue Zone village Seulo in Italy's Sardinia Island and spend some time there. The village looks pretty normal in general, they use technology they have plastics all over the place, they eat meat drink wine - albeit locally sourced. On thing that stands out is, maybe, the active lifestyle of the old people and strong community.

danuker 4y ago
It could be that their diet changed in the past 100 years. There are many more studies linking diet and health. Here is a non-profit presenting them. https://nutritionfacts.org/ https://nutritionfacts.org/

pastor_bob 4y ago

It seems counterintuitive that: 1. Moderate drinkers outlive nondrinkers. Moderate being 1-2 drinks a day, which IMO is a lot. 2. Diets high in carbs seem to be ok. I guess low caloric intake and low stress outweigh any of the negative effects of the above

jandrese 4y ago
3. Don't get fat. Having a diet high in carbs is fine so long as it is reasonably well balanced and you aren't getting fat on it. It just really easy to get fat on carbs.
fleddr 4y ago
1. Indeed a controversial finding as 1-2 drinks a day being favorable was a classic finding which somehow got debunked about a decade ago. I suspect not because it isn't true, but instead because of the wildly different context. Stressed out people in a high productivity country drinking a few glasses of wine per day may soon turn into more. The alcohol acting as some kind of pain relief, rather than something to enjoy in moderation during a two hour lunch. 2. One thing that shouldn't be missed from the study is portion control. To never be full. I can personally attest that I feel at my best when empty. It's not the same as hungry, I'm talking about the state of having your last meal digested. I remember an older study about these centurions concluding that they were almost always "slightly hungry".
ska 4y ago
I suspect (2) only seems counter-intuitive due to relatively recent trends in nutrition marketing, this stuff is often pretty cyclic. Conversely, low(er) caloric intake relative to expenditure being probably good has been scientific consensus for many decades.
mbil 4y ago
The oldest living cat drank "an eyedropper full of red wine" every two days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creme_Puff_(cat)#Lifestyle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creme_Puff_(cat)#Lifestyle
tomtheelder 4y ago

kfarr 4y ago

Interesting how #1 seems to imply but not explicitly call out the relationship (or lack thereof) with motor vehicles. Their widespread usage in the US is one of the contributing factors in obesity.

jppope 4y ago
And cars kill a lot of people too...
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  Kill and maim.

Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago

Who would want another twenty years once you hit seventy five?

dwighttk 4y ago
Get back to me when you’re 75
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bergenty 4y ago
Me, I don’t want to die. Just watching the world go by is fun.
szeil 4y ago
TaupeRanger 4y ago
Almost every 75 year old
niemal_dev 4y ago
I mean if you are 75 and you live for another 20, then you must not be suffering a lot :-).

KerrAvon 4y ago

I saw the headline and I seriously assumed someone was claiming to have discovered that people in some areas of the world experienced accelerated aging. (In case it's changed, the headline when I read it: "Blue Zones, where people reach age 100 at 10 times greater rates")

daveslash 4y ago
That is exactly how I took it at first. Came to the comment thread to see if I was the only one.
q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
Yeah, I came here for the obligatory Doppler shift joke. I don't see one, so I'll give it a try: Maybe they're called Blue Zones because they're moving towards us so quickly that we can see all their wrinkles more clearly. So they're not really centenarians, but they just look older!
- 867-5309 4y ago
  thought you were going to say "moving towards us so quickly that their electromagnetic wavelengths are blueshifted"
  - andyferris 4y ago
    That's right - I was definitely thinking of the twin paradox! (For those that don't know, the twin paradox is a theory of relativity thing - one twin travels out into space and back to Earth near the speed of light and afterward the stationary twin is older than the travelling twin, so the blue-shifted twin "lives longer" at least from Earth's point of view).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

JackFr 4y ago

Pure nonsense. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v2 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v2 “Supercentenarian and remarkable age records exhibit patterns indicative of clerical errors and pension fraud”

SideQuark 4y ago
That paper has not been published, despite being posted several years, and the top comment under it seems to supply a decent counter claim with evidence. My guess is it's not as accurate as to support your claim of "pure nonsense."
- JackFr 4y ago
  You make a fair point, but the problem is, I read the article. And it is utter bullshit, published in a fourth tier journal by a non-scientist with something to sell. “Blue zone”, “power 9”, “vitality compass” — please spare me. This is pure pseudo-scientific crap.
  - ChrisLomont 4y ago
    SJR ranked the journal in the top third - not great, but not "fourth tier." And it got published, unlike your rebuttal. It's also got 170+ citations, none of which I found to claim to debunk the paper. Many of those citations are in good journals. Do you know any papers published in good journals rebutting this one? Maybe you should carefully write up your objections and publish that. You certainly are going to great lengths to claim it's crap.
    - biophysboy 4y ago
      It’s also super common to use memorable names and phrases in scientific literature/presentations. It’s common in my field (biophysics). I don’t know why “blue zone” is so pseudoscientific.
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    > spare me Communicational style comes from environment, inclination, choice and target, and may suggest but not prove (low) quality of content. Many are irritated e.g. by the style (apparently very frequent in the USA), in articles and books, using the pattern "John one day left the house and a number of things happened; he had graduated there and does this for a living. Now, the science" - odd conflations of narrative and data following the sequences of a novelist instead of theoretical structures: nonetheless, they do frequently have juice to extract.

enviclash 4y ago

For an expat like myself, the community aspect is the most difficult part. How can you create a community if you are hopping countries every 4-6 years?

stevesimmons 4y ago
> How can you create a community if you are hopping countries every 4-6 years? Stop hopping before you get old and infirm. Become part of the local support network helping those older and less fortunate than yourself. In turn, you get helped by those around you.
bergenty 4y ago
Religion. I’m as atheist as you can get but I still go to Catholic Church on weekends just to form community. Religious people are also generally good upstanding people (if you ignore their bigotry against LGBTQ people)
- tomtheelder 4y ago
  I get the principle, and honestly I think so many non religious folk lack that sort of community in a big way, but... > Religious people are also generally good upstanding people I think people are generally good upstanding people. I don't think religion has anything to do with it.
  - bergenty 4y ago
    Let me rephrase that, anecdotally I’ve found there is a relatively higher percentage of upstanding people compared to the general population.
ip26 4y ago
I don't think you do. How can you possibly build strong relationships if you're here today, gone tomorrow?
IncRnd 4y ago
Have a co-expat hop countries with you.

t6jvcereio 4y ago

Alcohol? Really? I thought we'd gotten rid of that urban myth...

fleddr 4y ago

"Knowing your sense of purpose is worth up to 7 years of extra life expectancy." Uh-oh. "Research shows that attending faith-based services 4 times per month will add 4 to 14 years of life expectancy." Looks like my atheism is is worse than smoking, who knew.

mkoubaa 4y ago
I don't like the terminology of "faith-based" here. These are religious services, and some religions don't place a big importance on faith
pcurve 4y ago
lol! I needed that laugh, thanks. I know you're being funny, but if you already hold similar belief systems and also practice healthy living / thinking on your own, you'll be fine.
- fleddr 4y ago
  I'm technically a Roman Catholic. My parents told me that if I performed the rituals, like communion, I'd get a new bike and it would make grandma happy. My father's belief system: Dad: "It's freezing in this church". Mum: "Shhhht! We're in session, have some respect". Dad: "At least it will be warm in hell".
Qem 4y ago
Did they control for marriage and divorce? Maybe religious people are just more likely to marry and remain married when older. Lonely elderly people are at increased risk of death, as loneliness increase risk of mental disease and death from disease and accidents, when nobody is around to call help
- fleddr 4y ago
  Maybe, but in that case they could just say "married couples live longer". I really think they're referring to the communal feeling of religion. Forget about the religion itself, it's an incredibly effective way to get to know hundreds of people, which enriches your life. We're social creatures and religion is social on steroids.

thenerdhead 4y ago

What about sleep? Do they sleep a consistent amount of time compared to industrialized zones?

fleddr 4y ago

A way to summarize it: undo many of the "advances" of the last 50 years, and live the longest. Perhaps they weren't really advances after all.

franze 4y ago

Keeping aside the record keeping issues. If you search for outliers, you will find outliers. Looking for correlation between these outliers, does not equal that the correlation between them, is the causation of each of these outliers.

akira2501 4y ago
It also leads you to ignore important questions. Like.. if people know fast food is "bad" for them, but they still eat it at a higher rate than some other part of the country. WHY? It's insane to think you can just go in there, remove things that have been established for one reason or another, measure weight loss and then call it success. You have no idea what you've just manipulated. I have no idea why this is in a journal. This should be on a "PR Newswire" type site.

ushakov 4y ago

> The trick is to drink 1 to 2 glasses per day here we go again -_- what are they gonna "find out" next? > "Lessons from the happiest people on planet" > The trick is to take 1 to 2 MDMA per day

gridder 4y ago

I don’t know about the other 4 locations, but regarding Sardinia, yes, it’s true. No frauds involved. It’s the climate, the food and the simple living style.

slyall 4y ago

I was thinking that if Covid continues at it's current level we are going to see a huge drop in the number of people reaching 100. Not many people are going to survive catching covid 20 times in their 80s and 90s.

DennisP 4y ago
Hopefully the universal covid vaccines will work out.
selimthegrim 4y ago
My 90 year old great uncle got Omicron when vaccinated and is still alive and kicking. A recent fall which he almost fully recovered from was probably harder on him.

nostromo 4y ago

Whenever you read a paper creating a new term (like "Blue Zones") -- you can guarantee that the author also has a book out with the same name. And so... https://www.amazon.com/dp/1426209487 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1426209487 They usually also have a company with the same name that sells speaking engagements or consulting... https://www.bluezones.com/ https://www.bluezones.com/ And of course, you need a modestly astroturfed Wikipedia article... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_zone And don't forget a TED Talk! https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100 https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100

psKama 4y ago
Thanks a lot for the insight. I wish, I had read your comment before reading the article so could have saved some time.
- Terretta 4y ago
  Seems sort of the opposite of appeal to authority: condemning if making a living.
ReaLNero 4y ago
Master class in marketing and manufacturing desire!
aaron695 4y ago
Blue Zones have been talked about on HN for 13 years https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Blue%20Zone&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... pg famously talks "middlebrow" comments on this specific Blue Zones topic 10 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4692598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4692598 - "The problem with the middlebrow dismissal is that it's a magnet for upvotes." Currently the top comments are what pg was worried about (I'd say). This is an old concept. The top comments are not pulling out any big guns to say why it's wrong but are getting upvoted.

boutell 4y ago

Blinking repeatedly at the idea that Okinawa is in the “South Pacific.”

robocat 4y ago

The 9 factors: Move naturally. The world’s longest-lived people do not pump iron, run marathons, or join gyms. Instead, they live in environments that constantly nudge them into moving without thinking about it. They grow gardens and do not have mechanical conveniences for house and yard work. Purpose. The Okinawans call it Ikigai and the Nicoyans call it plan de vida; for both, it translates to “why I wake up in the morning.” Knowing your sense of purpose is worth up to 7 years of extra life expectancy. Downshift. Even people in the Blue Zones experience stress. Stress leads to chronic inflammation, associated with every major age-related disease. What the world’s longest-lived people have that others do not are routines to shed that stress. Okinawans take a few moments each day to remember their ancestors; Adventists pray; Ikarians take a nap; and Sardinians do happy hour. 80% Rule. Hara hachi bu—the Okinawan 2500-year old Confucian mantra said before meals reminds them to stop eating when their stomachs are 80% full. The 20% gap between not being hungry and feeling full could be the difference between losing weight or gaining it. People in the Blue Zones eat their smallest meal in the late afternoon or early evening, and then, they do not eat any more the rest of the day. Plant slant. Beans, including fava, black, soy, and lentils, are the cornerstone of most centenarian diets. Meat—mostly pork—is eaten on average only 5 times per month. Serving sizes are 3 to 4 oz, about the size of a deck of cards. Wine @ 5. People in all Blue Zones (except Adventists) drink alcohol moderately and regularly. Moderate drinkers outlive nondrinkers. The trick is to drink 1 to 2 glasses per day (preferably Sardinian Cannonau wine), with friends and/or with food. And no, you cannot save up all week and have 14 drinks on Saturday. Belong. All but 5 of the 263 centenarians interviewed belonged to some faith-based community. Denomination does not seem to matter. Research shows that attending faith-based services 4 times per month will add 4 to 14 years of life expectancy. Loved ones first. Successful centenarians in the Blue Zones put their families first. This means keeping aging parents and grandparents nearby or in the home (it lowers disease and mortality rates of children in the home too.). They commit to a life partner (which can add up to 3 years of life expectancy) and invest in their children with time and love. (They’ll be more likely to care for aging parents when the time comes.) Right tribe. The world’s longest lived people chose—or were born into—social circles that supported healthy behaviors, Okinawans created moais—groups of 5 friends that committed to each other for life. Research from the Framingham Studies2 shows that smoking, obesity, happiness, and even loneliness are contagious. So the social networks of long-lived people have favorably shaped their health behaviors.

tom_ 4y ago

Don't you tell me which zone is for people reaching age 100 at 10 times the normal rate!

Tade0 4y ago

My maternal grandparents are in their mid 90s and my paternal grandmother lived to 97 (minus one week). My maternal grandfather's 8 siblings are alive - save for one who died in a car accident. One thing they all have in common is that they survived a war which took 15% of the population of this country at the time. Generations after them didn't have nearly the same life expectancy. This is all anecdata, but perhaps there's some selection bias contributing to the result here.

borroka 4y ago
"One thing they all have in common is that they survived a war which took 15% of the population of this country at the time" I think what you are hinting at here is that war was an artificial selection event that operated on and increased the prevalence of some trait related to longevity, say "robustness" or "ability to resist deprivation" or "quality". It is an hypothesis that could be tested, and one that is based on the theory that genes primarily determine longevity and not "lifestyle", as those years of food deprivation, physical and emotional trauma, rampant spread of diseases and general "bad times" could be very well be, according to a theory that sees "lifestyle" as the major factor in the observed variation of longevity, determinants of earlier, but post-war, deaths of the affected population.
aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
It must be the intermittent fasting during war!

DoreenMichele 4y ago

The Danish Twin Study established that only about 20% of how long the average person lives is dictated by our genes, whereas the other 80% is dictated by our lifestyle. And then lists 9 things that fit with the idea of moving back to the passive solar design vernacular architecture and walkable mixed-use neighborhoods that used to be more the norm before we became victims of our own success and began tearing down SROs left and right and zoning Missing Middle housing out of existence (in the US, at least). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy

ETH_start 4y ago
I think we need to also remember that people cannot focus on healthy living without financial security. Financial insecurity forces people to sacrifice health, safety and wellness to make ends meet. Fortunately permissive zoning not only facilitates the emergence of densely populated and walkable mixed-use neighborhoods, but also significantly increases incomes. [1] Other policies that I advocate to this end are a focus on law and order to prevent the emergence of ghettos (Thomas Sowell explains how the 1960s riots and subsequent normalization of criminality contributed to the ghettoization of many inner city neighborhoods [2]), a focus on building public transit and bike infrastructure, and market friendly policies like a light tax burden, and an absence of centralized (regulatory) control over market interaction. [1] https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 [2] https://youtu.be/dvbzIwOECmY https://youtu.be/dvbzIwOECmY
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  In the US, walkable mixed-use neighborhoods, more bike infrastructure and better access to healthcare for the masses would be a huge improvement and also reduce financial stress for people of limited means. Those are bits I know. This is not a rebuttal of anything. I'm simply unfamiliar with some of your points.
dash2 4y ago
That heritability was estimated based on Danes born 1870-1900. It's likely that heritability has increased since then because there's less variability in the environment: health care has improved, there are fewer accidents, poor Danes are unlikely to be malnourished, etc. This study shows that heritability is basically zero below the age of 60, but increases a lot thereafter: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00439-006-0144-y https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00439-006-0144-y

woevdbz 4y ago

Any statistic calculated over a large enough number of places will yield some outliers, even if nothing actually distinguishes these places other than luck. It is unclear that the characteristics described have any predictive value.

namecheapTA 4y ago

I've always wondered how many poorly documented people have registered themselves as a decade or more older than they are, to start collecting senior benefits sooner.

hartator 4y ago

> Okinawans take a few moments each day to remember their ancestors; Adventists pray; Ikarians take a nap; and Sardinians do happy hour. That seems a little of a stretch to find commonalities.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

kyawzazaw 4y ago

I wonder what kind of interview process happens at Two Sigma for someone like the author.

HanShotFirst 4y ago

I read the books and enjoyed them. - To respond to one criticism seen widely here, the authors claim to have validated ages with historical municipal birth records in all the Blue Zones. I cannot speak to these particular zones, but I've been doing genealogical research on my own ancestry and I am absolutely blown away by the ubiquity and detail of both municipal and Catholic church records in Sicily in the 1800s. Preunification Italy was under the rule of various northern European countries and was heavily influenced by their standards of record keeping. I cannot say if this applies to the other countries in the book, but generally speaking, just because these records are old doesn't mean they are bad. - One thing that was very notable in the books but isn't discussed very much is that, with the exception of the Loma Linda cohort, the Blue Zone areas are all quite poor. They all primarily eat food they are able to grow or harvest themselves, out of necessity, which encourages simple and consistent diets. They have routine, simple lives that are made fulfilling by concentrating on community, family, and friends. They are content with what little they have and do not strive for more than they need. I found the books quite inspiring. I think the lessons learned are good, even if they won't get me to 100. In any case I've felt much better and lost weight on a closer-to-Blue-Zone diet than I did before.

bennysomething 4y ago
What are the books called, I'd like to read them too.
- lstamour 4y ago
  https://www.bluezones.com/books/ https://www.bluezones.com/books/
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    Well, that "Registered trade mark" '®' mark added to the "evocative anchor" does give a strong sense (with much of the rest in the communicational side) that somebody is exploiting a way to pay the mortgage. ...In some cultures. Edit: Disambiguating in case of confusion, having written «Communicational style comes from environment, inclination, choice and target, and may suggest but not prove (low) quality of content» just before: style does not remove potential for good content - yet, to some cultures, if you present your work that way you give a strong image that you are there to pay a mortgage.

kosyblysk666 4y ago

mberning 4y ago

The sister in law gave us a blue zones cook book. My wife asked me to look at it and pick two recipes. I couldn’t. I would not want to live to 100 if that was what was on the menu.

hobo_mark 4y ago
From the recipes I can see at https://www.bluezones.com/recipes/ https://www.bluezones.com/recipes/ (which I assume to be the same) what on earth is it that you eat instead?

garyfirestorm 4y ago

One Ikarian in particular, Stamatis Moraitis, moved to America when he was 22 years old to pursue the American dream. He was a painter, and immediately started having success, bought a house, married, and had 3 kids. At the age of 66 years, he developed terminal lung cancer. Instead of dying in America, he decided to move back to Ikaria and moved in with his parents. He started breathing the air, drinking the wine, and eating a Mediterranean diet. After a few months, he planted a garden not planning on ever getting to harvest the vegetables; 37 years later he has a vineyard producing 200 L of wine a year. His secret he says? “I just forgot to die.” This is where I think the article loses its credibility significantly.

jquery 4y ago
Eh, someone with strong cancer fighting genes is a good candidate to live a long time.
kashunstva 4y ago
The story is repeated all over the internet but even reasonably thorough articles fail to bring medical clarity. It’s always “nine doctors agreed”, “x-rays showed terminal cancer”, etc. In 1976, when he was diagnosed its possible, though somewhat unlikely he had a chest CT since scanners were just becoming available then. More importantly, what no accounting of this history mentions is a biopsy. Without a tissue diagnosis and without sophisticated imaging the story is sketchy.
Gatsky 4y ago
This was likely tuberculosis and not lung cancer. Autopsy series have shown that TB is easily confused with cancers. 40 years ago the diagnostic tools available were very crude. There is a crackpot promoting weird cancer therapies in my country who claims to have cured himself of metastatic sarcoma, but a peer reviewed medical analysis of the details suggests that was also TB.
- badpun 4y ago
  Didn't they have lung biopsies back then?

Maursault 4y ago

Love how headline is ambiguous, makes it sound like that from birth in Blue Zones, it only takes a decade to reach 100yo, as if only in the Blue Zones, the Earth orbits the sun 10 times faster, or there is some other effect causing rapid aging there.

madiator 4y ago
Yeah, I read it first as places where you unnaturally age very fast.
- emmelaich 4y ago
  Agreed, I thought of the Ray Bradbury story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_and_Fire_(short_story) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_and_Fire_(short_story)
blackoil 4y ago
I was expecting some story about Interstellar like time dilation.

emmelaich 4y ago

Couple of factors not mentioned but I think matter: 1. similar latitudes - not too hot but definitely not cold 2. proximity to the sea 3. low sugar diet Some of these could be cause or effect of others.

culi 4y ago

Despite all the media attention and even research on the "Blue Zone diet" or "Blue Zone exercise regime" or other lifestyle aspects, I think the real missed point is often missed. The thing that all of these Blue Zones have in common isn't diet or exercise but community. The 7th Day Adventists of Loma Linda California are extremely communal. Icaria is a Greek Island where a bunch of Catholic communists got expelled to during the Greek Civil War. In Nicoya, Costa Rica intergenerational households are by far the norm and extremely important. I could go on about the rest The effect is called the Roseto Effect by sociologists (popularized by Malcolm Gladwell). It's likely the same effect as another sociological term called the "Health Immigrant Effect" which shows how immigrants to the US often have much better health outcomes for a few generations before matching up with the rest of the population. It also is significantly confirmed by the results of possibly the single longest running study in Sociology: The Harvard Happiness study. Which finds that the strongest predictor of good health is good social relationships It turns out community makes you live longer, have much fewer chronic health conditions, etc. It shouldn't really be surprising given humans are probably one of the only 2 known eusocial mammals

gist 4y ago

One issue that I have is that article uses 100 as an arbitrary cutoff vs. say 99 or 97 whatever. What areas have higher than average let's say 95 year olds? Nothing special about 100 vs. let's say 99 or 101 other than people love that number like they love 1 million.

flixo4711 4y ago

Guys, one of they key points seems to be too that all blue zones will have great weather and a lot of sun. There is another study which shows that more people die in the winter. Therefore if your winter is mild then it is less likely that you die https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/07/10/more-people-die-winter-summer-14146 https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/07/10/more-people-die-winter-...

jossclimb 4y ago
As a Brit, I am screwed then.
- gpderetta 4y ago
  As a Sardinian living in London, it is actually not too bad. Winter in the Sardinian coast can be very very mild, but it is a large island and inland, in the mountains it can snow for weeks in the winter and be much colder than London.
samatman 4y ago
Iceland and Norway are two of the top five countries for life expectancy, so this is bullshit.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  Some phenomena depend on many factors. Factors with evidence of effect weakened by absence of other factors remain factors.

jossclimb 4y ago

Seems like the authors have something against marathon running.

downboots 4y ago

There may be an analogy here to the story about the bullet holes in shot-down planes? [0] https://hackaday.com/2019/08/01/abraham-walds-problem-solving-lesson-is-to-seek-whats-not-there/ https://hackaday.com/2019/08/01/abraham-walds-problem-solvin...

stellalo 4y ago

> Research shows that attending faith-based services 4 times per month will add 4 to 14 years of life expectancy. I’m wondering what confounder is behind this

achenet 4y ago
community and also I suspect (but cannot prove) that various rituals which engage the "spiritual" parts of the brain (e.g. prayer, meditation, certain controlled substances) have an anti-inflammatory effect.

renewiltord 4y ago

The idea of people living that long doesn't sound outrageous. Asian American women today have an average life expectancy of 89 years. That's the average. But this shit > One Ikarian in particular, Stamatis Moraitis, moved to America when he was 22 years old to pursue the American dream. He was a painter, and immediately started having success, bought a house, married, and had 3 kids. At the age of 66 years, he developed terminal lung cancer. Instead of dying in America, he decided to move back to Ikaria and moved in with his parents. He started breathing the air, drinking the wine, and eating a Mediterranean diet. After a few months, he planted a garden not planning on ever getting to harvest the vegetables; 37 years later he has a vineyard producing 200 L of wine a year. His secret he says? “I just forgot to die.” LOL if you have ever traveled in poor places like India, you'll find a living armada of people who are all telling you this. But when the moment comes, they go to the hospital. There are no believers in foxholes.

janaagaard 4y ago

> Wine @ 5. People in all Blue Zones (except Adventists) drink alcohol moderately and regularly. Moderate drinkers outlive nondrinkers. The trick is to drink 1 to 2 glasses per day (preferably Sardinian Cannonau wine), with friends and/or with food. I thought that the “one glass on wine per day” recommendation had been debunked. Is it still debatable? Here is one source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/23/no-healthy-level-of-alcohol-consumption-says-major-study https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/23/no-healthy-l...

oezi 4y ago
The study which the Guardian piece is based on: https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2818%2931310-2 https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2818... A more recent follow-up that finds some benefits of low levels of alcohol for older people: https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(22)00847-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(22)00847-9/full...

hamilyon2 4y ago

When do we finally regulate sugar like we do with tobacco? I bet nobody mentioned in article drinks sugary carbonated drinks.

codeflow2202 4y ago

When speaking about Sardinia they keep saying that their diet was mostly vegetarian: "The classic Sardinian diet is plant based, consisting of whole-grain bread, beans, garden vegetables, and fruits. Meat is largely reserved for Sundays and special occasions. Sardinians drink wine moderately." Truth is that the Shepherds (the centenaries are mostly found in this group) were actually eating more animal protein and fat compared to the rest of the population. https://snipboard.io/gbi9JY.jpg https://snipboard.io/gbi9JY.jpg They can keep lying to most people just because you can't understand Italian but whenever people from those towns are interviewed they always repeat that they were not vegetarians. Here a quick translation from this yt video: Graziano who got to 102 got asked if he got to 102yo because he had always followed a mediterranean diet. He asked what's that? It means that you always ate vegetables. Vegetables are bad for you, I ate the grass of 100 sheeps because I ate the sheeps. And indeed he only ate meat, meaning that this whole alimentation thing should be checked again. https://youtu.be/LQTocSMm7tw?t=647 https://youtu.be/LQTocSMm7tw?t=647

thorin 4y ago
I've spent a bit of time in Sicily, Italy and Sardinia. I agree with what you're saying, but I bet the locals eat less meat and better quality meat than the average American. They're also active and outside a lot.
- codeflow2202 4y ago
  Yes, meat consumption in the USA is huge. But I think the greatest difference between the 2 countries is our distrust towards food processing. Italy is a country very resilient to innovations which can be sometimes a sin, but some other times a blessing. But we are losing that too. When I was a kid mcDonalds could barely survive here. Nowadays new ones are popping everywhere, and young people completely lost this culture we had about genuine foods.
  - maury91 4y ago
    McDonalds in Cagliari closed recently ( I'm talking about the most popular one, the one next to the train and bus stations )

arboghast 4y ago

While I agree with most of the critics towards the article and the author (who by the way, is a friend of Peter Diamandis who also happens to run a scammy longevity clinic), (some) reasons behind the longevity of many of those centenarians have been identified: low mTOR activity and high omega 3 intake. mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) is a nutrient sensing enzyme particularly sensitive to some amino acids like Leucine found in meat and whey protein. Rapamycin (Sirolimus), an immunosuppressive drug was found to considerably inhibit mTOR activity. Past clinical trials recently showed considerable lifespan extension in multiple animal models and will likely work in humans. It’s one of the too drugs found in the ITP trials (1). If I’m not wrong, they are even starting trials now and new ones will come soon. That’s because, as the name implies, that enzyme is part of all mammals. Lots of people experiment with safe dose ranging from 5 to 10mg once a week and report lots of benefits, few side effects (doses aren't as high as if used by organ transplant receivers). I’m in my 30s so I’m not willing to take any risks with those. I move, I eat a Mediterranean-ish diet, take Vitamin D3, K2 and Omega 3d and eat no sugar. But if I was past 60 I’d definitely ask my doctor. That being said, this is not radical life extension. That would likely be possible with upcoming therapies like partial reprogramming or senolytics. But it definitely is promising and will possibly help living a longer and healthier life if repurposed for other diseases than simply immunosuppression. (1) https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/dab/interventions-testing-program-itp https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/dab/interventions-testing-p...

wtetzner 4y ago
> (some) reasons behind the longevity of many of those centenarians have been identified: low mTOR activity and high omega 3 intake. I wonder how true this is, given that carbs trigger mTOR harder and longer than protein, and the Mediterranean diet seems pretty high-carb. In any case, if you're worried about mTOR, intermittent fasting is probably the simplest life-style change you can make.
- arboghast 4y ago
  Never heard of that. References? Either way, I agree that IF is the best inhibitor of mTOR. My guess is that there is much we don’t know still about the effects of Rapamycin and mTOR itself. Clearly mTOR inhibition extends lifespan considerably in mammals, but we also know that protein intake is crucial to retain muscle mass in old age. Seems like a double edged sword. Question is, using rapamycin, can you still consume adequate protein amounts and retain muscle mass?

standardUser 4y ago

"Research shows that attending faith-based services 4 times per month will add 4 to 14 years of life expectancy." No, it will not.

wizofaus 4y ago

Wasn't there some study that showed one of the main reasons the average life expectancy in Okinawa was so high was because many people had just made up their date of birth after records were destroyed in the war in order to maximize government benefits etc.?

svnt 4y ago
There is also incentive to lie about meat consumption as it is frequently evidence of status.

pwpw 4y ago

Further factors not discussed here that I think bear importance are gun and automobile use in these cultures. Speaking for America strictly, guns and cars account for a significant number of deaths. I wonder how those two factors look in these communities.

n0th3r-curious 4y ago

Thanks for sharing! I wish they teach this right in high school, so they can focus on healthier life choices (instead of intoxicants).

mesozoic 4y ago

Summarized it for myself and others maybe 1 Move naturally. All these activities were not widely done up to 100 years ago. I'd expect they're not much worse so just get exercise. 2 Purpose. Sure good advice have a reason to live 3 Downshift. relax and don't be a workaholic check 4 80% Rule. effectively intermittent fasting? 5 Plant slant. already disproved by other comments. anti meat propaganda 6 Wine @ 5. but is this causal or just correlational, probably goes with downshift above 7 Belong. Really seems this is just a subpart of social (below) and purpose (above) 8 Loved ones first. Free elder care is going to add years on it's own. Can try to find that other ways but get cared for when you're old. 9 Right tribe. create peer pressure to promote positive habits

mbrochh 4y ago

It's because of polyphenols from goat/sheep milk/cheese.

needle0 4y ago

Meanwhile, Okinawa has consistently had some of the nation's lowest COVID vaccination rates and worst per-population infection numbers since the start of the pandemic.

Py-o7 4y ago

My understanding is Buettner is a story teller who doesn't know much about science. His 'findings' are then often portrayed as having some scientific basis but really are much more comparable to 'case studies' in business school-- there's potentially some insight but there's a huge dose of arbitrariness (and lack of rigor) introduced by the author. In addition to survivorship bias and random variation issues (esp with isolated population's genetic) my understanding is there are arguably many more 'blue zones' than 5; but Buettner chose those 5 as they fit a narrative he wanted to give. E.g IIRC there is a town in Sweden that has very high rate of 90 plus years olds and centenarians, etc. but their dietary (and perhaps climate) pattern didn't fit the story Buettner wanted to tell so he left it out.