5 ms·

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

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?
  - Gatsky 4y ago
    These days lung biopsies are performed with CT scan guidance (CT was only invented in 1974, widespread use came much later), endobronchial ultrasound (post 2000), or surgical exploration. Minimally invasive surgical techniques have only been around for 20 years. Patients sometimes cough up cancer cells in sputum, so a definitive diagnosis could have been done that way. But faced with the prospect of a major surgical procedure, he or his doctors may have declined to pursue that, particularly as there wasn’t really any treatment. I don’t have the necessary evidence to say for sure, but misdiagnosis is at least an order of magnitude more likely than spontaneous/Ikarian lifestyle induced lung cancer regression.
renewiltord 4y ago
Literally every story about kooky shit is like this. If you walk around SF's Sunset District on a Sunday, you'll get like 5 flyers in 10 minutes telling you that with Falun Dafa you can cure leukemia or some such shit.
phkahler 4y ago
Japanese women have 1/8 the occurrence of breast cancer compared to American women. This changes when they relocate to the US. One study found the seafood diet to be a big factor. Most of these blue zone places are islands and coastal areas and the low meat intake mentioned probably doesnt consider fish a meat. BTW the anti-cancer component of sea food is Iodine.
- samatman 4y ago
  Yes, it changes, and rates are rising in Japan as well, but this much lower rate isn't dietary, it's genetic. Cancer is the leading cause of death in Japan. The Japanese are a long-lived people generally, whether in Brazil, Hawaii, or Japan. It's not diet; Japanese in Hawaii have higher rates of obesity and don't live quite as long as a result.
  - blackoil 4y ago
    >Japanese in Hawaii have higher rates of obesity and don't live quite as long as a result So is it genetic or dietary?
    - samatman 4y ago
      The breast cancer? Genetic. The longevity? Genetic. Dying earlier from unhealthy lifestyle? You guessed it, genetic! That particular genetic response is common to the human species. A person of a given ancestry has a healthy weight for their height, and exceeding it will shorten their lifespan on the average. Metabolism is genetic, though, no doubt about it. A different species might simply be unable to put on excess adipose tissue, eating too much would lead to purging from one or both ends. A different species might be cold-blooded. A different species might have an exoskeleton, which precludes obesity for mechanical reasons.
      - blackoil 4y ago
        Isn't that equivalent of saying, dying from drowning is not because of environment but genetic as a different species will very happily take dissolved oxygen from the water, technically true but useless analysis.
feerfreeflight 4y ago
Jarring that after years of lurking HN I come across a reference to someone I know personally. While I can’t speak to the legitimacy of the original cancer diagnosis, I can say that family oral history from long before the Blue Zone popularization is filled with this kind of story. Immigrants (usually first or second generation) returning to the island to get well. Anecdotal to be sure, and there are stories in the same vein about many old country birthplaces, but the supposed healthful qualities of the island have a long history, stretching back into antiquity. Still anecdotal but more personal: the original immigrant generation that I descend from all died nonagenarians or over 100. There seems to be diminishing returns on that sadly, as each successive generation’s life expectancy seems to be more “normal.”

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?
- Gatsky 4y ago
  These days lung biopsies are performed with CT scan guidance (CT was only invented in 1974, widespread use came much later), endobronchial ultrasound (post 2000), or surgical exploration. Minimally invasive surgical techniques have only been around for 20 years. Patients sometimes cough up cancer cells in sputum, so a definitive diagnosis could have been done that way. But faced with the prospect of a major surgical procedure, he or his doctors may have declined to pursue that, particularly as there wasn’t really any treatment. I don’t have the necessary evidence to say for sure, but misdiagnosis is at least an order of magnitude more likely than spontaneous/Ikarian lifestyle induced lung cancer regression.

renewiltord 4y ago

Literally every story about kooky shit is like this. If you walk around SF's Sunset District on a Sunday, you'll get like 5 flyers in 10 minutes telling you that with Falun Dafa you can cure leukemia or some such shit.

phkahler 4y ago

Japanese women have 1/8 the occurrence of breast cancer compared to American women. This changes when they relocate to the US. One study found the seafood diet to be a big factor. Most of these blue zone places are islands and coastal areas and the low meat intake mentioned probably doesnt consider fish a meat. BTW the anti-cancer component of sea food is Iodine.

samatman 4y ago
Yes, it changes, and rates are rising in Japan as well, but this much lower rate isn't dietary, it's genetic. Cancer is the leading cause of death in Japan. The Japanese are a long-lived people generally, whether in Brazil, Hawaii, or Japan. It's not diet; Japanese in Hawaii have higher rates of obesity and don't live quite as long as a result.
- blackoil 4y ago
  >Japanese in Hawaii have higher rates of obesity and don't live quite as long as a result So is it genetic or dietary?
  - samatman 4y ago
    The breast cancer? Genetic. The longevity? Genetic. Dying earlier from unhealthy lifestyle? You guessed it, genetic! That particular genetic response is common to the human species. A person of a given ancestry has a healthy weight for their height, and exceeding it will shorten their lifespan on the average. Metabolism is genetic, though, no doubt about it. A different species might simply be unable to put on excess adipose tissue, eating too much would lead to purging from one or both ends. A different species might be cold-blooded. A different species might have an exoskeleton, which precludes obesity for mechanical reasons.
    - blackoil 4y ago
      Isn't that equivalent of saying, dying from drowning is not because of environment but genetic as a different species will very happily take dissolved oxygen from the water, technically true but useless analysis.

feerfreeflight 4y ago

Jarring that after years of lurking HN I come across a reference to someone I know personally. While I can’t speak to the legitimacy of the original cancer diagnosis, I can say that family oral history from long before the Blue Zone popularization is filled with this kind of story. Immigrants (usually first or second generation) returning to the island to get well. Anecdotal to be sure, and there are stories in the same vein about many old country birthplaces, but the supposed healthful qualities of the island have a long history, stretching back into antiquity. Still anecdotal but more personal: the original immigrant generation that I descend from all died nonagenarians or over 100. There seems to be diminishing returns on that sadly, as each successive generation’s life expectancy seems to be more “normal.”