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This doesn't really address Loma Linda, California, the Adventist blue zone. The researcher's criticism of Loma Linda isn't that people don't live longer there
by brushfoot 2y ago
This doesn't really address Loma Linda, California, the Adventist blue zone.
The researcher's criticism of Loma Linda isn't that people don't live longer there; it's that Adventist Health purchased Dan Buettner's marketing company Blue Zones LLC in 2020.
Adventists are teetotalers, so he questions why they'd want to be associated with the Blue Zones guideline of drinking "every day at twice the NHS heavy drinking guidelines."
Which is a fair question -- but it doesn't have anything to do with whether Loma Linda is an area with greater longevity.
- neaden 2y agoThis seems pretty explainable by Seventh Day Adventists' behavioral factors leading to increased life, a group with very little smoking and drinking living longer isn't surprising.
- vitorfblima 2y agoFrom the paper: For example, the Centres for Disease Control generated an independent estimate of average longevity across the USA: they found that Loma Linda, a Blue Zone supposedly characterised by a ‘remarkable’ average lifespan 10 years above the national average, instead has an unremarkable average lifespan29 (27th-75th percentile; Fig S6).
- brushfoot 2y agoThis misses the forest for the trees. The CDC looked at average life expectancy in Loma Linda across all demographics. Purely geographical and on average. The blue zones focused on the greater longevity specifically of Adventists in Loma Linda. It wasn't a question of whether living inside the municipal boundaries of Loma Linda automatically conferred some special health benefits -- clearly it doesn't. It was, "Why is there an unusually high concentration of outliers living here, and what behaviors cause them to live longer than average?"
- mcphage 2y ago> It was, "Why is there an unusually high concentration of outliers living here, and what behaviors cause them to live longer than average?" Blue Zones LLC also provided a set of answers to that question, and one of those answers (“drinking 1-2 glasses of wine per day”) is clearly not true in this case. And honestly, it’s just Bayesian statistics—if they present 5 data points, and 4 of those data points are floating somewhere between data errors and fraud, then odds are, that last data point is flawed somehow as well. Certainly they would need to do some extra work to prove that it isn’t.
- em500 2y agoSo first it was Sardinia, Okinawa, Ikaria, Loma Linda. Then it's not even Loma Linda but specifically Loma Linda Adventists. That looks like XKCD-level p-hacking https://www.xkcd.com/882/ https://www.xkcd.com/882/
- wpietri 2y agoYeah, if the point is really about Adventists, I think it's better made with statistics on them. Ditto teetotalers or vegetarians (Adventists are often both). Or if it's about studying individuals with long lifespans, then great, let's do that.
- ceejayoz 2y ago> This misses the forest for the trees. In a large enough forest, there's always one or two randomly weird trees.
- red-iron-pine 2y agoyeah but there isn't a cluster of 100 trees, all sharing the same religion. they are a cluster, the Adventists, that is.
- ceejayoz 2y agoBig enough forest - say, eight billion or so trees - there'll absolutely be 100 weird trees in a spot somewhere. If Adventists have cracked the code for longevity, you'd find their other congregations with similar benefits. Barring that, we're just p-hacking our way to a spurious conclusion.
- happymellon 2y agoIt does if you read it. Loma Linda residents don't have a notable longer life span than the other residents of California.
- brushfoot 2y agoThe idea wasn't that averaging out the lifespan of all Loma Linda residents, regardless of lifestyle, would yield a higher number than everywhere else. It was that there was an unusually high number of outliers living there, and the question was why. The CDC's average was purely geographic and irrespective of lifestyle, which is different.
- iamthejuan 2y agohttps://manna.amazingfacts.org/amazingfacts/website/medialibrary/documents/magazines/Amazing_Health_Magazine.pdf https://manna.amazingfacts.org/amazingfacts/website/medialib...
- iamthejuan 2y agoHere is probably why: https://manna.amazingfacts.org/amazingfacts/website/medialibrary/documents/magazines/Amazing_Health_Magazine.pdf https://manna.amazingfacts.org/amazingfacts/website/medialib...
- happymellon 2y agoWhat, thats its completely made up? > A slice of carrot looks much like the pupil, iris, and radiating lines of the human eye. Of course, science has demonstrated that carrots improve eye function. Seriously?