Blue Zones, where people reach age 100 at 10 times greater rates
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
"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
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.
The main differences I'd say from growing up with local food compared now with other international food is the extra use of olive oil (vs other oils or butter), that normally in our food it's easier to tell where the ingredients came from vs some other more processed diets, extra bread/wheat use, and that even when we eat meat, it's not a "meat fest" like American bbq, it's normally accompanied with other food. And of course the use of local ingredients, which is particular to our diet but I'd guess most "regional diets" have this in common (with their particular ingredients).
No. They think it's less meat-heavy than the typical American diet. (Or less of a "meat fest," I guess you could say.)
From the Mayo Clinic[0]:
"Plant-based foods, such as whole grains, vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices, are the foundation of the diet. Olive oil is the main source of added fat.
"Fish, seafood, dairy and poultry are included in moderation. Red meat and sweets are eaten only occasionally."
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...
You could consider in the same way as the explanation for altruism - that families and communities who can rely on helpful old people to raise the children perform better and out-compete families/communities without that resource.
We should also consider that any dietary pressure will have only existed for at most a few thousands of years which, in evolutionary terms, 1000 generations perhaps, is basically nothing.
If they want to reproduce, don't they have to search outside their tribe for a sperm/egg donor and possibly surrogate? So at least 50% or more of their reproductive health comes from outside the tribe?
You’re speaking to modern times. Rebeccu, for instance, is a gorgeous town abandoned by Sardinians in the 14th century because of famine. Furthermore, the children of a famished mother are less likely to survive to reproductive age, and a family whose elderly died of famine will be less stable than one with multi-generational structures in place. These prenatal, neonatal and group selection dynamics bias the dice.
Bugs might reproduce primarily constrained by their LDL uptake but humans are far more complex.
Ireland https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/22/northern... Netherlands https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/15/netherla... Belgium https://www.brusselstimes.com/251313/government-advisors-pro...
No, this is not true.
Even if the people ate meat there at the same proportion as a modern city dweller did: no hormones, probably orders of magnitude less toxins, traces of pharmaceuticals etc.
A lifestyle that doesn't know many sources of anxiety or stress and includes daily physical activity (walking instead of driving for a start) and an air quality opposite that of any big city just remove a lot of sources of what mostly kills people that could live longer otherwise.
Heart disease, cancer, stroke and (possibly) Alzheimer's disease.
The Mediterranean diet also means you can strike diabetes off the list.
Following WWII, my gruncle lived in Africa as his skin grafts wouldn't take in the British climate. He was like a patchwork quilt of grafts following his plane being shot down. Most white expats in Africa got nose cancer from the sun eventually. He moved back eventually, but had stayed out of the sun and never got nose cancer.
I can tell when I'm eating American beef because it stinks. As in there's literally a hint of feces in the smell and flavor. Pork also has an indescribably foul taste. I was born and raised in America and avoided mammal meat quite a bit because I couldn't stand the foulness. It wasn't until I moved out of the country that I realized beef and pork don't have to taste awful.
I can still tell immediately when I'm eating an imported piece of US beef. People I know who've traveled to American and find out that I'm American often mention the foulness of US meat whenever the topic of US food comes up (without me mentioning it).
Some people probably don't notice it or they're so acclimated to it that it tastes good. But when I see "finest US beef" on a menu, I'm ordering local chicken. And definitely not US chicken since that stuff is pumped full of saline and "flavor enhancers" to the point it looks like a breast implant.
in Paris you get better quality meat for 30-35$. and if you put 65$ you get something out of this world.
Both of these are probably true but the latter is more likely the significant margin.
Also may be worth noting the type of meat: e.g. the Sicilian staple I'm most familiar with myself is spleen.
No, it really isn't.
Many of them can't accept studies which prove that a good life can sometimes also come out from what they view as a "sinful" behavior.
Old Italians never saw meat eating and alcohol consumption as a negative aspect of life and enjoyed it just because it was part of their culture.
And, against all these calvinist principles, they still enjoyed a pretty long life.
Of course I understand that the antibiotic and and heavy metal infested meat and fish we eat is way less healthy then the meat our ancestors would eat.
If you live in modern day north europe the typical meat and dairy you get is heavily polluted and often processed. You can get veggies, fruits, seeds, nuts, legumes, mushrooms all year round. You can be fully nutrient complete based on the and skip the toxins in meat and dairy (and i forgot fish, especially sea fish is usually very toxic with mercury nowadays).
The gold standard tool is cronometer.com; try to make a diet there with only plant/fungi source and you probably only lack some b12 (which we used to get from drinking untreated surface water).
Saying we need animal products is simply not backed up by science. You are commenting on a book that has shown that some of the healthiest+longlived groups of people on the planet are vegan or near-vegan (okinawa and the adventists in calif).
What you sprout is unfounded "meat is needed for a balanced diet" propaganda. The plant based diet is backed by lots of research.
Combine that with the fact that nutrients from vegetables are not as easily accessible by our bodies, meaning that for some people with digestion problems it could cause dangerous deficiencies.
And last but not least, yes meat can be contaminated or polluted, so you should be very careful when choosing your cuts. But the same can be said about vegs and fruits I'm afraid:
"European citizens have been exposed to a dramatic rise in the frequency and intensity of residues of the most toxic pesticides on fruits and vegetables sold in the EU. This report and its primary conclusion contradict official claims that toxic pesticides use is declining and that food residue levels are under control. This report also exposes a complete failure by Member States and the European Commission to implement EU Regulation and protect consumers. "
https://www.pan-europe.info/sites/pan-europe.info/files/publ...
The majority of meat eaters also have vitamin and micronutrient deficiencies, I don't think plant based diets are the issue here but general culture. Bread and salt have iodine added, but when B12 gets added to plant milks it's suddenly "supplemented". No, most diets have vitamins supplemented, and most western people are having sub optimal diets.
Toxins are bad. But all research has shown that persistent toxins are much more common in animal products than in plant foods. In some German research they found glyphosate concentrations were lowest in vegetarians and vegans.
For example, Dan Buettner (the author of Blue Zones) suggests that Okinawans eat a 98% plant based diet which is...I won't say "fraudulent" because I think it's possible it's an honest mistake but it's definitely not "correct" at all. It's based off of some sketchy anecdotal accounts of WWII starvation diets where the only ate potatoes. Western centenarian researchers and health gurus repeated that factoid a bunch and it became "the okinawan diet is basically a potato-heavy vegan diet" in some twisted game of telephone.
In actuality both modern and ancient Okinawans have the highest meat consumption in Japan. Lard is the go-to frying oil even for vegetable dishes. The largest proportion of calories come from animal products. The Okinawan diet is a high fat, high carb, moderately high meat diet whose main "secret" is conscious portion restriction (the local "eat until you are 80% full" mantra). They do eat plenty of fish too, just not as much as the mainlanders (the idea that the okinawan diet is low in fish is crazy because the okinawans have a super unique and proud local history of fishing and seafood foraging traditions).
Idk about production methods, but am forced to eat vegetables due to a medical condition. First concern, it is still not healthy after half a year and few consultants. Second, all highly available fruits and vegetables are so identical piece-wise that their semi-synthetic origin isn’t even a question to me, please correct me if I’m wrong. I think that access to really healthy/natural vegetables is as expensive and nontrivial as to healthy meat. I even know where I can get healthy meat in bulk (village economies), but have no idea where to start with plants.
I dont undertstand this.
> but have no idea where to start with plants
I'm willing to help, please send me a message (hncies@altmails.com).
Correlation is not science. It has its place in science but it's pretty limited tool. Sardinian research shows the longest living people there are meat eaters.
There's even a solid reason to believe that most of your "heavy research" if based on fake science: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/blue-zones-diet-speculation...
Why did I say your comment is ridiculous, because it simply is for anyone who has basic understanding of macro and micro nutrients and their presence in food. Especially amino acids. Plant based diet may work only if you are an office worker with minimum activity and access to synthetic vitamins.
Majority of pro-vegan drives are ideologically charged or have business intent behind them.
Nutrition beyond basics is freakishly complex and nuanced. There is no place for blanked statements such as "meat is bad" here.
And some smokers live long lives, we should look at these things not as isolated anecdotes but as risks on population levels.
>Nutrition beyond basics is freakishly complex and nuanced. There is no place for blanked statements such as "meat is bad" here.
Or "meat good", for that matter.
Any citations? I have one for your with a different evidence: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/whats-the-bee....
"People from the anglosphere comes with their own idea of health, which is for the most part originated by their past religious idea of purity more than rock solid science. Many of them can't accept studies which prove that a good life can sometimes also come out from what they view as a "sinful" behavior.
Old Italians never saw meat eating and alcohol consumption as a negative aspect of life and enjoyed it just because it was part of their culture.
And, against all these calvinist principles, they still enjoyed a pretty long life."
Thanks, I have admit that imagining an early 1900 shepherd "following a fad diet" made me laugh.
In the mountain areas is typical to eat sheep and on the costal area is typical to eat fish
By the way, I am also under the impression that he doesn't mention that Okinawans eat, on average, way more Spam than their less Blue-Zoney(R) counterparts.
- 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.
The only part of italy under rule of northern european countries was the northeastern portions which were part of the Austrian empire (if you consider austria as northern european, which it usually isn't)
Sicily was last under "northern european" control in the 13th century
...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.
This is where I think the article loses its credibility significantly.
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.
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.
BTW the anti-cancer component of sea food is Iodine.
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.
That doesn't sound genetic.
So is it genetic or dietary?
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.
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.”
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.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v2
“Supercentenarian and remarkable age records exhibit patterns indicative of clerical errors and pension fraud”
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.
My family left when I was a teenager, and I never looked back -- but I'm writing to say that at least the Loma Linda site isn't nonsense.
That seems to explain incredible longevity also- if it basically doesn't actually happen, then instances of it are therefore actually instances of error/fraud.
100 years ago is 1922. Perhaps the 100 year old person in the 70s is hard to believe, but 1922 is well into major bureaucracy existing, and where it is harder to just make up a person. There are of course loads of stories of identity fraud and the like, but by the time you would want to execute the fraud (I guess in your 40s?) you're looking at trying to do ID fraud in the 1960s.
For the super extreme cases, it maybe feels worth trying to pull this trick off. But at one point we have confirmed that getting to 100 is a thing.
Although in this case the paper's authors did attempt to account for such errors.
While I've also conjectured in the past that at least a good chunk of extreme supercentenarians are due to anagraphical errors if not outright fraud, I do not think that the paper support the thesis well.
For starter they do not have a global model, it seems that they handpicked different statistics for different areas that support their thesis (they do not even show anything concrete for Japan).
Regarding Sardinia, their numbers seem actually wrong: looking at the raw Istat data the numbers for 55 year life expectancy for the Sardinian provinces seem in line with the rest of Italy (95-96%) putting Sardinia somewhere in the middle of the (quite tight) Italian distribution.
It is possible that the researcher averaged the data over a longer period of time that I bothered to look, but the paper doesn't discuss the methodology.
Their fitting, p value not withstanding, also seem a bit adventurous; the fact that all and almost only Sardinian provinces are extreme outliers should have been a tell. The rest of the Italian provinces are in a tight uniform cluster.
Sardinia, except for a very brief period in the mid 2010s,has only 4 provinces, so it is possible that messed up their data extraction (they show 8 provinces).
Also Sardinia is not particularly poorer than the rest of Southern Italy and actually has a lower crime rate (which they suggest but not outright state is a factor).
A better paper would probably try to build a single model for Japan, Italy and US using actual mortality, crime and poverty rates.
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).
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.
Those are bits I know. This is not a rebuttal of anything. I'm simply unfamiliar with some of your points.
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
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.
There are many more studies linking diet and health.
Here is a non-profit presenting them.
And so... 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/
And of course, you need a modestly astroturfed Wikipedia article... 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
Why shouldn't a person who believes they discovered some phenomenon name it, write books and give talks on it?
And when a researcher this fanatically believes in their own research, were they properly free of biases going into the research? Is writing the book the consequence of amazing research results, or did they plan to write the book from the start (maybe seeing it as the only way to make investment into the research worthwhile)?
I'd say the motivation to name a phenomenon and make a mark in the science history might be much higher and more widespread then to sell a book.
Science cannot depend on scientists being unbiased about their work. It has to depend on verification, reproduction of experiments, meta analysis and so on.
Maintaining general credibility typically requires not overstating your claims, especially when dealing with sparse data.
Publishing a single paper and then making money on promoting lifestyle changes based on your discovery is not science, and would be (I would say correctly) side-eyed by many scientists. The author’s credibility is now inexorably bound up with a single statement that has been reduced to marketing.
A common thread I see in discussions about age and about weight gain is about how a lot of it is determined by genetics. If you are trying to sell a diet book, are you going to dig into the genetics part a lot? Probably not![0]
Flavors of this exist in all domains, of course, and it's not that the causal relation is "writing a book on the effect makes the research bad". But when you show up with a problem and the solution in one package, there is a question about whether this is research or whether this is a sales pitch (likely something in between).
[0]: not taking a position on the actual veracity of the genetics back-and-forth.
"Registered trade mark"?!
> In 2004, Dan Buettner, CEO of Blue Zones LLC, was determined to uncover the specific aspects of lifestyle and environment that led to longevity.
You could have just read that
Isn't the point of starting a business to make money off a product that is useful to people and makes their lives better, hence people willing to trade their money for that product? If healthy living can be a product, what's wrong with monetizing it?
I think the problem is that there is an obvious incentive for the author to achieve research findings that support their enterprise, and ignore the facts that are contrary. It's an opening for corruption/conflict-of-interest.
That's not to say that it's not possible that they are both correct in their findings and able to make money off it, but it does reduce their credibility.
Who's advice do you take more seriously, the guy with a horse in the race, or the guy without?
Charging money to provide value under conditions where it's a proven and known means to add value is not controversial. But merely virtue signaling on something you can't prove is a common tactic of con artists.
See: Theranos, for example.
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 -
"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.
That seems a little of a stretch to find commonalities.
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.
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.
Several countries on this list are "low" trust societies?" so the data could be explained very well with it.
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-l...
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/full...
1. similar latitudes - not too hot but definitely not cold
2. proximity to the sea
3. low sugar diet
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.
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.
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-p...
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.
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?
Not many people are going to survive catching covid 20 times in their 80s and 90s.
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.
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.
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.
[0] https://hackaday.com/2019/08/01/abraham-walds-problem-solvin...
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
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
2. Carbs are unfairly vilified. Unless you are doing something very particular like keto or you are a powerlifter or something then a big majority your diet should be carbs. You need just a bit of fat and a bit of protein. But not all carbs are created equal. They probably aren't slamming back a liter of coke a day.
If you're active, you probably want to be eating your carbs.
The difference may be that the variance is not that high. 16% of Americans binge drink [2], which drags the average up - a significant plurality doesn't drink at all. The truth in this case could be consistency. No binge drinkers, a consistent level of wine purchasing indicating a high level of wealth in the community.
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/12/28/ho...
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".
Conversely, low(er) caloric intake relative to expenditure being probably good has been scientific consensus for many decades.
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.
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
> 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.
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.
I’m wondering what confounder is behind this
No, it will not.
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
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.
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.
It's plausible that the faith-based stuff is just a decent proxy for actually having a functional community and community support.
Going to a community event on a regular basis is a way to meet people and build relationships.
Faith is a way to incentivize going to a community event on a regular basis, and faith communities provide quite a lot of the supply of community events.
I've been lucky to live for the last 10 years in a place* where it's easy to form lasting friendships with like-minded, earnest people. For me, I know I'm in the right place when I have friends with whom I can share my insecurities, and they can share theirs, and there's no judgment.
From here I think it's just a matter of prioritizing community whenever it's time to move next, whether it's seeking out groups of friends from our little diaspora or making new friends. That makes sense to do whether I have a partner or not.
(*never expected that Beijing would be so great in this way. I don't know if the expat scene in other major cities is similar; maybe it's just because the community is small here and the city attracts people who prefer not to coast through life)
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.
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".
(In case it's changed, the headline when I read it: "Blue Zones, where people reach age 100 at 10 times greater rates")
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!
People were just keeping dead relatives "alive" for the social security or rent control.
And I loved the stories when the government introduced a new land registry (based on reality) and the chaos the ensured, as suddenly lot of land was owned 2 or more times, officially unknown villages were officially discovered ...
I would definitely question the validity of the historic birth register, a lot.
For anyone curious:
> In Christianity, a name day is a tradition in many countries of Europe and the Americas, among other parts of Christendom.[1] It consists of celebrating a day of the year that is associated with one's baptismal name, which is normatively that of a biblical character or other saint.[2] […]
> The custom originated with the Christian calendar of saints: believers named after a saint would celebrate that saint's feast day. Within Christianity, name days have greater resonance in areas where the Christian denominations of Catholicism, Lutheranism and Orthodoxy predominate.[1]
Birthdays might not be accurate due to difficulties in registering births, civil wars and fascist coups (they burnt every record so that people from, for example, Macedonia had to take Greek names) but the difference from on paper age and actual age is on average a few months off (plus or minus, so they balance in the end).
They also care a lot about celebrating birthdays with very big family gatherings.
On other note: if we believe that somewhere they kept false records of births, what should make us believe that in other parts of the World they kept perfect records?
What should make us think that birth records in Azerbaijan, Colombia, Ohio or Fiji are more accurate?
Could you provide some links expanding on this? Or a phrase to Google? Sounds fascinating.
As an anecdote my grandfather born in remote mountain village in mainland Greece in the 1900 was actually registered by his father having been born in 1906 as to avoid being drafted as long as possible to fight in the multiple wars fought at the time. So birth records and certificates from that time are not really trustworthy.
Now that they know about these places, scientists have spent a fair amount of time studying and publishing about them.
On the flip side and more seriously. From your link: "Officials have found that hundreds of the missing would be at least 150 years old if still alive." That's just silly, Japan celebrates their oldest on a regular basis. The false claims would and are scrutinized, not just by Japan.
The link is from 2010. My point being yes, the absurd claims are investigated and debunked. It's a known problem.
Incredibly embarrassing for all involved if your bet is correct. None of them considered that possibility?
And what steps did the study take to make sure the results aren't just random noise?
Well shit.
Or does it mean always 4 and never more than 14?
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-resid...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellsworth_Wareham
https://adventist.news/news/blue-zones-icon-jetton-dies-at-1...
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.