The one thing that this paper does is demolish the claim that people living in these blue regions are living much longer than average.
According to the Blue Zone researchers, some of the Blue Zones are disappearing because the generations that came after the oldest live differently and much shorter. By differently, their eating, body movement, and other characteristics are different. Looking at the whole population doesn't segment for differences between generation. So, nuance is lost.
In some areas, like the Blue Zone in the US other research is finding the people who live there are healthier than the surrounding populations. Then you have to ask, what area do you average over for your measurement and statistics?
This is a big thing that I didn't seen in the paper this article is based on. It seemed like the author was comparing adjusted numbers from the blue zone with unadjusted numbers from non-blue zones. Without comprehensive investigation of error rates and even different error mechanisms by locale, it seems like a poor comparison to make. Comparing life expectancies is better than comparing outlier centarian numbers, but you are right that it depends on what other areas we are using as the baseline or average (and I take it a step farther by saying it depends on what error adjustments need to be made to both data sets).
The whole blue zone idea is a bit misapplied though. These population studies find new variables to look at. Then you have targeted studies to investigate thos variables. Discrediting the centarian numbers doesn't discredit the findings on stuff like a mederteranian diet having better health outcomes than the standard western diet, etc.
I state this to point out that there are other variables at plan than just changes in record keeping.
Also, please show reliable studies that show that western diets lead to more unhealthy outcomes.
Compared to what, third world diets with their insufficient nutrition and starvation?!
Furthermore food studies are notoriously badly done.
You are, of course, free to speculate that there are other issues related to longevity than those considered in the study in question, but even if these suppositions are correct, in no way would this justify saying the paper being discussed here misses the point. The point is that the blue zones study is too flawed to support any definite position, which includes both its own conclusions and the more nuanced issues about which you speculate.
Except, the author doesn't discredit specific claims of the Blue Zones. For example, the Blue Zones might take an area and state there is a higher rate of centurions who are healthy and capable. The counter to that might be the average life span in the region isn't an outlier. In one case you're looking at a targeted subgroup and the other your looking at the population as a whole. One observations doesn't disprove another.
This is just one example. It's why I call the work misleading.
- There's strong incentives to misreport in these areas (the compelling example from Sardinia was that the person is alive for the purposes of pension fraud, but really dead)
- People who are incentivized to report people being older than they are will do so
And the inductive case relies on data, which is presumed to be totally flawed because of the misaligned incentives.
Of course they would say that. But if these zones are simultaneously recording births better and reducing welfare fraud, and if 80%+ of the centenarians either had no birth certificate or were actually dead, I'm going to need more than "but they're also changing lifestyles" as an explanation.
We're talking here about unusually long life, not just "he's still going strong at 85" long. No one here is arguing that people who are active and eat right don't have a longer healthspan, but that's a concept that's provable without the so-called Blue Zones.
This presupposes that the previous generation was in fact living longer, which the linked study showed is not the case at all.
So yeah, it's great the errors in the data have been called out it's a bit surprising that the author interviewed is so angry in the article. I guess it's fitting that he got the Ig nobel, since this correction doesn't have any applicable impact to end result, which were additonal studies investigating the individual suggestions/variables, such as specific dietary practices.
It would be different if these were new studies, but this is all in the past. This new finding of unreliability doesn't have any impact, hence the Ig nobel instead of the real nobel.
And the ignobel isn't supposed to be that the research had no impact. Is it?
The Ig nobel is a satirical award for trivial achievements.
The part of the wikipedia article you are referencing is an inference from a particular article: "A September 2009 article in The National titled "A noble side to Ig Nobels" says that, although the Ig Nobel Awards are veiled criticism of trivial research, history shows that trivial research sometimes leads to important breakthroughs."
The definition of "blue zones" never had anything to do with average longevity. The entire concept is predicated on unusual numbers of centenarians, not long average life spans. In fact, as is pointed out in the Ig Nobel winning paper, Blue Zone places like Sardinia, Okinawa, and Ikaria have always been paradoxical: they are supposed to have higher numbers of unusually long lived people, but have shorter average lifespans than the rest of their countries. The paradox goes away with the finding that the count of centenarians is incorrect. There's nothing left to the Blue Zone concept without the centenarians.
"Ig Nobel Prize Winner Dr. Elena Bodnar demonstrates her invention (a brassiere that can quickly convert into a pair of protective face masks)"
Some of the awards are straight up criticism of the research, like for bunk homeopathy stuff. It was awarded for the prank paper used in the Sokal affair, in which it's definitely praise of what Sokal did. Sometimes it is awarded for a bizarre but funny thing from something being studied in another more serious context like the magnetic frog levitation paper.
(Leaving discussion of the ignobel to the other thread.)
Similarly, if there are places that have debunked this paper, link one. It is a genuinely interesting topic to read about.
We know we need certain essential nutrients to prevent deficiencies, an energy intake surplus causes weight gain, and a few substances like trans fat are problematic. Beyond that, people seem to be making claims and recommendations not backed by hard evidence and frequently confuse correlation with causation.
You might be interested to look into some of the twin studies that put twins on similar exercise regimens and differening diets. They seem to be the strongest evidence possible for this sort of thing. Hardly what I would call junk science.
And I have searched on my own before. Never found much of anything reliable or actionable.
"And I have searched on my own before. Never found much of anything reliable or actionable."
Basically a tautology.