Are Blue Zones Real? Expert Challenges Longevity Data (Myth, Junk Science?)

Tico Times ^ | December 12, 2024

[nickcarraway]

Most of what we know about humans living to very old age is based on faulty data, including the science behind the “blue zones” famous for having a high proportion of people over 100, according to one researcher. The desire to live as long as possible has driven a booming lifestyle industry selling supplements, books, tech and tips to those wanting to learn the secrets of the world’s oldest people.

But Saul Justin Newman, a researcher at University College London’s Centre for Longitudinal Studies, said that most extreme old age data “is junk to a really shocking degree”. Newman’s research, which is currently being peer-reviewed, looked at data about centenarians and supercentenarians — people who live to 100 and 110 — in the United States, Italy, England, France and Japan.

Contrary to what one might expect, he found that supercentenarians tended to come from areas with poor health, high levels of poverty — and bad record-keeping. The true secret to extreme longevity seems to be to “move where birth certificates are rare, teach your kids pension fraud and start lying”, Newman said as he accepted an Ig Nobel prize, a humorous version of the Nobel, in September. Just one of many examples is Sogen Kato, who was thought to be Japan’s oldest living person until his mummified remains were discovered in 2010.It turned out he had been dead since 1978. His family was arrested for collecting three decades of pensions payments.

[nickcarraway]

Ping

[Uncle Miltie]

I take a wide variety of anti-oxidants. I get sick once for every four times my wife does.

[ClearCase_guy]

Dead people in the Blue Zones vote Democrat.

[nickcarraway]

Take as supplements, or eats as food?

[faithhopecharity]

I hear the Democrats have King Tut voting for them

[cgbg]

Yup—collecting benefits for dead people who have no death certificate can be a lucrative scam.

It works for rent control as well. Sneak dead grandma out of town with no death certificate and you can live in her rent-controlled apartment for decades.

Lol.

[faithhopecharity]

however, there are some very well documented factors that can and do extend lifespans.

see:
https://adventisthealthstudy.org/studies/AHS-1/findings-longevity
and
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/648593#google_vignette

note that it is NOT necessary at all to agree with or to join the SDA church to simply read and maybe decide to adopt their health plan. so please please no religious flames, ok?

thanks

[Pres Raygun]

There has been some research that epigenetics, which are regulatory DNA that regulates gene expression in response to environmental factors, can lead to long life times. Near starvation in one generation can for instance lead to epigenetic changes that result in long lifetimes for the next generation. My mother and several of her sisters of Norwegian descent have lived to their late nighties with one sister dying at 103 and two of the younger sisters still living at 94 and 98. It is a bit of a curse though, since they all end their lives with some degree of dementia.

[dangus]

I wonder how this affects longevity statistics.

[House Atreides]

There’s a blood pressure (rilmenidine) that has similar longevity effects. I’d like to replace my current BP med with it but, unfortunately, it’s not yet approved for sale in the US and I’m not going to fly to Europe periodically to pick up a prescription.

https://www.sciencealert.com/common-blood-pressure-drug-extends-lifespan-slows-aging-in-animals

[Uncle Miltie]

Mostly supplements plus apples and a big bowl of frozen organic blueberries every night.

Turmeric
Green Tea Extract (EGCG)
Grapeseed extract (I’m too thrifty to buy straight resveratrol)
NAC
Berberine
Spirulina
Quercetin C

Also, it feels like someone went through my brain and swept out all the stress, incipient headaches, and cobwebs. That plus 2 hours in the gym and I constantly feel like I must be on cocaine. Everything is cheery and bright and focused and energetic and I’m winning!

Wild.

[spintreebob]

Blue Zone must be true. Medicare and Medicaid are paying big bucks for seniors who have lived well beyond the notice published by the Funeral Home.

[spintreebob]

Try FOIA by state. How many payments to Nursing Homes for recipients older than the oldest person in that state.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I think I told people this a couple of decades ago. That a lot of the “really old people” data was from fraud.

[Bullish]

The supplement racket is a huge fraud. Most oral supplements are pissed right out. And that “balance of nature” guy is a lying sack of horse manure.