r/todayilearned • u/Brain_Aggravating • 1d ago
TIL that the Bluezone (the secret to longevity) is based on poor record keeping and not recording deaths; discovering this led to an igNobel award.
https://science.anu.edu.au/news-events/news/dr-saul-newman-has-uncovered-secret-living-110912
u/Postulative 23h ago
- Create hypothesis.
- Collect data supporting hypothesis.
- Profit.
- Someone comes along to test hypothesis.
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u/Sawses 15h ago
I've spent a considerable amount of time looking into longevity. I went to college with the explicit goal of getting into aging research, only to realize that we're probably 30 years away from actually attempting any meaningful longevity improvement beyond just longitudinal studies to figure out exactly why and how we die. I ended up selling my soul to big pharma both because they're all about increasing healthspan and also because they pay so, so much better than academia.
Most diets and general "lifestyle plans" are assholes trying to sell you something, and they dress it up as science. In reality, actually being healthy is simple and boring. Not easy, but simple. There are no hacks or secrets to longevity. Most of longevity is down to your genetics, and to reach your longevity potential you just have to dodge the stuff most likely to kill you otherwise. Decent diet, decent exercise, and keeping a preventative eye on the most common risk factors is all you really need to do. The goal is to prevent the descent into frailty as long as possible.
For example, my family's got pretty "good genes" in terms of longevity. No real cardiovascular issues even though we're a Southern family that subsists on lard, carbs, and general bad choices. Some minor connective tissue disorders run in the family leading to TMJ and some joint stability problems. That means I've got to maintain a certain level of muscle mass to prevent joint injuries. Basically, for the men in my family, they either drink themselves to death by 70 or live to around 90-95.
Contrast with a good friend of mine. He's always having to watch his diet due to high blood pressure and a family history of heart disease, and he's got dementia in the family. He's in fantastic shape and despite that it's a pretty safe bet that I'll outlive him despite only being in modestly decent shape.
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u/Ire-Works 14h ago
Yup. Peter Attila's "Outlive" is a pretty good book about this. But also he went to Epstein Island so maybe check it out from the library instead of giving a sex pest money. If anyone had a better book to recommend about this subject I'd be interested.
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u/freckledass 4h ago
That was so disappointing to me. I had borrowed the book before the revelations, but still 😑 just a small correction, he's an Epstein buddy & home guest, not island guest
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u/PositiveLibrary7032 15h ago
What do you make of NAD is it worth buying?
I do realise most people who live long lives don’t exercise at the gym four times a week they move around more. Eat well and reduce risks. Is that about it regarding living a long life (and a bit of lick dodging a genetic bullet etc)?
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u/Sawses 14h ago
Oh, also to answer your second paragraph:
Realistically, for longevity the most important thing is avoiding lifestyles that lead to premature death. Obesity and the associated diabetes, excessive drinking/smoking, being very sedentary leading to massive loss of strength, flexibility, and balance, cancer-causing activities and lack of preventative screening, etc.
Basically, in terms of fitness you have a few components. You need strength/muscle mass, flexibility, cardiovascular/metabolic endurance, and bone and joint strength. For a sedentary office worker, 4x in the gym a week is probably about right for maintaining fitness in all those areas. That's to maximize your healthspan, though, which IMO is very important. When you get older, you begin a decline into frailty and the goal is to push that off as long as possible. It's the difference between being 65 and struggling to do household tasks and being 65 and going on 10-mile hikes with your friends.
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u/Sawses 14h ago
Are you talking about the metabolic component?
If so, here is a meta-study from 2023 looking into the state of the research. In short: Seems ineffectual but may help a little in some people for reasons not well understood. It is apparently safe, but up to you if it's worth the hassle and cost for pretty minimal gain.
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u/Oderus_Scumdog 16h ago
For anyone else who had never heard the term 'Bluezone':
Investigating the popular idea of “Blue Zones” – regions of the world like Okinawa (Japan), Sardinia (Italy) and Ikaria (Greece), where residents reportedly live very long, healthy, happy lives – he found the demographic data underpinning these extreme aging hotspots simply didn’t add up.
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u/Romboteryx 15h ago
I know in Japan there are several cases where the family simply hides the elder‘s death so they keep getting the pension money, because Japan has very different inheritance laws from anywhere else
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u/ironic-hat 15h ago
I also imagine there were quite a few instances of boys lying about their ages after WWII so they could work, especially if their fathers were killed.
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u/ImRightImRight 11h ago
And then how does that play out?
When the jig's up and the bureaucrats start asking questions, do they tell them "Please respect our grieving as unfortunately great great great grandma was completely eaten by a shark while swimming the channel yesterday"
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u/mickeyt1 10h ago
I’m guessing pension fraud doesn’t come from a place of thinking things all the way through
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u/Powerful-Parsnip 7h ago
I'm imagining some kind of weekend at Bernie's style situation where I rig Granny up with a system of ropes and pulleys and puppeteer her corpse.
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u/DAHFreedom 1h ago
The common denominator is very good old-age pensions and very bad birth records.
(It’s all 55 year-olds claiming to be 70 and then, oops we’re all “95” and don’t look a day past 70”
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u/BMPHaterNo1 23h ago
Interestingly, all of the reported ‘blue zones’ have or had strong incentives and methods to commit fraud by pretending someone was either much older than they are or still alive.
Japan and Greece being the best examples
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u/buuthole69 16h ago
Stavros Halkias straight up doesn’t believe the Greek blue zone exists because of how his Greek family moves lmao
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u/StinkyBrittches 16h ago
Haha, I was just going to say that too, "It is 100% people fudging the numbers to continue collecting Grandpa's pension money from the government."
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u/crop028 19 23h ago
If you look at the list of verifiable oldest people ever though, Japan really dominates. Not saying there isn't widespread fraud in these places that could inflate the average. Just that Japan is really a gold medalist for oldest person ever.
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u/drunk_haile_selassie 23h ago
In Japan a few years ago the government went out to check if the people over 100 and on a pension were still alive. 80% of them weren't.
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u/DerekB52 23h ago
But the 20% that were, were really impressive
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u/LovestoEatSandwiches 20h ago
And of those, 100% of them were alive
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u/h-v-smacker 13h ago
They lived so long because they survived fighting with those 80%, highlander-style.
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u/Seienchin88 21h ago
And as always we have Redditors posting some out of context statistic about Japan…
Japan did have a massive amount of people in their family register not registered as dead… that they found out themselves in 2010 as they just used their other statistics elderly with an active address and elderly receiving health checks… these statistics are also used for their life experience so the discovery of outdated family registry information had zero impact on Japanese life expectancy statistics as it wasn’t used for that.
But then again Japan is to blame for a lot of this misinformation as the Japanese press itself loved the one story of a deceased elderly still receiving pension money back in 2010 and it was a massive "oh there might be so many families scamming the government" story. It was mostly all BS though…
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u/Poglosaurus 22h ago
I found no source for that study.
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u/karmacarmelon 22h ago
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u/Poglosaurus 22h ago
That say nothing about 80% of Japan's centenarians being already dead.
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u/karmacarmelon 22h ago
It says there are only about 40,000 people over 100 with known addresses. That leaves 230,000 that are unaccounted for. Now,what do you think is more likely? An enormous amount of people who have lived in a highly developed nation for over 100 years are just missing, or that they're actually dead?
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u/Technorasta 15h ago
No, this is the whole point. These people’s age is generally not verifiable. In Japan, for example, even to this day there no birth certificates. And it is especially difficult to verify the age of someone born in Okinawa before WW2.
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u/RadiantHueOfBeige 9h ago
There are household registration documents or, in the case of my daughter, certificates of matters stated (出生届記載事項証明書) which are de-facto birth certificates by a different name. It contains the same info and is used the same way as a birth cert in the EU country I come from.
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u/Billy1121 16h ago
You right but their Blue Zone (Okinawa?) is apparently the Mississippi of Japan.
It consistently had terrible health stats in the modern era.
The question is whether it was poor record keeping or a shift away from the traditional diet
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u/Technorasta 15h ago
Okinawa is home to the highest density of steak restaurants in Japan by far. Also the highest rates of obesity and diabetes. This is the legacy of American occupation from 1945-1972.
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u/HawkThunderson 15h ago
People smoke more tobacco in many of the "blue zones". You would think that would be a giveaway.
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u/big-dal-tex 23h ago
What incentives and methods are u referring to?
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u/BMPHaterNo1 23h ago
Both are islands and as a result are usually exempt from many ‘in person’ checks against pensions, age related benefits or state schemes and similarly don’t have the most accurate long term record keeping.
In the specific case of the Hellenic Statistical Authority their record system was never cross referenced between inter-body changes until 2010. Meaning that if you were born before 1958 you could essentially be any age you wanted, or even dead, and never have to verify that with the state in any meaningful capacity.
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u/VinlandRocks 17h ago
I ain't listening to someone who holds Lance Stroll in high enough respect to be a profile pic.
/s
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u/Seienchin88 21h ago
Japan is not the case…
Everyone refers to a single case in 2010 of relatives living with a diseased elderly for many years that the government found out about and mix it with the fact that the family registry in Japan has outdated data about many elderly.
This however neither means Japan has massive elderly fraud nor does it mean that Japan doesn’t know how many elderly are alive… the life expectancy isn’t calculated by the family registries and Japan immediately could tell how many outdated entries there were as they just compared it to health check (which virtually every Japanese person does regularly) data and active addresses… which they use to establish life expectancy and not the family registry.
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u/MoonchanterLauma2025 22h ago
This reminds me of how the "haunting" of the Bermuda Triangle is just a bunch of nonsense. In actuality, the number of shipwrecks and ship disappearances in the area is statistically expectable for how much traffic the place has received since the advent of the British colonial age. I mean, why wouldn't some level of bad shit happen in the path of the Atlantic hurricane belt?
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u/1805trafalgar 16h ago
It leads me to wonder what percentage of "kids today" know or care about the "bermuda triangle mystery"?
I feel the peak of hype about it was the segment in the film Close Encounters when the missing aviators showed up. I feel a lot of young people won't even get that scene, since I never hear the Bermuda triangle mentioned anymore.
In the early 70's there were four things we were obsessed with: The loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, UFOs and the Bermuda Triangle. Only UFOs have remained as popular today.
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u/knarlywood 16h ago
… umm…quicksand!?
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u/theLastZebranky 15h ago edited 14h ago
My brother and I found a pool of quicksand once as kids.
The span was about five foot wide and we threw a rock about the size of a bowling ball into the middle, it slowly sank to hard bottom with a quarter of its diameter still above the surface.
So we never needed to try the life-saving tips the G.I. Joe PSA taught us about not struggling and trying to float on our backs
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u/Strelochka 16h ago
All of those are stupid and I’d take any of them in a heartbeat over the AI psychoses and gender wars that kids are getting fed now
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u/mrbananas 15h ago
My generations trash was superior to the new generations trash. /s.
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u/DuplexFields 14h ago
For GenX, I think the peak of Bermuda Triangle hype was the magician David Copperfield's TV special. I really didn't hear about it after that.
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u/Financial-Craft-1282 13h ago
They might not, and that's normal. If you read Frankenstein, you're probably missing out on a lot things that had cultural meaning at that time that have changed since. It's called context. That's why reading around something you're reading for fun is a good thing.
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u/Imrustyokay 14h ago
I remember my parents always telling me they Scuba Dove in the Bermuda Triangle. If I recall correctly, it got ever more lame every year, but I guess they wanted something more impressive than "We scuba dove in the Caribbean"...as though Scuba Diving itself isn't impressive enough. (I mean, can you Scuba Dive?)
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u/mrbananas 15h ago
The big death nail for the Bermuda Triangle was the sequels. The pacific Bermuda, the on land triangles, etc. Basically revealed that if you draw a big enough shape anywhere on the map with wilderness you will get a series of deaths and accidents and disappearance. As soon as there is a second Triangle doing "the same" the first stops being special. Shit happens is universal across the planet. Ships and planes getting lost on the ocean is universal
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u/1805trafalgar 15h ago
Bill Bryson says as much in his book about the Appalachian trail, A Walk in the Woods. In the book he dismisses the number of deaths that have taken place on the trail by saying if you drew a line the same length as the Appalachian trail through any two points in the Country you would get the same number of deaths or crimes or whatever.
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u/frausting 16h ago
Yeah the Bermuda Triangle stopped being mysterious the moment I learned where Bermuda is. You’re telling me that sometimes, especially before modern technology, ships that sailed through the Caribbean go lost? It’s not like a 2 mile zone. Bermuda is OUT there.
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u/Finn617 15h ago
If you’re a 70s TV producer, the Bermuda Triangle is a gift from heaven. If you’re lazy you just go film five minutes of ocean waves and slap spooky synth music over it; if you want to be more “authentic” you fly to Bermuda and write it off as a work expense. Win win.
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u/1805trafalgar 14h ago
I WISH I was some kind of broadcast tech guy responsible for throwing segments together so they could be aired quickly, and they assigned me a Bermuda Triangle job. What fun it would be and what a welcome relief from meaningless celebrity gossip.
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u/TsuDhoNimh2 16h ago
One of my mom's friends wrote a book about the Bermuda Triangle. He was a research librarian and pilot, so he went back to the source material of harbor records, insurance listings and other boring things.
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u/DoofusMagnus 14h ago
I appreciate his eclectic interests. Apparently he had two books debunking the triangle, and then one of popcorn recipes and another called Shape Up Your Hips and Thighs.
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u/Wobbelblob 15h ago
Also, half of the ships and planes that vanished there where explicitly noted of being swimming wrecks before vanishing. At least one of the planes that went missing was known as a "flying gas canister" and a fisherman close to where it vanished reported a ball of flame. So a lot of it was just human stupidity.
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u/Xentonian 23h ago edited 22h ago
That was a fun article about something that's quite serious under the surface.
Things like the bastardisation of the Mediterranean diet have insidiously spread through every level of scientific literature, including the academia of basic nutrition, despite being founded on nothing but vibes and, as the title says, poor record keeping. The scientifically supported "Mediterranean diet" is its own thing with merit, but it differs significantly from the majority of pop-sci descriptions of the diet that amount to little more than adding olive oil to dishes.
To some degree, the damage is done. Bro science will spend the next 30 years of our lives telling us "actually, saturated fats are good for you in any amount" because gyros is Greek and Greek food is tautologically healthy.
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u/Gamboh 23h ago
I'm caught up in the nonsense and can't tell what's true at all with dietary sciences - what's the straight dope? Now is your chance to change a life.
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u/Xentonian 23h ago edited 20h ago
Balanced diets remain the best thing you can do. Eat from a wide variety of sources and include vegetables and plant based foods in different forms - leaves, stems, fruits, pods, seeds and grains.
Lean protein is good, but fat isn't a problem in sensible moderation; it's fine to have steak one or twice a week, but bacon and sausages every day is a step too far.
When looking at carbohydrates, err away from processed grains and instead aim for whole grains and incidental carbs, such as those found in beans or starchy fruit and vegetables like carrots, peas, quinoa or grapes.
Focus on a varied diet first, look at your macro and micronutrients only as needed - so for example, you don't need to make sure you're getting exactly 30g of protein per meal, but making sure you get at least 600g of protein per week would be a good check-in. You can do the same with other nutrients you are seeking.
Consider sugar as a maximum rather than a minimum, as it is easy to get. Sodium and saturated fat are best treated similarly.
Beyond that, tailor food choices to your individual lifestyle and needs - if you want more muscle you need more protein, more energy and more calcium (among other things), if you want to lose weight you need fewer calories in each meal - especially from carbohydrates.
A lot of this is stuff you've heard before and a lot of it is parotted in what is spread by things like the Mediterranean diet - and that's why they have such staying power: the mix of truth and nonsense makes the nonsense go down smooth.
If you really want to look into healthy diet, do a little research into what micronutrients are, how fat and water soluble vitamins differ and start to learn which foods are rich in what vitamins. Consider doing a baseline blood test to see if there's anything for which you are deficient and aim to treat imbalances as part of your meal plan. Learn about weird interactions like iron + acid to improve absorption; omega 6 and omega 3 competition; chelation; and things like flattened villi, if you are somebody with IBD or Coeliac's or similar. Just as examples.
I guess to sum up a TL;DR version:
Eat a variety of foods, don't focus on specific ingredients or the diets of specific regions
Consider some nutrients as having minimums and others as maximums (eg: minimum iron, maximum simple sugars)
Don't focus on your minimums and maximums on a meal-by-meal basis. Look at them over a day or even over a week.
Educate yourself on the nutritional profile of foods you like and get a basic idea of what your body needs over time.
Tailor each of the above to your activity, body goals, relevant blood tests and food preferences. At the end of the day, you should want to eat and should enjoy it, if it becomes a box ticking chore, eventually you'll give up and eat 3 boxes of Chinese takeaway noodles in one sitting.
As a final point, protein is the meme de jour.
There are a lot of sources that argue for daily protein ranging anywhere from 90-500g of protein daily. It's far too hot of a subject for me to weigh in on without upsetting people, so I would just caution to be moderate as with all aspects of your diet and to consider the source of your protein - sources like fish also are very high in other things you want; sources like red meat are great for iron, but may carry a carcinogenic risk; sources like tofu are very, very lean and nutrient dense but can cause digestive issues for some people with FODMAP sensitivity; etc.
Edit: as u/ew73 has pointed out: If you have any medical conditions or take any regular medication, you should consult a doctor before implementing any major diet changes. Medical conditions and medications can interact with food in unexpected ways: protein loading can trigger gout, cruciferous vegetables can cause painful bloating to IBD patients, vitamin K rich foods can interact with warfarin and cheese (and many other foods) can affect people taking an MAOI, to name some of innumerable examples.
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u/elporsche 22h ago
Afaik protein is not recommended as a whole number but as gram per kg weight of the person.
Also for muscle gain carbs are more important than people realize bc of glycogen storage in muscles. A lot of gym goers cut more carbs than they should
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u/lyons4231 21h ago
The issue with the gram per kg method though is really fat people don't need double the protein of a body builder. It's technically supposed to be based on lean muscle mass, but without a DEXA scan that's not feasible for the average person.
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u/canteloupy 20h ago
Fat people need fewer calories and it will make them healthier pretty much regardless of the exact macro composition. But it's hard to get too many calories from protein.
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u/Barcode_Griller 17h ago
But it's hard to get too many calories from protein.
You underestimate my powers
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u/aurishalcion 17h ago
If you're not even taking the steaks out of the packaging, Barcode_Griller, then yeah dude, I believe in you man
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u/CptJericho 17h ago
There's actually an upper limit on how many calories you can get from eating protein, around 1400 calories. Any more and your liver won't be able process the excess and you'll start getting protein poisoning also known as rabbit starvation.
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u/SecareLupus 2 16h ago
So I knew about rabbit starvation, but I always thought it was the lack of fat in the meat preventing us from absorbing the nutrients properly. That's neat that it's actually the liver failing to process nitrogen and protein fast enough.
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u/ihatemystepdad42069 17h ago
You could use the calculation for ideal body weight to get a decent estimate, right?
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u/elporsche 20h ago
Fair enough.
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u/lyons4231 20h ago
Didnt mean to say its "wrong" persay, just that nutrition is complicated and heavily personalized. Taking values off the internet without learning the how/why is never going to be great.
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u/elporsche 17h ago
I appreciate the discussion! Also to add to it, optimal nutrition depends on measuring (eg DEXA, blood) and not many people have access to it or can afford it
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u/BigLittlePenguin_ 18h ago
Thanks for mentioning it, people always forget trash part, really triggers me
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u/ew73 20h ago
This is stunning, thorough, and solid advice for anyone. The only thing I would add would be that people with various medical conditions should first consult with their doctor before any significant change in diet. 99% of the time, zero problems. That 1% though can be a real bummer.
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u/Xentonian 20h ago
Do you know what? You're absolutely right, to the point that I'm going to add it to the comment.
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u/ObligatoryAnxiety 17h ago
Especially when seeking blood work to check various levels of minerals and the like. The charts from your lab are not tailored for your medical conditions, your lifestyle, etc. Your doctor should review results and advise if an adjustment is needed.
Example: the lab charts indicate I have normal insulin function because I'm in normal range - yeah, it's not normal. I'm working with my doctor to prevent insulin resistance from ruining my life or turning into prediabetes or diabetes that I'm genetically predisposed to get. Sadly, I'm not sick enough for insurance to pay for any of my treatment (shocker).
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u/BadahBingBadahBoom 21h ago
Learn about... omega 6 and omega 3 competition;
Whilst this was initially theorised to be pro-inflammatory, the research since had shown overwhelmingly this is not an issue.
Sure, reduce your intake of highly processed food that is coincidentally high in omega-6 fatty acids, but an omega-6 fatty acid heavy diet itself is not harmful as long as it's varied, balanced and calorie controlled for your needs.
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u/Xentonian 20h ago
So my understanding is that the issue comes with the activation of plant based forms of omega 3 - ALA from plants needs to be converted into EPA and DHA, but the enzyme required for this pathway is also used in the processing of omega 6.
Because diets can be as high as 25 times more omega 6 than omega 3, this can reduce the activation of plant based omega 3 from sources like linseed.
It's noteworthy that this does NOT impact the absorption or function of already activated forms of omega 3, as you get from fish and other sources.
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u/BadahBingBadahBoom 20h ago edited 16h ago
Is not 'activation' but you are right that omega-6 fatty acids like LA act competitively for the same enzyme involved in processing of omega-3 fatty acids like ALA into the 'anti-inflammatory' fatty acids EPA and DHA. It was thus thought high consumption of omega-6 fats in diet would inhibit the body's ability to generate 'good' fatty acids like EPA and DHA.
Additionally, it was thought a high intake of omega-6 fatty acids would lead to excess 'pro-inflammatory' AA which together with low EPA/DHA would increase the production of pro-inflammatory prostaglandins resulting in various harm to the body such increase risk of cardiovascular disease.
This has since shown not to actually occur as the body controls production of pro-inflammatory prostaglandins independent to whatever omega-3:omega-6 intake. Additionally omega-6 fatty acids have actually been found to be important in production of anti-inflammatory compounds too (hence I put pro-inflammatory in quotes).
It was a good theoretical basis decades ago and warranted further research. However, the further research showed both total omega-6 intake as well as omega-3:omega-6 intake had no impact in itself to increased risk of disease.
Unfortunately for many years omega-6 was wrongly implicated in observational studies due to its correlative but not causative use in highly-processed foods (chosen because seed oils are much cheaper than butter). This is why adjustment/normalisation is so important when there are confounding factors.
TL;DR: Omega-6 fats such as those found in seed oils aren't inherently bad for you and actually show numerous health benefits so, in calorie-moderation, you can use them in cooking and actually benefit from replacing animal fats with seed oils. But almost everyone does need to reduce their intake of highly processed foods that are unhealthy, they're just not unhealthy because they contain lots of omega-6 fats.
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u/tamebeverage 16h ago
This has always frustrated me. People tend to blame seed oils and high fructose corn syrup for the current obesity problems in countries where consumptions have correlated. Turns out, they're both likely (by accident, not altruism) a healthier-for-most choice ober the alternatives that would serve the same function. We just eat too much and lean too heavily on convenient, hyper-palatable foods that use them because they're cheap, easy to use industrially, and work well for texture and shelf stability. That's all.
The problem isn't that seed oils and hfcs are poison. It's that they're part of the tasty, convenient foods that have been major players in increasing calorie consumption in the US and others. If one wants to have a discussion about how those foods being so palatable, cheap (in comparison to alternative formulations), and available can drive behaviors, that's a different discussion.
Also reminds me of the whole food dye thing. They're pretty innocuous and focusing on them feels like a waste of time. But also, reducing their usage could very well help a little by making some foods less visually appealing. Any step in the right direction is a win, so if it does work I'll be happy about it, but also concerned that we'll walk away having learned the wrong lesson.
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u/reader_no14 9h ago
"The mix of truth and nonsense makes the nonsense go down smooth."
Love that, may borrow it if that's ok. Good ol' authentication by association
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u/butyourenice 7 15h ago
… who the fuck is recommending 500g of protein a day? A pound of protein daily? Even career body builders don’t claim you need that much. The highest recommendation I’ve seen is 1.5g/lb body weigh, and even that is quite out there with the norm settling around 1 g/lb body weight. For 1.5g/lb bw to equal 500g you need to be north of 330 lbs.
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u/Chiron17 23h ago
Eat real food. Mostly vegetables. Not too much.
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u/The_Tooter_Snooter 23h ago
It’s funny how this was quite literally the only diet available to us for millions of years and it’s a mystery to the modern man.
Eat like you would imagine our ancestors ate - a lot of vegetable matter, seeds, nuts, some fruit, and meat when you could get it.
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u/BogdanPradatu 22h ago
Our ancestors didn't eat 3 meals per day + snacks, probably. They ate meat when they were able to catch it or when they sacrificed their big farm animal once or twice per year.
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u/Specific-Name9039 23h ago
I mean, it being the only diet doesn’t make it an “optimal” diet necessarily. Also vegetables, grains, and who knows what else have changed (for the better) substantially in the last 1,000 years with more vitamins etc. But yeah I guess what you said still holds true lol
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u/CitizenPremier 21h ago
Our ancestors had lots of health problems too, though. Nature is what we want to escape, not embrace. Compare the lifespans of wild animals to those of pets.
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u/InnovativeFarmer 20h ago
Be active and eat smaller portions with lots of variety (diversity is good).
Dont be poor.
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u/Comfortable-Sound944 19h ago
While slightly biased as anyone there is nutritionalfacts org a practicing MD. that summarised and scrutinizes actual scientific papers about nutrition and health and mostly covers only double blinded intervention studies as close to fact. (Not saying 100% purely perfect but seems to walk a good line between accessible and scientific science) (He has books and podcast and other formats and donates the proceeds)
Tl;dr (my own) most of the healthy compounds are found in plants - veggies/fruits/fungus (not plant). Herbs and spices and some other dried/concentrate like tomato paste can be very beneficial even in small quantities like half a teaspoon. While people fight on the macro nutrients, the micro ones are where science seems to focus with most modern medical research. Almost no diet argues against veggies they just argue macro (one major argues against fruit with a misleading claim).
That dr is plant based, I don't think that has to be the main point but I know it will be for many/most
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u/Special_Order-937 23h ago
Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food largely answers this. He himself says if you don’t wan to read the book, you can sum it up as “Eat less, mostly plants.”
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u/DifficultCarob408 20h ago
Predominantly whole foods, avoiding ultra processed foods as much as possible. Eat a wide range of fruit and vegetables, lean proteins (predominantly white meat and fish) eggs, whole grains, legumes, include some fermented foods for gut microbiome.
Avoid trans and saturated fats, avoid excessive amounts of sugar, limit red meat (carcinogenic) and avoid processed / cured meats altogether.
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u/Moonlight_cottage 21h ago
It's a shame I don't see the best advice parroted on here too often...
'eat mostly plants, not too much.'
So beautifully succint, and describes the ideal perfectly. You can't get any better.
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u/Gilgamesh-Enkidu 23h ago
Don’t know about Blue Zones would have look at the data and that would take some time. But the Mediterranean diet has some of the most robust data behind it in literature. We have things like the Framingham study which is a multigenerational study (going on 78 years now) and the amount of testing that they do on their participants is simply extraordinary. It’s literally counted in science’s top 10 most influential and life changing studies.
That’s just one study by the way. There are countless high quality meta analysis and extremely robust, well designed studies.
Saying that the Mediterranean diet is based on “vibes,” when it’s one the most studied things out there, is a level of stupid that’s up there with denying climate change and saying the earth is flat.
Framingham: https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/science/framingham-heart-study-fhs
1.6 million participants meta analysis that shows a direct linear relationship between adherences to the Mediterranean diet and a reduction in all cause mortality (the higher the adherence, the higher the reduction): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6855973/
Direct relationship with adherence to Mediterranean diet and longevity (meta analysis): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S037851220900259X
And there is a LOT more.
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u/flammablelemon 23h ago edited 22h ago
Was about to comment this, needs to be higher up. The "Mediterranean diet" has specific criteria and is well-studied; it does not mean any and all food from the "Mediterranean" or blue-zones, that's a misconception based on the name and shows OP put no effort into looking up what it actually is or what the science says about it.
To anyone questioning, blue-zone skepticism is not the same thing as Mediterranean diet skepticism, it is still the gold-standard diet in nutrition science.
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u/coolguy420weed 13h ago
I have no horse in this race, but my interpretation of OOC's comment is that they think the problem is that the version of the "Mediterranean diet" which has filtered into public consciousness and caught on there is substantively different enough from what's scientifically studied that it can't be considered the same thing when talking about the relative merits of diets. They don't really state any opinion on the "real thing", just the unfounded imitation.
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u/redcoatwright 17h ago
Back in the spring I went to the botanical gardens of crete which was gorgeous and wonderful. Anyway the guy who founded it and runs it talked about this.
He said that people there barely ever eat meat, sometimes fish but meat MAYBE once a week but often less than that. They are eating vegetables consistently.
He went on to show a dish his restaurant there prepares which was basically just cutting up some onions, peppers, tomatoes (?) And some other veg and pouring a shit ton of olive over it and with some spices and then roasting it. He said it was very traditional and you eat it with some bread.
We got to try it and jesus it was delicious but my takeaway is that eating less meat is probably the key to the med diet, less so tons of olive oil (although also they do eat a ton of olive oil).
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u/Emperor_of_Alagasia 16h ago
I would say that reflects a lot of the communication ive personally seen of the Mediterranean diet. Like on protein sources the American Heart Association says the following about the diet: "dairy products, eggs, fish and poultry in low to moderate amounts." They also emphasize low sugar, lots of veggies and whole grains, and lentils.
Tbh, I think the Mediterranean diet is one of the better explained diet in American discourse
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u/Narrow-Strawberry553 16h ago
I've commented about this before in other subreddits, but most people just don't understand just how much olive oil we Greeks eat with our traditional foods.
Where most white people would put a tablespoon and act as if its scandalous and too much, I think most Greeks eat at least 1/4 cup minimum, maybe even 1/2 a cup per day.
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u/redcoatwright 16h ago
Yeah that's what the dude said! The dish they made, the veggies were completely submerged in olive oil.
In the US really the issue is actual olive oil is crazy expensive if you're consuming that much. Cheaper olive oil is mixed with other oils.
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u/elmurpharino 16h ago
Meanwhile in Mericuh we have plenty of people touting the "carnivore diet" and saying how they've never felt better and their mind has never been clearer.
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u/Nemisis_the_2nd 19h ago
That was a fun article about something that's quite serious under the surface.
Funnily enough, thats almost exactly the type of research that the igNobel prize aims to promote
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u/MustGoOutside 18h ago
I think "poor record keeping" is a disservice to what is actually happening: "outright fraud"
Now these people do not give a fuck if some guy in San Diego wants to live to 100, but they very much care that the govt is too lazy to check if their nonna died, and continues to send a check every month.
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u/Kiwilolo 16h ago
My understanding was that most cases are just literally not knowing their exact date of birth. Record keeping 100 years ago was pretty hit or miss in most places.
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u/V2BM 16h ago
They also ignore things like how many greens Greeks ate - I read about some deep dives into the actual data and beans and assorted greens were about the only consistent bases of meals in all the high-longevity zones. The only group applicable to the US are the California group, anyway. Other countries have a wildly different lifestyle that doesn’t apply to our lives here. Nobody is taking a 2-hour lunch with friends, as one example.
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u/Practical-Suit-6798 16h ago
The Mediterranean diet is interesting. I recently found out I have heart disease at a pretty young age. i dug into all the research. The Mediterranean diet is the diet that is recommended for heart health...... But it's also one of the few diets that's been studied for heart health. There is no reason to think that the same principles don't transfer to other traditional diets. A traditional Japanese diet for example is probably very heart healthy, but it just has been studied like the Mediterranean.
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u/SquidTheRidiculous 16h ago
The big difference is stress. But nobody wants to talk about the very real scientifically proven fact that stress cuts both quality and quantity of life. Marco Rando from Sicily doesn't live longer because he eats prosciutto he lives longer because his community shuts down around for Riposo every day. They have a culturally enforced nap time that at the very least gives them a chance to slow down and chill for a bit.
But powers that be make the most money off of all of us when we're stressed.
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u/h-v-smacker 13h ago
Marco Rando from Sicily doesn't live longer because he eats prosciutto he lives longer because
... he offered the don both due respect and friendship.
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u/verusisrael 15h ago
I remember a doctor telling me that the reason the Mediterranean diet was so popular was doctors went on vacation there. The actual healthiest diet is Mongolian but no one wanted to go on a vacation to the steppe
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u/Rowing_Lawyer 22h ago
Bro science is 50% facts, 50% science, 50% magic, and 100% results
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u/ExpressRabbit 15h ago
And this is what I fucking hate about dieting and fitness. It's impossible to know what's real and what's bunk and it becomes an overload of information.
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u/arcanition 10h ago
Things like the bastardisation of the Mediterranean diet have insidiously spread through every level of scientific literature
I literally stopped going to a doctor because in three visits, back-to-back-to-back, he would not stop shilling the Mediterranean diet, a specific book on the diet, and his daily olive oil routine. I specifically told him it did not work for me and I would be trying something else, only for him to push it even harder the 2nd and 3rd visit.
This was years ago and still to this day I wonder why he pushed it so hard.
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u/lavassls 1d ago
The Seventh-Day Adventist would never.
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u/Billy1121 16h ago
They bought the Blue Zones brand based on this stuff
Adventist Health or whatevs
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u/TsuDhoNimh2 16h ago
Dr Newman’s research was supported by a 2010 Japanese government review which found 82 percent of people over 100 years old in Japan were actually already dead – including the country’s oldest man, whose corpse had been hidden by his daughter while she pocketed his pension for 30 years.
Lying about age, or using the birth info from a dead relative to avoid conscription is another source of unusually old people. I worked with a guy who had claimed to be his 10 years younger dead cousin, making him too young to be conscripted by the Shah;s army ... but he also used that ID to come to the USA, and he was screwed when it came to retiring. He would be 75 when his visa said 65.
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u/thunderflame 20h ago
I love this stuff. If anyone is interested in flawed scientific research that leads to inaccurate public health data I highly recommend reading Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.
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u/darwin2500 14h ago
Yeah this was also debunked.
Some guy with no familiarity with the field said 'hey look these places have bad records, the whole field of longevity research must be a fraud'.
Then the field of longevity research said 'actually we're not all idiots who spent our entire lives not realizing this incredibly obvious thing that's entirely central to the work we do every single day. All of our papers are based on in-person interviews with individual old people and everyone who knows them in town, we review personal records alongside public records individually (family photo albums, bills, letters, etc) to confirm each subject's age, and anyone we can't confirm individually with very high confidence we exclude from the study. That's why our studies involve spending months or years on the ground in each of these areas, instead of a 10-minute database query'.
Then people ignored this and kept repeating the obnoxious idiot who never bothered to read their methodology sections before 'debunking' them.
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u/Due-Savings5057 13h ago
Thank-you! Newman’s ‘research’ has never even been peer reviewed. Meanwhile there is decades of peer reviewed research on blue zones.
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u/0202_tihssitidder 14h ago
☝🏽 First legit reply by someone who knows wtf they are talking about.
The Okinawa data is solid.
I'll gladly formally debate anyone on this topic. It'll cost you $500K (winner takes the pot). I don't work without $ involved.
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u/arkofjoy 23h ago
While the blue zones may be dodgy science, there is no doubt that living in areas where walking is easier than driving in your neighbourhood, that healthy eating, especially with fresh fruits and vegetables and limiting processed foods and sugar will keep you healthy, longer.
You don't want to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" and simply decide to return to the standard American diet.
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u/drunk_haile_selassie 22h ago
It's more than just dodgy science, it has been somewhat actively harmful. It very much downplays the harm alcohol and cigarettes cause.
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u/FuckinWalkingParadox 19h ago
The documentary was also paid for by a vegetarian interest group, leading to disingenuous coverage of the diets eaten in those regions.
I promise you the Japanese region is eating fish, and the Greek region is eating fish/lamb.
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u/hugelkult 15h ago
And what of their lifestyle, the strength of their community bonds(central thesis)??
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u/FuckinWalkingParadox 15h ago edited 15h ago
I think there’s absolutely validity in all of that, and even in the diet component that they did cover, but to intentionally leave out a central component of the diet to fit your own agenda is misleading and unnecessary.
To be honest, for the Greek island and the Japanese region (I don’t remember the other places covered), they could’ve just highlighted how the meats eaten are typically very fresh and not processed. In Greece, the lamb usually comes from a small local farm, birds or game are often hunted rather than farmed, and the fish come straight off the coast you’re eating beside. I don’t find that particularly inhumane or adversarial to the idea that non-meat products are still the best thing to keep central in a diet.
As we see time and time again with dietary topics, moderation is a powerful thing.
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u/arkofjoy 21h ago
I haven't seen that, but I am aware that at least the Italians do have a drinking and smoking culture.
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u/valimo 20h ago
Stereotypical thinking, and rather inaccurate these days.
In smoking statistics Italy is below EU average, beyond nearly all of eastern and southern Europe, plus Germany and Austria, with nearly half less smokers than in Bulgaria which leads the statistics.
Even in alcohol consumption, in heavy episodic drinking Italy has the second lowest consumption. While the number of regular alcohol consumption of smaller quantities is quite high, Italy is actually second highest the statistic on population that abstains fully, with one third of population not drinking at all.
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u/arkofjoy 20h ago
Thank you for pulling me up on lazy thinking.
My ex son in law is a smoker, so I think that I extrapolated that to "all Italian's are smokers, at least the only one I know is"
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u/valimo 19h ago
No problem, always happy to hand over some statistics. I feel like a lot of the stereotypes come from the Cold War era when between 50-70% of Italian men smoked. There's also a big geographical component, as in the south the smoking prevalence is nearly 50% higher than in the north.
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u/GeneralMuffins 14h ago
Italy is still above both the EU and global averages, while Sardinia (Italy’s blue zone) has an even higher smoking rate than Italy as a whole...
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u/ackermann 23h ago
True. Some bad advice did come out of this though, for example fats being downplayed as relatively harmless, per this interesting comment chain:
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/s/ih9AObsOAO52
u/flammablelemon 22h ago edited 21h ago
What? Fats are [essential to health](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_fatty_acid), and very-low-fat diets lead to [poorer health outcomes](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK553097/).
Issues from fats are related to eating them in excess, especially saturated and trans-fats. Fats are harmless and actually healthy for you when you eat mostly unsaturated fats in the right amounts in a balanced diet. Also, the Mediterranean diet does not promote saturated fats and has a specific criteria, it doesn't mean any food from the Mediterranean.
EDIT: Links aren't formatting properly. Will try to fix them.
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u/Bachooga 15h ago
Tbf, there's definitely a big difference between the fat of deep fried food and the fat of avocado, nuts, and fish.
I think one of this biggest problems in western diets, that I'm definitely seeing in the comments, is our extreme focus on individual components as opposed to the food as a whole.
If I get mild exercise and have a home cooked meal consisting of fish, soup, veggies, and a bit of grains, I think it is going to take me a whole lot farther than cutting fats and carbs, maximizing protein, and adding/removing fad diet ingredients.
Old people tend to have had a lot of moderate exercise and activity throughout their lives while eating full meals of various higher quality ingredients that aligned with their heritage and what their family passed down for generations. Everyone I've ever met in the medical field over 100 also absolutely hated life, had a lifetime of less things to worry about followed by a whole bunch of spite, and I have also never met a man who was over 100.
The moral of the story is to eat what makes your body feel good, get up and move, live with little worry, and fill yourself up with anger and spite so you have something to always hold onto.
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u/TheStarRoom 16h ago
Having lived in North America majority of my life and then getting the opportunity to live in Italy for two years, I can safely say they have a much healthier lifestyle than your average North American.
Walking is tremendously important and offered benefits that I hadn't considered prior to leaving. Walking as a main method of transportation forces you to slow down. You might meet a few people on the way to a destination and suddenly you're having a coffee for 20 minutes with some friends.
The feeling of community in older Italian towns is something that keeps Italians living longer.
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u/Own-Spinach4038 15h ago
It's more complicated than walking just being easier. I've lived in Japan for 2 years. There are hills everywhere in the countryside and rural areas. Many neighborhoods completely rely on cars. Japan has very little parking. When people travel, excluding train goers, they drive to a parking lot and then walk around town because there is no other option.
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u/Loki-L 68 22h ago
I can start keeping poor records if it helps me live longer.
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u/mutedmuse__ 23h ago
Can’t die if the government doesn’t have you on file. Big Census hates this one weird trick.
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u/Comrade_SOOKIE 14h ago
A large number of supercentenarians aren't actually over 100 years old. They're just too old to remember their age clearly and they were born in a time where record keeping was shoddy so we don't know their real birthdates.
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u/ChristianCRWriter 16h ago
I am from Costa Rica and none of us believe in the Blue Zone shit being because of diet.
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u/bradygilg 14h ago
Similarly 2 years ago there was a popular publication claiming that human aging occurred in bursts at ages 44 and 60. That paper has since been found to be flawed - their method showed the same spikes in random data.
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u/Elrond_Cupboard_ 17h ago
Im going to live healthy until thats impossible, then its just heroin and MDMA all the way to the other side.
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u/Airportsnacks 19h ago
I know I saw a study about 20 years ago that disproved the French Paradox. That basically people died over the age of 75 (or whatever age it was) and they were just recorded as dying of "old age", as opposed to heart disease. Can I find it now? No.
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u/KliffyByro 23h ago
This is a lot more nuanced than the article makes out. There are difficulties in establishing the veracity of records, but to imagine this didn’t play a role in the original choice of blue zones is absurd. There were many more candidate places that were rejected due to unreliable records. Nonetheless, particularly Okinawa remains controversial because the records there are post war reconstructions that not everyone agrees with. Even so it is very clear that life expectancy is plummeting in Okinawa as people move away from their traditional way of life to a more “modern” lifestyle. There is at least something valuable to be learned there.
Also, the Mediterranean Diet has a clear definition in nutrition science and is reliably beneficial across practically all metrics in thousands of studies when compared to pretty much any other diet. It is very much not the fantasy of some dude who once went to Italy.
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u/Billy1121 16h ago
Yeah I wish this was mentioned.
This was a conflict between a raw statistician who wants hard data, and historic-minded statisticians/ demographers who are using 2-3 sources of data like neighbor verification which is common among demographers who study older records.
Tye records just may not exist so alternate verification is used. And by their methods that is acceptable.
But even among demographers there was a split between scientists who published their data and the Blue Zones "adventurer" guy who wrote the dodgy Nat Geo article.
I think they recently turned down Galicia (Spain) as a blue zone because of data.
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u/mr_birkenblatt 10h ago
The red zone is for loading and unloading only
There is no parking in the white zone
The blue zone is for longevity
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u/DiscouragesCannibals 7h ago
The original paper is worth reading in full. The author throws an insane amount of shade at some of his colleagues, up to and including calling them racist. (It's in the supplementary materials if you're interested.) 🍿
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u/mulberrybushes 21h ago
“The blueberry is not going to save you” is going to be my new flair.
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u/Lorikeeter 20h ago
u/mulberrybushes is Big Mulberry running a psyop on blueberries, confirmed
/uj Also make your profile pic of Violet Beauregarde, to match
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u/HairFrosty 23h ago
This is a somewhat true but overstated claim. For some of the blue zones, absolutely, for others there were decent to very good record keeping, so stating that it is all false is just going too far.
That being said even for those that do hold up, it is observational evidence and not proof in itself that these diets or lifestyles contribute to higher life spans. Observational studies are general good for generating ideas or as collaborative evidence to RCT's. Doesn't mean it isn't interesting, but the final judgment is up to more rigorous research.
And for the guy who claims Mediterranean diets being founded on nothing but vibes. Absolutely untrue, it is one of the more well studied diets and one we have good reason to believe is healthier than many others. Of course when doing an RCT, definitions matter a lot though so often it will be reported in media in a way that make it sound like you can eat anything as long as it is Mediterranean, which is obviously not what the studies will have shown. However reporting on a study being bad doesn't mean that the study is bad.
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u/0202_tihssitidder 14h ago
Okinawa data is the best. Even OP's post is full of bullshit and lacks content to induce rage.
You have 500+ people who spend <30 seconds learning about this who now have very strong opinions.
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u/hobbykitjr 17h ago
Had to look up igNobel. Fyi:
• The name is a play on the word "ignoble" (meaning lacking nobility or honor) and a fictional cousin of Alfred Nobel named Ignatius Nobel. • Presenters: Real Nobel Laureates hand out the prizes to the winners during the ceremony.
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u/thunderintess 15h ago
My favorite line: "The blueberry is not going to save you."
Speaking as someone who doesn't understand the love for blueberries, but did try eating them for a while to be healthier.
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u/ballsosteele 11h ago
And here's me thinking it's a shit Irish boyband.
Oh, wait, that's boyzone
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u/bombayblue 11h ago
Funny my doctor just put me on this diet.
I did lose an average of 10lbs per month combining it with moderate exercise so I would still recommend it tho
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u/secretlythecat 14h ago
Good episode of the Maintenance Phase podcast on the problem with this theory:
https://maintenancephase.buzzsprout.com/1411126/episodes/16529172-blue-zones
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u/Pootle001 13h ago
"The places where humans live the longest are explained by traditional lifestyles, widespread incest or systematic fraud, there is no fourth option."
Wait... what?!?3
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u/Curious_Quail_1033 13h ago
One thing to understand is the timing when a lot of this was collected.
Okinawa data was collected after WWII where most of their pigs had died. Therefore their diet consiseted largely of carbs and veggies with hardly any meat. BUT this wasn't by choice - all the pigs died.
Today Okinawa still has exceptionally long life and their food culture partly resolves around pork where they eat every piece of it you can.
Therefore, once the area returned to relevative normalcy, pork was back on the menu for everybody.
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u/Financial-Craft-1282 13h ago
"Investigating the popular idea of “Blue Zones” – regions of the world like Okinawa (Japan), Sardinia (Italy) and Ikaria (Greece), where residents reportedly live very long, healthy, happy lives – he found the demographic data underpinning these extreme aging hotspots simply didn’t add up.
The secrets to longevity touted in Blue Zone-inspired cookbooks and Netflix documentaries include following a plant-based diet, drinking a glass of wine daily, and developing a strong sense of purpose, among other “lifestyle habits”."
This doesn't feel how these ideas work. I never read one of those books or watched one of those docs and heard much about "they live until they're 100!" The arguments I remember: They're not obese compared to Americans of the same age. Cholesterol is lower. They don't need statins nearly as often.
I feel like this guy took a piece of something observed and is like, "See all of it is wrong." I'd rather hear about the health differences of these "blue zones" compared to Americans of the same age ranges--which is how I remember a lot of this being argued. I feel like just bringing this up makes me due for the igNobel.
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u/GlitteringAttitude60 20h ago
OMG o.O