Comment by closetkantian
1 year ago
So what are the real Blue Zones if there are any? Where do people actually live the longest in other words?
1 year ago
So what are the real Blue Zones if there are any? Where do people actually live the longest in other words?
Highly developed countries with access to affordable or free healthcare seem to be real blue zones. Especially in highly urban areas. Hong Kong, Singapore, and the big cities of some countries (Tokyo, Sydney) have very high life expectancy numbers.
Seems like getting treatment when you're sick, and having regular check ups to induce lifestyle changes are what makes a place a blue zone.
I think you're confusing correlation with causation. There is no reliable evidence that having regular check ups improves longevity, or even benefits healthy patients at all. And advice given by doctors about lifestyle changes is notoriously ineffective: long-term patient compliance close to zero.
"having regular check ups to induce lifestyle changes"
More likely that those areas have society level positive lifestyles by default, especially relating to foods (eg Okinawa eating until 80% full, Italy and the mederteranian diet, Loma Linda plant heavy diet, etc).
Plenty of people get at least an annual covered checkup, but that doesn't mean they will make lifestyle changes. Even the ones that try end up like a new years resolution - not being strict about it or giving up after a month or two.
Edit: why disagree?
Isn’t the whole point of this research that people Okinawa and Italy probably don’t live any longer. In fact these areas have shorter average life span? So, all the stories about the benefit of the Mediterranean fish heavy diet are post-hoc rationalizations of bad data?
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The real Blue Zones are the friends we made along the way.
The problem will always be that you need to find places that keep good records, and have done so for the last century.
What they set out to do was to find correlations between lifestyle and longevity, and what they ended up finding was a great tool for spotting pension fraud.
The levels of fraud aren't that rampant. Focusing on life expectancy in those regions still seems to have some valid correlation. It was a mistake from the beginning to try to focus on outliers (people living over 100).
Part of the research shows that when you drop the outliers these regions have a lower than average life expectancy.
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so no correlations between lifestyle and longevity? doubt
There are it's just the outlier blue zones where people are supposed to be reaching very hugh maximum ages at a surprising rate that are probably not real. There are still plenty of correlations between healthier lifestyles generally you just shouldn't attempt to live past 100 by emulating what people in an alleged blue zone do.
That is no way shape or form invalidates any actual link between lifestyle and longevity. It just means you can't simply assume that any given example of longevity, or data indicating longevity, must be due to lifestyle.
There is correlation (and maybe even causal relation) between lifestyle and longevity. It's just the lifestyle in those "Blue Zones" is not different from the lifestyle of surrounding areas (or as in Okinawa - gradient points in the wrong direction), so cannot serve as the sure way to longevity.
> what they ended up finding was a great tool for spotting pension fraud
I mean, that’s not nothing, y’know?
i mean there are studies that show good socialization leads to longer life expectancy so you're not wrong
A marketing term to push TV shows, books, Business Insider articles, clicks/engagement, etc.
It's likely the most significant zones simply aren't geographical.
The numbers probably look better in the Affluent Alliance versus the Protectorate of Poverty, for starters.
Reminds me of the South Park episode where they discover Magic Johnson's secret for curing his HIV.
There’s extensive literature on the lack of modern disease in hunter gatherers. Frontier doctors could get a case report published when they found cancer.
Some lived long but on average their lives were short because they didn’t have antibiotics or emergency medicine and lived in harsh environments that few of us would be able to survive today.
Their wisdom appropriately coupled to a modern less harsh environment might lead to greater longevity. But the harshness is what ensures exercise, movement, unprocessed food, etc.
Their "wisdom" of avoiding cancer amounts to dying young. Cancer rates shoot up well beyond 50 years.
Do you have any evidence you can point to for this assertion? The book Good Calories Bad Calories has a section that reviews the literature on the subject. Disease and Western Civilization reviews specific populations in detail. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration for a geographically diverse primary source although it’s not about cancer or longevity.
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You can look to the Amish for some answers. They aren't hunter gatherers but they do live a more primitive lifestyle. Some studies seem to show they have lower rates of cancers. It's not really a secret that if you are active, eat fairly healthy, aeent obese, and don't drink or smoke that you will be significantly healthier than the baseline rates in the US.
Could be that that "more primitive lifestyle" could fall victim to some of the same issues that lead us to see the cancer rates throughout history as much lower. (E.g., lack of diagnosis)
I took a look at the Hutterites in Canada because while they live a simpler lifestyle with a more traditional diet, no smoking, and minimal alcohol consumption, they are generally much less averse to modern conveniences where they supplement their lifestyle. Combined with Canada's public health system, that means they have few barriers in the way of receiving modern medical care.
It's a bit old, but I found a study from the 80s[0] that found men have significantly lower rates of lung cancer (yep, not smoking helps) but they found an increased risk of stomach cancer and leukemias. Women had lower rates of uterine cancer. This was fairly consistent across all three traditional groups in North America.
Other sources seem to show their life expectancy is in line with the general population, removing that as a factor.
So not smoking helps. If I had to take a wild guess, the lower rate of uterine cancer could potentially be explained by lower rates of HPV as we now know that's the main risk factor for developing cervical cancer. I can't find any reports on the rates of STDs among the Hutterites, but I would hazard a guess it's "lower".
Which, on the surface, makes it look like the lifestyle and diet (besides not smoking!) isn't having a lot of impact.
[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6624898/
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And note that it's not "get cancer" but "find cancer".
In a harsh environment how many die of a tumor that saps their energy before causing any specific effect that causes them to seek out a doctor and presents with something the doctor can find without the million-dollar machinery?
Let's grab our Mr. Fusion and head back a quarter century. My father came to visit. He had definitely declined since the last time we saw him but had no known major health issues. There wasn't anything in particular, yet what my wife saw was enough that she said we wouldn't see him again. Half a year later the big machines found the cancer. Would he have made it that half year in a harsh environment? No.
There’s extensive literature on the lack of modern disease in hunter gatherers.
Well yeah because their life expectancy is about 45 years
Well we seem to now be doing worse than the hunter gatherer's who "had a life expectancy of about 45 years" with the rise in early onset cancers.
https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/early-onset-cancer-in-youn...
And on your "had a life expectancy of about 45 years", you have a math problem. The average life span was closer to 25 years but was dragged down but the huge amount of infant mortality which is normal in humans.
The Tsimané of the Amazon are know to live well into their 70s.
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I wonder if there was anything historically equivalent to the Antediluvian lifespans described in the Old Testament. If, for example, there was something in the food a few thousand years ago in the area of the Persian/Arabian Gulf, now underwater, that could extend lifespan.
You're wondering if there was any ancient food that allowed people to live to 800 or 900 years old. There wasn't.
I also don't think there was, its more of a scifi kind of musing.
Possibly a parallel in New Orleans? Anne Rice documents unusual individuals that can live well into the hundreds of years.
In some ancient cultures around that region, stating that someone was hundreds of years old was a sign of respect for their wisdom, authority, and line. The numbers weren't meant to be taken literally.