For a quarter-century, researchers and the ambiguous accessible have sought to comprehfinish why people in so-called “Blue Zones” dwell to 100 at far wonderfuler rates than anywhere else.
Saul Newman, a researcher at the University College London (UCL), count ons he has the answer: actupartner, they don’t.
Despite being populoccurd in novels articles, cookbooks and even a recent Netflix recordary series, the Blue Zones are repartner equitable a by-product of terrible data, disputes Newman, who has spent years debunking research about excessively elderly populations.
Rather than lifestyle factors such as diet or social fuseions, he says, the apparent extfinishedevity of people in five regions – Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California – can be elucidateed by pension deception, clerical errors, and a deficiency of reliable birth and death enrolls.
Dan Buettner, the American author and spendigater praiseed with coining the term Blue Zone, did not reply to a ask for comment.
For his research into the claims around Blue Zones, Newman, a ageder fellow at UCL’s Centre for Longitudinal Studies, analysed reams of demodetailed data, including United Nations mortality statistics for 236 jurisdictions accumulateed between 1970 and 2021.
The figures, he establish, were srecommend not believable.
Some of the places telled to have the most centenarians included Kenya, Malawi, and the self-ruleing territory of Westrict Sahara, jurisdictions with overall life anticipateancies of equitable 64, 65, and 71, admireively.
Similar patterns cropped up in Westrict countries, with the London boraw of Tower Hamlets, one of the most divestd areas in the UK, telled to have more people aged over 105 than anywhere else in the country.
“I tracked down 80 percent of the people in the world who are aged over 110 and establish where they had been born, where they died, and analysed the population level patterns,” Newman telderly Al Jazeera.
“It was absolutely striking because the more elderly age pcleary nastys you get more 110-year-elderlys.”
Newman count ons that clerical errors – whether intentional or inadvertent – have been compounded over the decades, strictly undermining the reliability of statistics joind to elderly age.
Some rulements have accomprehendledged solemn flaws in their enroll-upgrasping joind to births and deaths.
In 2010, the Japanese rulement proclaimd that 82 percent of its citizens telled to be over 100 had already died.
In 2012, Greece proclaimd that it had uncovered that 72 percent of its centenarians claiming pensions – some 9,000 people – were already dead.
Puerto Rico’s rulement shelp in 2010 that it would swap all existing birth certificates due to worrys about expansivespread deception and identity theft.
More prosaic reasons can elucidate the apparent extfinishedevity of dwellnts of jurisdictions such as Monaco, according to Newman, where low inheritance taxes are a draw for elderlyer Europeans, sketriumphg the demodetailed data.
Still, the idea of Blue Zones has been challenging to shift, even in the face of reliable data.
Japan’s Okinawa prefecture has frequently been lauded in the media for its diet and cultural trains.
Okinawans, however, have some of the worst health indicators in Japan, according to the Japanese rulement’s annual National Health and Nutrition Survey, which has been carried out since 1946.
While the traditional Okinawan diet is expansively seen as well, a 2020 study establish that the island prefecture today has a higher prevalence of obesity and higher rates of mortality among those aged 40–65 than mainland Japan.
Newman count ons that the apparent extfinishedevity of Okinawans is the result of many deaths going unenrolled.
“It’s almost appreciate we are so rerepaird that there is a secret to extfinishedevity that we’ll hear to anyleang – a secret to extfinishedevity that isn’t going to the gym, that isn’t giving up drinking,” Newman shelp.
“We want there to be some magic blueberries, and we want it so much that we can dwell in this sort of authenticm where cognitive dissonance is possible.”
Newman shelp that his research has not necessarily won him frifinishs in academia, though he has been gratified with the help he has getd from colleagues at UCL and Oxford, where he is a fellow at the Institute for Population Ageing.
He shelp that much of his toil has getd little accomprehendledge from fellow academics and that a study he recently surrfinisherted for accessibleation was subjected to nine peer scrutinizes, instead of the common two or three.
Newman did get some notable recognition – and a legion of fans online – earlier this month, though, when he was awarded the first-ever Ig Nobel Prize in Demography for his toil.
The Ig Nobel Prize was produced in 1991 as a satirical award for atypical research “accomplishments that produce people chuckle, then leank”.
The prizes are handed out each year by authentic Nobel Laureates in a ceremony at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“I’m very greeted that it’s getting more attention, because I leank, I leank meaningful down, everyone also comprehends this fineie is not going to save them,” Newman shelp.
“I leank it’s the protectedty blanket that you cling onto, and so to have that clearurned in a way that’s hopebrimmingy comical, I leank that gets a lot of attention and people finishelight it.”
Despite dratriumphg attention to the problem of pension deception, Newman shelp he doesn’t fault people resorting to such meadeclareives.
“To be evident, I appreciate that people are doing this because they’re being left behind by their rulements in these places. They are not being given a adequate pension. They’re not being given a adequate withdrawment net,” he shelp.
“The fact that they are equitable saying, ‘Well, I’ll equitable upgrasp accumulateing Barry’s pension from down the road.’ I leank this is an indicator of the difficult presdeclareives these people are under.”
