From the article: "clerical errors, natural disasters, and pension fraud were better explanations for the proportion of centenarians “discovered” in these discrete regions of the world."
That was discovered in Japan around 2010.[1] The Tokyo municipality sent out people to visit everyone over 100 to find out what they were doing right.
What they found was that about 80% of them were unaccounted for, but collecting benefits.[1][2]
> Dr Newman showed that the highest rates of achieving extreme old age are predicted by high poverty, the lack of birth certificates, and fewer 90-year-olds. Poverty and pressure to commit pension fraud were shown to be excellent indicators of reaching ages 100+ in a way that is ‘the opposite of rational expectations’.
I can't tell if it's a feature or a flaw of academia that some topics can so be thoroughly proven/disproven, and yet so many researchers continue to devote their careers to it. Should more effort be given to enforcing existing knowledge and consensus, or is preserving intellectual freedom more important? Granted, I understand Blue Zone stuff is mostly due to marketing incentives...
> Buettner himself says he oversaw the blue zones frozen meal initiative
This really captures the reality of longevity, at least in US culture. Whether or not blue zones are verifiable or real, the ingredients to statistical longevity are well understood to minimally include: eat better and maintain a level of fitness.
Those are not easy to do when laziness, sedentary device time and fast food options are just so easily available. So instead, we end up with frozen meals that almost certainly don't contain the same nutrients and definitely don't include the same effort as having to prepare a meal by hand while walking about the kitchen.
Medicine has extended longevity, but the relative ease of our senior years is perhaps robbing us of the quality of that bonus time.
Blue zones were always just eat healthy, exercise, and having friends.
I believe that these things almost certainly help longevity as a number of independent studies into each of these show that, and it’s intuitively obvious
It sounds so simple, yet incredibly controversial when we go into the details.
The people actually living up to 100+ years usually have been drinking/smoking or doing some other drugs to some extent, and that alone is a whole can of worm in the current climate.
> having friends
They are many unreported elderlies living alone in the middle of nowhere minding their business. I remember a documentary about a guy growing mushrooms (Shiitake) in the forest and only getting down to the town every 6 months to give them to his wife, and he'd get back to being alone until the next time.
It is just good advice. I follow this fairly closely, not so much for life span (although that would be nice) but simply for health span.
Knowing my luck some hyper cancer will just come out from somewhere and take me out in a few weeks or I just slip down the stairs one day. But I try to sway the odds.
Median life expectancy is affected by a much larger number of variables, and is also susceptible to just as much (if not more) number fudging and statisitical nudging. Maybe the country also has a large subset of obese alcoholics for example. If someone lives to be over 100, that in and of itself is a pretty valuable data point
My doctor always says “There are three little things that will give you the best chance at living a long and healthy life. Eat a little better, move around a little bit, and get a little more sleep”
Longevity research is the most overhyped, commercially driven scam and fraud hotspot in modern science. Anti-aging docs and researchers print beaucoup bucks milking the rich narcissistic boomer cow who doesn't want to age, can't accept their mortality and is willing to spend a fortune trying to stave off the inevitable.
> In 2021, Adventist Health used the blue zones brand to market a $600 million Miami luxury tower that, in addition to boasting a “blue zones center” combining longevity medicine and advanced diagnostics, featured on-site cosmetic and plastic surgery.
Anything that promises anti-aging, better looks, making money, finding your soulmate, total safety and security, etc., is going to lend itself to outrageous marketing. Because these are some of the chief desires of humanity.
It was writer Bill Porter who said it best "The single best thing to increase longevity is to reduce stress.". This was in response to an anecdotal observation that a lot of Chinese hermits that lived in the mountains had exceptional life spans.
I mean they are fairly active, eat fairly lean meals and don't have much constant stress, so they are ideal conditions for longevity.
Blue zones have been utterly, thoroughly debunked. There’s no reason to still ask this question in 2026 unless a new/unusual population or lifestyle is emerging.
From the article: "clerical errors, natural disasters, and pension fraud were better explanations for the proportion of centenarians “discovered” in these discrete regions of the world."
That was discovered in Japan around 2010.[1] The Tokyo municipality sent out people to visit everyone over 100 to find out what they were doing right. What they found was that about 80% of them were unaccounted for, but collecting benefits.[1][2]
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11258071
[2] https://www.npr.org/2010/09/20/129992827/tracking-down-japan...
A 2024 Ig Nobel was awarded to work debunking Blue Zones.
IMO the whole concept is one of those Occam’s razors that proves especially sharp.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2024/sep/ucl-demographers-wor...
> Dr Newman showed that the highest rates of achieving extreme old age are predicted by high poverty, the lack of birth certificates, and fewer 90-year-olds. Poverty and pressure to commit pension fraud were shown to be excellent indicators of reaching ages 100+ in a way that is ‘the opposite of rational expectations’.
Blue Zones absolutely destroyed.
I can't tell if it's a feature or a flaw of academia that some topics can so be thoroughly proven/disproven, and yet so many researchers continue to devote their careers to it. Should more effort be given to enforcing existing knowledge and consensus, or is preserving intellectual freedom more important? Granted, I understand Blue Zone stuff is mostly due to marketing incentives...
I can't tell if you think academia is "enforcing existing knowledge and consensus" or "preserving intellectual freedom"...
My personal take is that academia is doing very well on the former, and not much on the latter.
> Buettner himself says he oversaw the blue zones frozen meal initiative
This really captures the reality of longevity, at least in US culture. Whether or not blue zones are verifiable or real, the ingredients to statistical longevity are well understood to minimally include: eat better and maintain a level of fitness.
Those are not easy to do when laziness, sedentary device time and fast food options are just so easily available. So instead, we end up with frozen meals that almost certainly don't contain the same nutrients and definitely don't include the same effort as having to prepare a meal by hand while walking about the kitchen.
Medicine has extended longevity, but the relative ease of our senior years is perhaps robbing us of the quality of that bonus time.
Blue zones were always just eat healthy, exercise, and having friends.
I believe that these things almost certainly help longevity as a number of independent studies into each of these show that, and it’s intuitively obvious
> eat healthy
It sounds so simple, yet incredibly controversial when we go into the details.
The people actually living up to 100+ years usually have been drinking/smoking or doing some other drugs to some extent, and that alone is a whole can of worm in the current climate.
> having friends
They are many unreported elderlies living alone in the middle of nowhere minding their business. I remember a documentary about a guy growing mushrooms (Shiitake) in the forest and only getting down to the town every 6 months to give them to his wife, and he'd get back to being alone until the next time.
It is just good advice. I follow this fairly closely, not so much for life span (although that would be nice) but simply for health span.
Knowing my luck some hyper cancer will just come out from somewhere and take me out in a few weeks or I just slip down the stairs one day. But I try to sway the odds.
Community is the one that I feel is most under threat these days...
I wrote a short story about life expectancy last year.
https://github.com/jaronilan/stories/blob/main/Base%20Rate.p...
Inspired by some random HN comment.
Why not simply use median life expectancy, which is more robust to fraud and outliers, instead of "number of centenarians"?
Median life expectancy is affected by a much larger number of variables, and is also susceptible to just as much (if not more) number fudging and statisitical nudging. Maybe the country also has a large subset of obese alcoholics for example. If someone lives to be over 100, that in and of itself is a pretty valuable data point
I still believe that minimally processed, varied foods and limited red meat are good for health.
My doctor always says “There are three little things that will give you the best chance at living a long and healthy life. Eat a little better, move around a little bit, and get a little more sleep”
Its even better to have a government pension that sends checks to your address as long as you are alive.
Alas, the easiest advice is the hardest to follow short term but the best to do long term.
https://archive.ph/cgUxZ
As the joke goes, birth certificates kill.
The page immediately reminded me of that "What is a Dickover" post :)
Longevity research is the most overhyped, commercially driven scam and fraud hotspot in modern science. Anti-aging docs and researchers print beaucoup bucks milking the rich narcissistic boomer cow who doesn't want to age, can't accept their mortality and is willing to spend a fortune trying to stave off the inevitable.
> In 2021, Adventist Health used the blue zones brand to market a $600 million Miami luxury tower that, in addition to boasting a “blue zones center” combining longevity medicine and advanced diagnostics, featured on-site cosmetic and plastic surgery.
Anything that promises anti-aging, better looks, making money, finding your soulmate, total safety and security, etc., is going to lend itself to outrageous marketing. Because these are some of the chief desires of humanity.
It was writer Bill Porter who said it best "The single best thing to increase longevity is to reduce stress.". This was in response to an anecdotal observation that a lot of Chinese hermits that lived in the mountains had exceptional life spans.
I mean they are fairly active, eat fairly lean meals and don't have much constant stress, so they are ideal conditions for longevity.
Maybe not but anecdotes are
Blue zones have been utterly, thoroughly debunked. There’s no reason to still ask this question in 2026 unless a new/unusual population or lifestyle is emerging.
This is your personal opinion or general consensus?