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Have you ever heard of “Blue Zones”?
These pockets of the world are known for having citizens who live remarkably long, healthy lives.
Some of these locations may sound familiar:
Okinawa, Japan (home of Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid!). Sardinia, Italy. Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica. Ikaria, Greece.
These locations have a higher percentage of people living longer because of their whole food diet, high vegetable consumption, low incidence of disease, rich social interactions, low stress and plenty of physical activity.
Books, documentaries, and countless newspaper articles have advocated these societies, and millions and millions of health-conscious individuals have modeled their lifestyles after the way these people live.
There is only one problem with this amazing story.
That’s actually not true.
First Ig Nobel Prize for Demography
Last month, Dr. Saul Justin Newman received the first “Ig Nobel Prize” for demography.
These awards are given annually for scientific research that “makes people laugh and then think”.
For this special award, Newman was recognized for debunking almost all of the findings of any study related to the Blue Zones.
Here is what Dr. Newman:
“Highest rates of reaching extreme old age predict high poverty, lack of birth certificates and fewer 90-year-olds.
Poverty and the pressure to commit pension fraud have been shown to be excellent predictors of reaching 100+ in a way that is ‘contrary to rational expectation’.”
It turns out that most of the “very old, healthy” individuals in these blue zones are simply the result very poorly kept records, pension fraud and outright lying.
Let’s take a look at what’s actually going on in Okinawa:
“Despite vegetables and sweet potatoes being promoted as key components of the Okinawan ‘Blue Zone’ diet, according to the Japanese government, Okinawans eat the fewest vegetables and sweet potatoes in Japan and have the highest body mass index.”
Oooooh. So what the hell are we going to do now!?
Beware of anecdotal stories that make dramatic promises
Spend enough time on social media and you will come across people telling you to eat only meat, cut out carbs completely, how “this one supplement saved their life” or that XYZ cured their disease and so on.
These anecdotal stories, especially when they have a villain, a victim, and a heroic story of overcoming adversity, are incredibly powerful. They are also often used to sell you a solution in tablet or powder form.
The good news is that we are data that science is constantly refining.
We don’t know actually we need to know what people in Okinawa eat, nor do we need to study the daily habits of a particular community in Costa Rica.
Don’t get me wrong, I too love a good whimsical story about the habits of a faraway land, but it still comes back to reality and science!
And we can remember that we must do what is best for our specific situation. This may include therapymay include weight loss medicineit may involve just focusing on the dream right now!
That’s up to us to decide, and we can do it with certainty. Not because it happens in Costa Rica or Greece, but simply because it is the best for us.
Here are some of the ways we can positively influence our life expectancy and/or health.
Yes, some of this stuff is part of the “Child Blue Zone”… just without the sensationalism and retirement fraud.
And many of them could be out of our control!
for example, social determinants of health (financial stability, access to health care, education, our neighborhood) are strongly correlated with all-cause mortality, and many of these things may be out of reach for much of the population.
Life is messy
I don’t mention all of this to tell you to avoid the Blue Zone diet.
Heck, you could do a lot worse than the Mediterranean diet! Of course you’re most likely to lose weight and feel healthier if you eat mostly fresh fish, whole foods, and vegetables.
I mention all this to remind you that life is messy.
A long healthy life is a combination of dozens of interrelated things (such as those listed above), thousands of decisions made during our lifetime, plus things like genetics, society and luck! What works for one person may not work for the next, and there is no “one diet fits all” solution to our problems.
We could get hit by a bus tomorrow, be diagnosed with cancer despite “doing everything right” or experience it a freak accident that changes everything next week.
So, rather than chasing immortality through sensationalized anecdotes, or getting caught up in the latest social media trend…
We can keep our focus on things that we feel will make us better tomorrow than today.
Like the items on the list above! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to do some push-ups, eat some veggies, and take a brisk walk while I call a friend.
-Steve
PS Hat tip to my friend Jodi Ettenberg, whose heartbreakingly powerful story of acceptance I linked above. It was her newsletter that’s what led me to this article!
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