Beware of the News, Embrace the Science

Have you heard of “Blue Zones”?

These tribes around the world are known to have citizens who live long and healthy lives.

Some of these places may sound familiar:

Okinawa, Japan (home of Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid!). Sardinia, Italy. Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica. Icaria, Greece.

There are many people in these areas who live longer because of their local diet, more vegetables, less disease, more social interaction, less stress, and more exercise.

Countless books, articles, and articles have been published on these organizations, and millions upon millions of health conscious people have adopted their lifestyles.

There is a bus one the problem with this amazing story.

It’s not really true.

First Ig Nobel Prize in Demography

Last month, Dr. Saul Justin Newman was awarded the first “Ig Nobel” prize in Demography.

The awards are presented annually for scientific research that “makes people laugh, then think.”

At this award, Newman was recognized for his criticism of all the findings of any research related to the Blue Zones.

This is what Dr. Newman found:

“The large number of people who will be very old is predicted by extreme poverty, the lack of birth certificates, and the reduction of the 90-year-old population.

Poverty and forced pension fraud were shown to be the best predictors of reaching 100+ years in a way ‘contrary to reasonable expectations.’”

It turns out that many of the “very old, healthy” people in these blue areas were just a byproduct onpoor record keeping, pension fraud, and outright lieson.

Let’s see what happens in Okinawa:

“Although vegetables and potatoes are recommended as the most important part of the Okinawan ‘Blue Zone’ diet, according to the Japanese government, Okinawans eat the least vegetables and potatoes in Japan and have the highest body mass index.”

Uuuuf. So what do we do now!?

Beware of fantasy stories that make fantastical promises

Spend enough time on social media, and you’ll stumble across people telling you to eat meat, cut out carbs, how “this supplement saved their life,” or that XYZ cured their illness, etc.

These fantasy stories, especially when they have an evil, suffering character and a strong story of overcoming adversity, are very powerful. They are also often used to sell you the solution in pill or powder form.

The good news is that we data that is constantly changing is science.

We don’t actually we need to know what Okinawans eat, and we don’t need to learn the daily habits of a certain region in Costa Rica.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good fairy tale about far-flung habits, but it comes back to reality and science!

And we can remember that we should do good for our other activities. This may include onsupportonmay include onweight loss medicationonIt might even involve focusing on sleep right now!

It is up to us to choose, and we can do so with confidence. Not because that’s what happens in Costa Rica or Greece, but because that’s what’s good for us.

Here are some of the ways we can affect our lives and/or our health.

Yes, some of these things are part of the “Blue Zone Diet”… without fraud and pension fraud.

And many of them may be out of our control!

For example, onsocial determinants of healthon (economic stability, access to health care, education, neighborhood) are strongly associated with all-cause mortality, and many of these factors may be out of reach for most people.

Life is messy

I’m not bringing all this up to tell you to avoid Blue Zone foods.

Heck, you could do a lot worse than eating a Mediterranean diet! Where You will lose weight and stay healthy if you eat more fresh fish, whole grains, and vegetables.

I bring all this up to remind you that life is messy.

A healthy long life is a combination of several interacting factors (such as those listed above), many decisions made throughout our lives, including things like genes, society, and luck! What works for one person may not work for another, and there is no “one size fits all” solution to our problems.

We could get hit by a bus tomorrow, get cancer even though we’re “doing everything right,” or face a ona mysterious accident that changes everythingon next week.

So, instead of chasing immortality through interesting anecdotes, or getting caught up in the latest Social Media trends…

We can focus on things that we believe will make us better tomorrow than we are today.

Like the items on the list above! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go kick it, eat some vegetables, take a quick walk and call my friend.

-Steve

PS Hat tip to my friend Jodi Ettenberg, whose sad story about acceptance I linked above. It was onhis letteron which led me to this article!

###