My bet is blue zones are just places where they don't have good longevity records so you get a bunch of fake centenarians. That turned out to be the case in Japan: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11258071 and I think also in Greece.
People were just keeping dead relatives "alive" for the social security or rent control.
Spending a lot of time in greece in rural areas in the 90ies in my teens. Quite a lot of older greek did not even know or care about their birthday, as it was not celebrated. Name day was the big thing.
And I loved the stories when the government introduced a new land registry (based on reality) and the chaos the ensured, as suddenly lot of land was owned 2 or more times, officially unknown villages were officially discovered ...
I would definitely question the validity of the historic birth register, a lot.
The researchers questioned these details, too. Any place labeled a blue zone has to have excellent records they could trace. One of the blue zones is in California. It’s worth looking at their process
> In Christianity, a name day is a tradition in many countries of Europe and the Americas, among other parts of Christendom.[1] It consists of celebrating a day of the year that is associated with one's baptismal name, which is normatively that of a biblical character or other saint.[2] […]
> The custom originated with the Christian calendar of saints: believers named after a saint would celebrate that saint's feast day. Within Christianity, name days have greater resonance in areas where the Christian denominations of Catholicism, Lutheranism and Orthodoxy predominate.[1]
having spent a good part of my life with Greek relatives, I beg to differ.
Birthdays might not be accurate due to difficulties in registering births, civil wars and fascist coups (they burnt every record so that people from, for example, Macedonia had to take Greek names) but the difference from on paper age and actual age is on average a few months off (plus or minus, so they balance in the end).
They also care a lot about celebrating birthdays with very big family gatherings.
On other note: if we believe that somewhere they kept false records of births, what should make us believe that in other parts of the World they kept perfect records?
What should make us think that birth records in Azerbaijan, Colombia, Ohio or Fiji are more accurate?
I have read the same thing about Greece's Ikaria island centenarians.
As an anecdote my grandfather born in remote mountain village in mainland Greece in the 1900 was actually registered by his father having been born in 1906 as to avoid being drafted as long as possible to fight in the multiple wars fought at the time.
So birth records and certificates from that time are not really trustworthy.
I knew someone who came over with "the boat people" from Vietnam when he was six or seven; but his parents adjusted his birthday so he would start kindergarten instead - and he still didn't know for sure his actual birthday day.
If I may posit an idea. It's not that poor record keeping leads to blue zones.
It's that not caring about the trivialities of paper pushing and imaginary rules that current Western governments use to exert their power, helps one live longer.
Now why do guys like you and me know what a land registry is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then?
Sometimes people were assuming a parent's name to avoid paying inheritance tax. I remember speculation about the oldest woman in the world may have in fact been her daughter.
Andrei Codrescu had a monologue once, about how the world is in truth peopled by two-thousand year old men who "arrived at their great age with the aid of daily doses of yogurt, cigarettes, vodka, and dubious birth records. ... With the exception of their eyelashes, which reach to the ground, they are in very good shape."
ha, my grandpa said (this would have been mid 1980s) there were 150-year old people living in communes in russia and I asked how they lived so long and he said they ate yogurt. But I think he must have been referring to this: https://www.nytimes.com/1977/09/09/archives/soviet-centenari...
Glad to see this up at the top. Here is another article that specifically talks about Sardinia and Okinawa, 2 of the identified "Blue Zones", and really puts it down to poor record keeping: https://www.vox.com/2019/8/8/20758813/secrets-ultra-elderly-...
On the other hand, we know from other research that physical activity, social engagement, low alcohol consumption, and the Mediterranean diet are all healthy. Can it be just coincidence all 7 blue zones exhibit these things?
The assumption being that poor longevity records resulted in fake centenarians. But what if it resulted in missed centenarians?
On the flip side and more seriously.
From your link: "Officials have found that hundreds of the missing would be at least 150 years old if still alive." That's just silly, Japan celebrates their oldest on a regular basis. The false claims would and are scrutinized, not just by Japan.
The link is from 2010. My point being yes, the absurd claims are investigated and debunked. It's a known problem.
> team of demographers, scientist and anthropologists were able to distill the evidence-based common denominators of these Blue Zones into 9 commonalities that they call the Power 9
Incredibly embarrassing for all involved if your bet is correct. None of them considered that possibility?
Another common reason is evading the draft during war due to old age.
In my country the region with longest living people is infamous with high corruption rates and general poverty. It also has the highest natal mortality rate which might be a contributing factor too
That's an interesting potential correlation, as I'd guess some percentage of Loma Linda CA are likely to have been "conscientious objectors" like this SDA fellow the movie Hacksaw Ridge was made about:
franze|3 years ago
And I loved the stories when the government introduced a new land registry (based on reality) and the chaos the ensured, as suddenly lot of land was owned 2 or more times, officially unknown villages were officially discovered ...
I would definitely question the validity of the historic birth register, a lot.
mfer|3 years ago
throw0101a|3 years ago
For anyone curious:
> In Christianity, a name day is a tradition in many countries of Europe and the Americas, among other parts of Christendom.[1] It consists of celebrating a day of the year that is associated with one's baptismal name, which is normatively that of a biblical character or other saint.[2] […]
> The custom originated with the Christian calendar of saints: believers named after a saint would celebrate that saint's feast day. Within Christianity, name days have greater resonance in areas where the Christian denominations of Catholicism, Lutheranism and Orthodoxy predominate.[1]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_day
peoplefromibiza|3 years ago
Birthdays might not be accurate due to difficulties in registering births, civil wars and fascist coups (they burnt every record so that people from, for example, Macedonia had to take Greek names) but the difference from on paper age and actual age is on average a few months off (plus or minus, so they balance in the end).
They also care a lot about celebrating birthdays with very big family gatherings.
On other note: if we believe that somewhere they kept false records of births, what should make us believe that in other parts of the World they kept perfect records?
What should make us think that birth records in Azerbaijan, Colombia, Ohio or Fiji are more accurate?
BeefySwain|3 years ago
Could you provide some links expanding on this? Or a phrase to Google? Sounds fascinating.
tsaprailis|3 years ago
As an anecdote my grandfather born in remote mountain village in mainland Greece in the 1900 was actually registered by his father having been born in 1906 as to avoid being drafted as long as possible to fight in the multiple wars fought at the time. So birth records and certificates from that time are not really trustworthy.
bombcar|3 years ago
Aeolun|3 years ago
margalabargala|3 years ago
atourgates|3 years ago
Loma Linda's core contributing factors seem to be:
* High incidence of vegetarianism
* High incidence of non-smokers and non-drinkers
* Strong religious / social community
* Access to great healthcare
All while having birth records that are just about as accurate as anyplace else in the United States.
pcurve|3 years ago
tenpies|3 years ago
If I may posit an idea. It's not that poor record keeping leads to blue zones.
It's that not caring about the trivialities of paper pushing and imaginary rules that current Western governments use to exert their power, helps one live longer.
Now why do guys like you and me know what a land registry is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then?
jandrese|3 years ago
genjipress|3 years ago
dekhn|3 years ago
gowld|3 years ago
mfer|3 years ago
Now that they know about these places, scientists have spent a fair amount of time studying and publishing about them.
franze|3 years ago
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3362219/
hn_throwaway_99|3 years ago
ip26|3 years ago
ianai|3 years ago
SapporoChris|3 years ago
On the flip side and more seriously. From your link: "Officials have found that hundreds of the missing would be at least 150 years old if still alive." That's just silly, Japan celebrates their oldest on a regular basis. The false claims would and are scrutinized, not just by Japan.
The link is from 2010. My point being yes, the absurd claims are investigated and debunked. It's a known problem.
scifibestfi|3 years ago
Incredibly embarrassing for all involved if your bet is correct. None of them considered that possibility?
t-3|3 years ago
postsantum|3 years ago
Terretta|3 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Doss
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
ancorevard|3 years ago
pcurve|3 years ago
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/health/longevity-blue-zone-we...
high percentage of vegetarians, active lifestyle, religious folks, etc.
tomBlalock|3 years ago
onlyrealcuzzo|3 years ago
And what steps did the study take to make sure the results aren't just random noise?
Trias11|3 years ago
amelius|3 years ago
Terretta|3 years ago
function_seven|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]