Heeding the Story, Embracing the Science

Have you heard of “Blue Zones”?

These pockets of the world are known for citizens living long, healthy lives.

Some of these locations may look familiar:

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

These locations have a higher percentage of people living longer because of their local whole-food diet, high vegetable consumption, fewer cases of disease, more social interaction, lower stress, and lots of physical activity.

Books, documentaries, and countless news articles highlight these societies, and millions of health-conscious people model their lifestyles after how these people live.

It’s right there deer problem with this amazing story.

This is not true.

The First Ig Nobel Prize in Demography

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

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

For this particular award, Newman was recognized for debunking almost all the findings of any study related to the Blue Zones.

Here is what Dr. discovered. Newman:

“The highest rate of reaching extreme old age is predicted by high poverty, lack of birth certificates, and fewer 90-year-olds.

Poverty and pressure to commit pension fraud have been shown to be excellent predictors of reaching age 100+ in a way that is ‘contrary to reasonable expectations.’”

It appears that most of the “very old, healthy” individuals in these blue zones are simply the result of thatpoor record keeping, pension fraud, and outright lyingthat.

Let’s see what really happened in Okinawa:

“Despite vegetables and sweet potatoes being promoted as important components of Okinawan ‘Blue Zone’ diets, according to the Japanese government, Okinawans eat the least vegetables and sweet potatoes in Japan and have the highest body mass index.”

Ooooof. So, what the heck are we going to do now!?

Beware of anecdotal narratives that make dramatic promises

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

These anecdotal stories, especially when they have a villain, victim and hero story about overcoming adversity, are incredibly powerful. They are also often used to sell you a solution in a pill or powder form.

The good news is our data is constantly refined scientifically.

We are not to be honest need to know what the people of Okinawa eat, nor do we need to study the daily habits of a particular community in Costa Rica.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good weird tale about the customs of a far away land too, but it still comes back to reality and science!

And we remember that we must do the best for our particular situation. That may include thattherapythatit may include thatweight loss medicinethatthis may involve just focusing on sleep now!

That’s up to us to decide, and we can do it with confidence. Not because this is what happens in Costa Rica or Greece, but because it is the best for us.

Here are some of the ways in which we can have a positive impact on our life span and/or health span.

Yes, some of this stuff is part of the “Blue Zone Diet”… without the sensationalism and pension fraud.

And many of them may be out of our control!

For example, thatsocial determinants of healththat (financial stability, access to health care, education, our neighborhood) are strongly linked to all-cause mortality, and many of these factors may not apply to large segments of the population.

Life is chaos

I’m not saying all this to tell you to avoid a Blue Zone diet.

Heck, you could do a lot worse than eating a Mediterranean diet! course you’re likely to lose weight and feel healthier if you eat mostly fresh fish, whole foods, and vegetables.

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

A long healthy life is a combination of many interconnected factors (as listed above), thousands of decisions made throughout our lives, MORE things like genetics, society, and luck! What works for one person may not work for the next person, and there is no “one size fits all” solution to our problems.

We may get hit by a bus tomorrow, get a cancer diagnosis despite “doing everything right,” or experience a thatfreak accident that changes everythingthat next week

So, instead of chasing immortality through sensational anecdotes, or getting swept up in the latest Social Media trend…

We can continue to focus on things that we feel fairly confident 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 do some push-ups, eat some vegetables, and take a quick walk while calling a friend.

-Steve

PS Hat tip to my friend Jodi Ettenberg, whose heartbreakingly powerful story about acceptance I linked above. That was it thathis newsletterthat which led me to this article!

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