Beware the story, embrace the science

Have you ever heard of “Blue Zones”?

These pockets of the world are known for having citizens who live very long and healthy lives.

Some of these locations may be familiar:

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

These locations have a higher percentage of people living because of a local whole-food diet, high vegetable consumption, low incidence of disease, rich social interactions, low stress, and lots of physical activity.

Books, documentaries, and countless news articles have advocated for these societies, and millions upon millions of health conscious people have shaped their lifestyles around them.

There is nothing else one problem with this amazing story.

It’s really not true.

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 virtually eliminating any research findings related to the Blue Zones.

Here’s what Dr. Newman found:

“The highest rates of reaching extreme old age are predicted by great poverty, lack of a birth certificate and less than 90 years of age.

Poverty and the pressure to commit pension fraud proved to be excellent predictors of reaching over 100 years of age, in a way that was ‘contrary to rational expectations’.

It turns out that most of the “very old and healthy” people in those blue areas were just a result of that ,very poorly kept records, pension fraud and outright lying,.

Let’s see what happens in Okinawa:

“Although vegetables and sweet potatoes are promoted as key ingredients in the Okinawan ‘Blue Zone’ diet, according to the Japanese government, Okinawans eat the least amount of vegetables and potatoes in Japan and have the highest body mass index.”

Oooooh. So what the hell do we do now!?

Beware of anecdotal narratives that make dramatic promises

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

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 a solution in pill or powder form.

The good news is that science is constantly improving.

We don’t really We don’t need to know what the people of Okinawa eat, nor do we need to study the daily habits of a certain community in Costa Rica.

Don’t get me wrong, I too love a good whimsical story about the customs of a faraway land, but it still comes back to reality and science!

And we can remember to do our best for our special situation. That can be inclusive ,therapy,maybe ,weight loss medications,might as well focus on sleep right now!

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

Here are some ways we can positively impact our lives and/or health.

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

And many of these may be out of our control!

For example, ,social determinants of health, (financial stability, access to health care, education, our neighborhood) are strongly associated with all-cause mortality, and many of these things may not be available to large parts of the population.

Life is messy

I don’t bring all this up to tell you to avoid the Blue Zone diet.

Heck, you could do a lot worse than eating a Mediterranean diet! Of course You will likely lose weight and feel healthy if you eat fresh fish, whole foods and vegetables.

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

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

Tomorrow we could get hit by a bus, get a cancer diagnosis despite “doing everything right”, or experience one ,a terrible accident that changes everything, next week

So instead of chasing after immortality through sensationalized anecdotes or indulging in the latest social media trend…

We can keep our focus on things that we feel pretty sure will make us better tomorrow than today.

I liked the stuff on that list above! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go do some push-ups, eat a vegetable, and take a brisk walk while I call a friend.

-Steve

PS Hat tip to my friend Jodi Ettenberg, whose powerful and powerful story of acceptance I linked above. It was ,his newsletter, which led me to this article!

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