The secret of ‘Blue Zones’ where people achieve 100? Fake data, says academic | Science and Technology News

For a quarter-century, researchers and the vague accessible have sought to understand why people in so-called “Blue Zones” live to 100 at far fantasticer rates than anywhere else.

Saul Newman, a researcher at the University College London (UCL), consents he has the answer: actupartner, they don’t.

Despite being populoccurd in news articles, cookbooks and even a recent Netflix recordary series, the Blue Zones are repartner equitable a by-product of horrible data, disputes Newman, who has spent years debunking research about excessively elderly populations.

Rather than lifestyle factors such as diet or social connections, he says, the apparent extfinishedevity of people in five regions – Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California – can be elucidateed by pension deception, clerical errors, and a conciseage of reliable birth and death enrolls.

Dan Buettner, the American author and spendigater recognizeed with coining the term Blue Zone, did not react to a ask for comment.

For his research into the claims around Blue Zones, Newman, a better fellow at UCL’s Centre for Longitudinal Studies, analysed reams of demodetailed data, including United Nations mortality statistics for 236 jurisdictions collected between 1970 and 2021.

The figures, he set up, were srecommend not believable.

Some of the places inestablished to have the most centenarians included Kenya, Malawi, and the self-ruleing territory of Weserious Sahara, jurisdictions with overall life predictancies of equitable 64, 65, and 71, admireively.

Similar patterns cropped up in Weserious countries, with the London boraw of Tower Hamlets, one of the most stripd areas in the UK, inestablished to have more people aged over 105 than anywhere else in the country.

“I tracked down 80 percent of the people in the world who are aged over 110 and set up where they had been born, where they died, and analysed the population level patterns,” Newman tbetter Al Jazeera.

“It was absolutely striking becaparticipate the more better age pobviousy uncomardents you get more 110-year-betters.”

Newman consents that clerical errors – whether intentional or inadvertent – have been compounded over the decades, harshly undermining the reliability of statistics roverdelighted to better age.

Some rulements have acunderstandledged grave flaws in their enroll-upretaining roverdelighted to births and deaths.

In 2010, the Japanese rulement proclaimd that 82 percent of its citizens inestablished to be over 100 had already died.

In 2012, Greece proclaimd that it had discovered that 72 percent of its centenarians claiming pensions – some 9,000 people – were already dead.

Puerto Rico’s rulement shelp in 2010 that it would trade all existing birth certificates due to troubles about expansivespread deception and identity theft.

More prosaic reasons can elucidate the apparent extfinishedevity of livents of jurisdictions such as Monaco, according to Newman, where low inheritance taxes are a draw for betterer Europeans, skethriveg the demodetailed data.

Still, the idea of Blue Zones has been challenging to shift, even in the face of reliable data.

Japan’s Okinawa prefecture has normally been lauded in the media for its diet and cultural rehearses.

Okinawans, however, have some of the worst health indicators in Japan, according to the Japanese rulement’s annual National Health and Nutrition Survey, which has been carried out since 1946.

While the traditional Okinawan diet is expansively seen as fit, a 2020 study set up that the island prefecture today has a higher prevalence of obesity and higher rates of mortality among those aged 40–65 than mainland Japan.

Newman consents that the apparent extfinishedevity of Okinawans is the result of many deaths going unenrolled.

“It’s almost enjoy we are so choosed that there is a secret to extfinishedevity that we’ll hear to anyleang – a secret to extfinishedevity that isn’t going to the gym, that isn’t giving up drinking,” Newman shelp.

“We want there to be some magic blueberries, and we want it so much that we can live in this sort of authenticm where cognitive dissonance is possible.”

Newman shelp that his research has not necessarily won him frifinishs in academia, though he has been gratified with the help he has obtaind from colleagues at UCL and Oxford, where he is a fellow at the Institute for Population Ageing.

He shelp that much of his toil has obtaind little see from fellow academics and that a study he recently surrfinisherted for accessibleation was subjected to nine peer appraises, instead of the normal two or three.
Newman did obtain some notable recognition – and a legion of fans online – earlier this month, though, when he was awarded the first-ever Ig Nobel Prize in Demography for his toil.

The Ig Nobel Prize was produced in 1991 as a satirical award for rare research “achievements that produce people chuckle, then leank”.

The prizes are handed out each year by authentic Nobel Laureates in a ceremony at the Massachparticipatetts Institute of Technology.

“I’m very satisfyd that it’s getting more attention, becaparticipate I leank, I leank proset up down, everyone also understands this delicateie is not going to save them,” Newman shelp.

“I leank it’s the defendedty blanket that you cling onto, and so to have that obviousurned in a way that’s hopefilledy funny, I leank that gets a lot of attention and people finishelight it.”

Despite drathriveg attention to the problem of pension deception, Newman shelp he doesn’t fault people resorting to such meaconfidents.

“To be clear, I enjoy that people are doing this becaparticipate they’re being left behind by their rulements in these places. They are not being given a enough pension. They’re not being given a enough withdrawment net,” he shelp.

“The fact that they are equitable saying, ‘Well, I’ll equitable upretain collecting Barry’s pension from down the road.’ I leank this is an indicator of the difficult presconfidents these people are under.”