Highly developed countries with access to affordable or free healthcare seem to be real blue zones. Especially in highly urban areas. Hong Kong, Singapore, and the big cities of some countries (Tokyo, Sydney) have very high life expectancy numbers.
Seems like getting treatment when you're sick, and having regular check ups to induce lifestyle changes are what makes a place a blue zone.
I think you're confusing correlation with causation. There is no reliable evidence that having regular check ups improves longevity, or even benefits healthy patients at all. And advice given by doctors about lifestyle changes is notoriously ineffective: long-term patient compliance close to zero.
"having regular check ups to induce lifestyle changes"
More likely that those areas have society level positive lifestyles by default, especially relating to foods (eg Okinawa eating until 80% full, Italy and the mederteranian diet, Loma Linda plant heavy diet, etc).
Plenty of people get at least an annual covered checkup, but that doesn't mean they will make lifestyle changes. Even the ones that try end up like a new years resolution - not being strict about it or giving up after a month or two.
Isn’t the whole point of this research that people Okinawa and Italy probably don’t live any longer. In fact these areas have shorter average life span? So, all the stories about the benefit of the Mediterranean fish heavy diet are post-hoc rationalizations of bad data?
"Isn’t the whole point of this research that people Okinawa and Italy probably don’t live any longer."
I didn't see that claim in the article. What I did see is that the data on centarians was shown to be invalid. It's certainly possible that the overall life expectancy stats could be distorted. In most cases (excluding Okinawa), I doubt that the mistakes or fraud are that rampant. The problem with the blue zone studies is that they explicitly focused on outliers from the beginning. Any mistakes or fraud become a big impact in a small population like that. If you use population level life expectancy, the impact should become much smaller, or at the very least any systemic fraud and mistakes should become readily visible and be able to be corrected in the numbers if further studies are done to measure it.
The article is very emotional and seems to mischaracterize some things, such as claiming that every blue zone must fit each piece of the suggestions. The idea of drinking every day is probably not a good suggestion as there is some research contesting the benefits of a glass of wine a day. But let's take Okinawa as an example. It's uncontested that the records have problems, it's trending in the wrong direction (younger generations, probably better records), and it doesn't fit all the practices (eg religion). But does this invalidate the longevity recommendation of eating to 80% full that comes out of the blue zone recommendation? No. There are independent studies showing the benefits of this practice to reduce cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance, and obesity.
So even if the blue zone centarian data is wrong (it is), that doesn't say anything about the suggested practices. Those have always needed their own studies to validate the suggested practices anyways. Fot example, there are numerous studies on the mederteranian diet that shows it is beneficial compared to a typical western diet and especially compared to the typical American diet.
The point is that, if the Blue Zones concept is BS and none of these places have high life expectancy, then there is no reason to discuss them in the context of nutrition or lifestyle recommendations of any kind. Those recommendations may be good or bad, but they are unrelated to the non-existent longevity of these "blue zones".
Yeah, but it's all ancient history at this point. The recommendations have already been proven or disproven through followup studies. Disproving blue zones at this point in time is basically moot.
The real Blue Zones are the friends we made along the way.
The problem will always be that you need to find places that keep good records, and have done so for the last century.
What they set out to do was to find correlations between lifestyle and longevity, and what they ended up finding was a great tool for spotting pension fraud.
The levels of fraud aren't that rampant. Focusing on life expectancy in those regions still seems to have some valid correlation. It was a mistake from the beginning to try to focus on outliers (people living over 100).
Yeah, it does show that for some of the areas, but not others. The problem with these population studies is they do not give you answers, only new variables. In my view, the whole blue zone study is moot, at least in the way it is typically applied. What it does give us are new variables to study. Those smaller studied can control for variables that the population level cannot. They can also apply those studies to populations of different decent (genetics).
The glass of wine recommendation has had many studies done and the results are conflicting.
The eating guidelines like heavy in plants, mederteranian, eating to 80% full all have multiple studies showing benefits over the typical western diet and especially the typical American diet. It's a no brainer that if you want to live a long life you have a better chance of doing that if you have a reduced risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, etc.
Most of these guidelines are based on the same sort of flawed population-level studies that can't control for many other aspects. For example, the "Mediterranean diet" is consumed in countries that have all sorts of other specific lifestyle differences that are just as likely to influence health and longevity - siesta, a general tendency not to stress or work in exaggerated amounts, a month or more of vacation per year, significant sun exposure, good social healthcare, and many others. All of these together have certain (mild) effects on longevity and health, but there is virtually no way to isolate any one from all of the others.
There are also many studies that suggest other kinds of diets are beneficial, and many populations that consume significantly different diets and have even better health than the average person around the Mediterranean. For example, inuit populations also display generally low obesity and risks of heart attack, stroke, diabetes etc - while consuming almost the opposite of a Mediterranean diet or of plant heavy diets.
"For example, inuit populations also display generally low obesity and risks of heart attack, stroke, diabetes etc - while consuming almost the opposite of a Mediterranean diet or of plant heavy diets."
There are it's just the outlier blue zones where people are supposed to be reaching very hugh maximum ages at a surprising rate that are probably not real. There are still plenty of correlations between healthier lifestyles generally you just shouldn't attempt to live past 100 by emulating what people in an alleged blue zone do.
That is no way shape or form invalidates any actual link between lifestyle and longevity. It just means you can't simply assume that any given example of longevity, or data indicating longevity, must be due to lifestyle.
There is correlation (and maybe even causal relation) between lifestyle and longevity. It's just the lifestyle in those "Blue Zones" is not different from the lifestyle of surrounding areas (or as in Okinawa - gradient points in the wrong direction), so cannot serve as the sure way to longevity.
There’s extensive literature on the lack of modern disease in hunter gatherers. Frontier doctors could get a case report published when they found cancer.
Some lived long but on average their lives were short because they didn’t have antibiotics or emergency medicine and lived in harsh environments that few of us would be able to survive today.
Their wisdom appropriately coupled to a modern less harsh environment might lead to greater longevity. But the harshness is what ensures exercise, movement, unprocessed food, etc.
Do you have any evidence you can point to for this assertion? The book Good Calories Bad Calories has a section that reviews the literature on the subject. Disease and Western Civilization reviews specific populations in detail. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration for a geographically diverse primary source although it’s not about cancer or longevity.
The assertion that older people get cancer more than young people? You could try any medical source whatsoever that deals with cancer or longevity, instead of picking one that doesn't, e.g. [0]
> Advancing age is the most important risk factor for cancer overall and for many individual cancer types. The incidence rates for cancer overall climb steadily as age increases, from fewer than 25 cases per 100,000 people in age groups under age 20, to about 350 per 100,000 people among those aged 45–49, to more than 1,000 per 100,000 people in age groups 60 years and older.
That study doesn’t include hunter gathers. Certainly cancer rates increase for them as they age as well. The point is the rate is orders of magnitude less than we experience today.
Frontier doctors diagnosed cancer in hunter gatherers the same as with non-hunter gathers. Except the hunter gatherer diagnosis was so rare that they could write a case report about it.
Sorry for your loss. We all have lost loved ones to cancer today. It didn't used to be that way. Cancer is one of the many afflictions known in academic literature as "Diseases of Civilization". It's incidence is increasing in our society at any given age, so it's not because we are living longer.
You can look to the Amish for some answers. They aren't hunter gatherers but they do live a more primitive lifestyle. Some studies seem to show they have lower rates of cancers. It's not really a secret that if you are active, eat fairly healthy, aeent obese, and don't drink or smoke that you will be significantly healthier than the baseline rates in the US.
Could be that that "more primitive lifestyle" could fall victim to some of the same issues that lead us to see the cancer rates throughout history as much lower. (E.g., lack of diagnosis)
I took a look at the Hutterites in Canada because while they live a simpler lifestyle with a more traditional diet, no smoking, and minimal alcohol consumption, they are generally much less averse to modern conveniences where they supplement their lifestyle. Combined with Canada's public health system, that means they have few barriers in the way of receiving modern medical care.
It's a bit old, but I found a study from the 80s[0] that found men have significantly lower rates of lung cancer (yep, not smoking helps) but they found an increased risk of stomach cancer and leukemias. Women had lower rates of uterine cancer. This was fairly consistent across all three traditional groups in North America.
Other sources seem to show their life expectancy is in line with the general population, removing that as a factor.
So not smoking helps. If I had to take a wild guess, the lower rate of uterine cancer could potentially be explained by lower rates of HPV as we now know that's the main risk factor for developing cervical cancer. I can't find any reports on the rates of STDs among the Hutterites, but I would hazard a guess it's "lower".
Which, on the surface, makes it look like the lifestyle and diet (besides not smoking!) isn't having a lot of impact.
I'm definitely less familiar with the Amish, so I did some looking beforehand. What I was finding that their willingness to use modern medicine, or to use it preferentially, is said to vary a lot from community to community.
As well, I found they self-fund access to healthcare, and I have no idea what the dynamics would be like with that--would you decide not to see a doctor so you're not placing a burden on your neighbours?
Neither's a factor with Hutterites in Canada. They're very willing to use and rely on modern technology (they probably have some of the most technologically advanced farming setups you've seen, have cell phones, etc) and there's no cost barrier to accessing healthcare.
I was curious, shared what I found. Take from it what you'd like!
And note that it's not "get cancer" but "find cancer".
In a harsh environment how many die of a tumor that saps their energy before causing any specific effect that causes them to seek out a doctor and presents with something the doctor can find without the million-dollar machinery?
Let's grab our Mr. Fusion and head back a quarter century. My father came to visit. He had definitely declined since the last time we saw him but had no known major health issues. There wasn't anything in particular, yet what my wife saw was enough that she said we wouldn't see him again. Half a year later the big machines found the cancer. Would he have made it that half year in a harsh environment? No.
And on your "had a life expectancy of about 45 years", you have a math problem. The average life span was closer to 25 years but was dragged down but the huge amount of infant mortality which is normal in humans.
The Tsimané of the Amazon are know to live well into their 70s.
> The Tsimané of the Amazon are know to live well into their 70s.
Some of them do, but those are filtered to the most healthy if the lot. It's not really surprising that if you lose the sickly ones while they're infants the ones who make it to adulthood are less likely to get sick.
This is further confounded when you have generations that have lived longer, as we do in the first world, because now not only do the sickly ones live long enough to get modern diseases, they also live long enough to reproduce and pass on the previously-non-viable genes. So generation after generation gets added that would never have survived without modern medicine.
I consider it to be a good thing that we can optimize our evolution for different traits now besides raw survivability, but it does mean that we should expect our disease numbers to be higher.
My point was that when someone says the "life expectancy is 45" that does not mean that everyone dies at 45.
> I consider it to be a good thing that we can optimize our evolution
We cannot "optimize" our evolution for different traits. Evolution is optimization to the environment. We cannot use human thought to optimize evolution, and that is eugenics anyway so no thanks.
I wonder if there was anything historically equivalent to the Antediluvian lifespans described in the Old Testament. If, for example, there was something in the food a few thousand years ago in the area of the Persian/Arabian Gulf, now underwater, that could extend lifespan.
In some ancient cultures around that region, stating that someone was hundreds of years old was a sign of respect for their wisdom, authority, and line. The numbers weren't meant to be taken literally.
So this is a major side question, but is there a go-to open source infinite canvas? I'm building a card game and I need a multiplayer infinite canvas for it. I'd appreciate any recommendations.
I think the biggest pain point for me is that nothing I've found supports cards that can be "flipped" so that they are face up or face down. I'm not an advanced coder but maybe I'll try to whip something up.
Ooh I see PixiJs can make content available to the screenreader for a11y. That’s always a big question mark for me when people start cramming a content tree into a canvas.
If your point is that BYOK is a useless acronym since it has the same number* of syllables, I disagree. Acronyms aren't just for reducing syllable count; they also reduce visual clutter and are easier to read for people who scan text.
My brother from another mother, I thought I was the only one left who distinguishes much from many. (I wish I didn't know that it's technically an initialism not an acronym...)
