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hodag's avatar

https://youtu.be/J4AAWiNAE8Q?feature=shared

Above is a yogurt commercial that claimed Soviet Georgians ate lots of yogurt and lived a very long time. After the USSR failed they looked into this and these guys were draft dodging young men who assumed fathers or uncles identity in WW2. Smart. You can get hurt in a war.

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Gathering Goateggs's avatar

I have worked with US Social Security Administration and Medicare data since the late 1990s. This is a phenomenon that is well-known inside the gerontology research community but little discussed outside -- and all the US data are polluted, not just Loma Linda. There is a group of SSA/Medicare beneficiaries that we colloquially call "the immortals" because they 'refuse' to die on paper. How to account for them in health services and chronic disease research is an ongoing problem.

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Anatoly Karlin's avatar

The Caucasus is the Russian/post-Soviet equivalent of this cringe trope ("healthy trad mountaineers living long by eating only natural healthy products").

In the past decade, the Russian region with the highest life expectancy was Ingushetia (81 years).

Ingushetia is also its poorest, most subsidized, most corrupt, and the one with the highest % of PhD holders.

Skeptical about the life expectancy and (legit) PhD holders part.

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Crissman Loomis's avatar

Agreed. I've covered the same thing: https://www.unaging.com/the-limits-of-human-lifespan/

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Alejandro's avatar

As Louis CK put it, how am I going to tell my kids not to lie? It's one the most important things in life. Anyway, I spotted a typo. It should be "discoverer" in "When the discover of the five blue zones".

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Cremieux's avatar

Thanks, fixed.

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Arjun Rajagopalan's avatar

That was an exceptionally well-done dissection of the "Blue Zone" phenomenon. Netflix even has a series on it. Applying the "correlation is not causation" lens critically negates many modern medical observations and recommendations. This is particularly true of advice about diet and nutrition. There is constant flip-flopping on recommendations. For decades, the cholesterol-coronary artery disease connection was proclaimed as the irrefutable truth. No longer; even any sort of association is being questioned. The "Blue Zone" theory was too slick to hold up. In this regard, I found this article to be intriguing: "Why you should never take nutrition advice from a centenarian" - Elliott B., The Conversation - https://theconversation.com/why-you-should-never-take-nutrition-advice-from-a-centenarian-229159 The author talks about the "survivorship bias,"  an important but common flaw in longevity studies.

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Daniel's avatar

My lack of faith in humanity is restored! Hallelujah!

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SUZ's avatar

It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do. Who you chose to study. What you chose to test. How much you long to be in control of your own life span. My friend, death comes for us all.

Maybe it is how you chose to live your life that bears study instead?

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Matt Benson's avatar

I bought Buettner’s Blue Zone Cookbook but I never made anything from it because I am lazy and ended up donating it to a charity sale in basically brand new condition. If I live to 100 that will prove that laziness it the key.

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mani malagón's avatar

Ah, Shangri-la is just around the bend of a distant mountain, —a valley where death is eluded by all & no one clubs a neighbor to death for cheating with their wife. But, only vegans are allowed!

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El Horrible's avatar

Bro it’s fine, once you’ve had your career and raised your kids, seen them pop out some grandkids, it’s time to die and pass on your assets so they can be put to use by the next generation.

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Jonas Pohlmann's avatar

Interesting! I am living in Okinawa and in contact with the researchers who made the cited paper and got to know the backstory of the "creation" of the bluezones. The basis of your argument is that you claim that their research methods were faulty. Can you elaborate on that?

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norstadt's avatar

Tip of the iceberg...

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Phil Hayward's avatar

Being mischievous here; I wonder if "Registered voters" in some US precincts on election night skew to outrageously high age cohorts...

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Qi Bing SIA's avatar

Love the stats. Keep it coming, thanks for sharing!

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Alberto Callado's avatar

Check Spain

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