What is the secret of the world’s “blue zones”, famous for the longevity of their inhabitants and their high proportion of centenarians? According to a researcher, it is in fact nothing more than a hoax, based on erroneous data.
This term was coined to designate a region of the world – the Italian island of Sardinia was the first in 2004 – where people are said to live longer and healthier than elsewhere.
The desire to live as long as possible has given rise to a thriving business: dietary advice and advice for a reputedly healthy lifestyle, books, tech gadgets, food supplements… supposed to contribute to longevity.
But for Saul Justin Newman, a researcher at University College London, the existing data on the planet’s oldest humans is simply “bogus, to a truly shocking degree”, he told AFP .
His research, currently under peer review, sifted through data on centenarians and “supercentenarians” (who reached 110 years) in the United States, Italy, England, France and Japan.
And unexpectedly, he found that “supercentenarians” tended to come from areas with poor health, high poverty levels and poor record-keeping.
The real secret to extreme longevity appears to be to “settle where birth certificates are rare and teach your children to cheat your way into retirement benefits”, Mr Newman said in September upon receiving his Ig Nobel Prize, an award given to scientists whose research, although eccentric, provokes thought.
Among other examples, Sogen Kato was considered Japan’s oldest person… until his mummified remains were discovered in 2010 – it turned out he had died in 1978. Members of his family were arrested for receiving their pension for three decades.
The government then launched a study which revealed that 82% of centenarians counted in Japan, or 230,000 people, were in reality missing or dead.
“Their documents are in order, they’re just dead,” Mr Newman said.
Because confirming the age of these people involves verifying very old documents whose very authenticity can be called into question. For him, all the commerce that the blue zones have given rise to stems from this problem.
In 2004, Sardinia was the first to be qualified as a “blue zone”.
The following year, the Japanese islands of Okinawa and the Californian city of Loma Linda were designated “blue zones” by National Geographic journalist Dan Buettner. But in October, the latter admitted to the New York Times that he had only included Loma Linda because his editor-in-chief had told him: “You have to find the blue zone of America.”
The journalist then teamed up with demographers to create the “Blue Zones” brand, to which were added the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica and the Greek island of Ikaria.
But unreliable public records, such as those in Japan, have cast doubt on the real age of the centenarians counted in these areas.
In Costa Rica, a 2008 study showed that 42% of them had “lied about their age” during a census, reports Mr. Newman. In Greece, the 2012 data he collected suggests that 72% of centenarians were dead: “They are only alive the day they receive their retirement pension,” he quips.
Blue zone researchers have dismissed Newman’s work as “ethically and academically irresponsible.” Demographers have claimed to have “meticulously verified” the ages of “supercentenarians” using historical documents and records dating back to the 1800s.
But according to Mr. Newman, this argument reinforces his point: “If we start from an erroneous birth certificate, copied from other certificates, we obtain perfectly coherent files… and perfectly erroneous”, he said. -he declared.
In conclusion, he says: “To live a long life, start by not buying anything. Listen to your doctor, exercise, don’t drink, don’t smoke, that’s it.”
