Critiquing the Blue Zones
The idea that there are portions of the world in which lifestyle choice is leading to a sizable increase in life expectancy for large numbers of people, known as Blue Zones, is increasingly looking to be a mirage, the result of bad data and insufficiently skeptical analysis of that bad data. People are fascinated by longevity, credulous in the face of determined marketing, and Blue Zones have expanded as a cultural concept far beyond the limited evidence for their existence. People will be selling the Blue Zone concept long after the scientific community has written it off as one of many historical errors in epidemiology.
Researchers have spent years identifying what are claimed to be methodological errors throughout the longevity literature. For Blue Zones, the main argument is that a significant proportion of supposed centenarians may simply not exist. Around 1900, when the U.S. started to issue birth certificates, the number of centenarians aged 110 or older dropped sharply - presumably because people had been misrecording their age, whether on purpose or accidentally. Similarly, after the Greek government began checking on people receiving pensions, about 70% of all alleged centenarians in the country turned out to be dead. Researches also found that some age databases contain unusual numbers of people born on the first day of the month or on dates divisible by five, suggesting many of these birth dates are fabricated.
It is no coincidence that blue zones are found in poor, remote places that may have spotty record keeping. One can further argue that the supposed healthy lifestyle of the people who live in blue zones is not always backed up by real world data. For example, out of 47 Japanese prefectures, Okinawa ranks first on body mass index, second on beer consumption, and fourth on suicide rate among people over the age of 65.
"If equivalent rates of fake data were discovered in any other field - for example, if 82% of people in the UK Biobank or 17% of galaxies detected by the Hubble telescope were revealed to be imaginary - a major scandal would ensue. In demography, however, such revelations seem to barely merit citation. What demographers call validation is actually just checking the consistency of documents. If documents are consistently wrong then errors are not detectable."
Link: https://www.science.org/content/article/do-blue-zones-supposed-havens-longevity-rest-shaky-science
These blue zones have been bandied about since the 1980's. All of the real people I have known in life extension and cryonics circles have always been skeptical or dismissive of these blue zones. That the data underlying them is either poor or has been cooked up (so that peoples' families can receive benefits following the deaths of individuals) is of no surprise to anyone.
It's hard to find any studies that are valid if they are not RCT studies. The problem is it is impossible to do this type of study due to cost, time and other factors so you end up with epidemiological/cohort studies that can be misconstrued and biased and information in the article is proof of this.
An example is reading "For example, out of 47 Japanese prefectures, Okinawa ranks first on body mass index, second on beer consumption, and fourth on suicide rate among people over the age of 65." If you read this it makes it sound like Okinawa should be disqualified from being considered as a place where people can be long lived.
However, BMI does not have any direct bearing to longevity in itself. You can be within "normal" BMI ranges and be unhealthy and have a BMI level above normal and be in perfect health. It is just a guide and not a good one at that.
Also, stating Okinawa ranks second in beer consumption needs to be questioned. There are numerous studies that have been done that provide evidence that low/moderate drinking of alcohol to include beer, does not pose any health problems and may actually be beneficial. However, just recently a questionable source (JAMA) put out a study stating any amount of alcohol is unhealthy which has been picked up and circulated around the globe like it's the Bible.
Finally, I am curious about the part where Okinawa has the 4th highest suicide rate. I'm sure if one was to check the leading cause of death in Okinawa it would be so low that any impact it would have on longevity would be negligible so why is that even mentioned?
In closing, it's obvious that many if not most of the studies are there need to be taken with a grain of salt. What is good for you one day is bad for you the next and then reversed again in the future. Whether this is because people/groups have special interests (often paid) or just due to human fallacy don't get stressed out every time some new study tells you what you think was the thing to do is now wrong. Enjoy your nightly cocktail and you'll likely live longer for it.
Blue zones do not have to be the size of countries, but tens of kilometers. In our country, there is an area around the village of Scharatice, where the environment is very clean, no industry. Under the clay layer is a bedrock of dolomite and gypsum, which enriches the well water with a high content of MgSO4. People here live to be 90 to 95 years old. This is also due to the fact that it is a rich region, where a lot of meat is consumed, geese, ducks, turkeys, quails, pheasants, hares, rabbits, chickens and pork bacon.