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The island where people forget to die

nytimes.com

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Re: The island where people forget to die

#31

Post by goblin89 »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #7

I hate this kind of reporting. I read through the entire first page without the slightest clue as to what the article is actually about -- I'm pretty sure it's not all just for one guy's life story. But by that point I was tired of reading, and quit. Cut it out with the pathos and human interest, and get some of the real point in there quicker.

I'm not sure why are you saying it's unclear what the article is about, IMO the headline elegantly explains the subject and basic idea, while also giving some notion about the style. I was turned off by the anecdata that the article begins with, but I didn't expect hard science anyway. Having finished it, I find it interesting and well-written. =)

Re: The island where people forget to die

#32

Post by wisty »

reasonattlm wrote: post #6

Arguing anything other than differences in levels of exercise/activity and calorie intake has a large mountain of evidence to overcome. The effects of those two are very large, the effects of everything else comparatively small per decades of animal and longitudinal human studies. Nonsense about antioxidants in the diet is exactly that: nonsense. The weight of evidence suggests that, if anything, ingested antioxidant…

The other problem with blue zones is, they could just be a statistical blip. It's especially bad when you try to identify things like centurions, or spontaneous remission of cancer - things which are rare are the most prone to statistical blips.

Re: The island where people forget to die

#33

Post by wisty »

ozgune wrote: post #14

I wonder if this article has some sort of selection bias. After all, communities that have the lowest and highest rates of cancer in the US are small towns of It's easy to find several small towns in the US where people have unusually high longevity. After all, you have many to choose from. What's more curious is to make a hypothesis around diet and exercise, and then show causality across all similar islands in Gree…

There's also crazily high variation in rare events, like living past 100 or surviving "incurable" cancer. But those are the things which people are interested in.

Re: The island where people forget to die

#34

Post by arbuge »

kolinko wrote: post #9
reasonattlm wrote: post #6

Arguing anything other than differences in levels of exercise/activity and calorie intake has a large mountain of evidence to overcome. The effects of those two are very large, the effects of everything else comparatively small per decades of animal and longitudinal human studies. Nonsense about antioxidants in the diet is exactly that: nonsense. The weight of evidence suggests that, if anything, ingested antioxidant…

Not to mention the fact, that the man could've been simply misdiagnosed. It was 60s after all...

It was 1976 and he claims 9 other doctors confirmed the diagnosis.

Re: The island where people forget to die

#35

Post by stephengillie »

arbuge wrote: post #34
kolinko wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the fact, that the man could've been simply misdiagnosed. It was 60s after all...

It was 1976 and he claims 9 other doctors confirmed the diagnosis.

He probably told each successive doctor that n-1 doctors diagnosed him this way. The last 3 may have just agreed with the first 6 without performing much diagnosis.

Re: The island where people forget to die

#36

Post by relix »

binxbolling wrote: post #24

TIL that even if you study longevity for 10+ years, you're never allowed to share anecdotes (or god forbid, close with a joke) ever again unless you're prepared to be crucified by twentysomething pseudo-experts in Silicon Valley.

TIL if you're a twentysomething you're not allowed to have critical opinions.

It goes both ways.

Re: The island where people forget to die

#37

Post by stephengillie »

dschiptsov wrote: post #12

It is not that much about diet, it is about having less stress and worries of all kinds, and have good habits, such as mixing periods of physical activity and with total rest (taking naps). It is not like staying all the time in a passive stress (or depression) - having a high level of stress hormones without any physical activities. And the last but not least, there are emotion contagiousness - one can see it a subw…

The real magic to this island is the Zen its residents practice without trying.

Re: The island where people forget to die

#38

Post by arbuge »

goldfeld wrote: post #4

Really interesting to see this here on my first morning after beginning my segmented sleep experiment. I took a quarter pill of melatonin yesterday around 6pm and slept from 6:30 till 8:30, then quickly fell asleep again till 11:30. I then failed to fall asleep at 2:30am after a wonderful mellow productive night programming session, and had to skip the second sleep. During the morning I found, completely by chance, s…

Segmented sleep? Melatonin?

Maybe it's just my Mediterranean upbringing talking but I think I'll stick with healthy food, good wine, 8 hours sleep, and surrounding myself with people I like.

Re: The island where people forget to die

#39

Post by krschultz »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #7

I hate this kind of reporting. I read through the entire first page without the slightest clue as to what the article is actually about -- I'm pretty sure it's not all just for one guy's life story. But by that point I was tired of reading, and quit. Cut it out with the pathos and human interest, and get some of the real point in there quicker.

No.

Don't worry, 57 blogs will distill it down to the core 5 points and post them in a bulleted list with a link-bait title by Friday. But writing is much more than 'get to the point as fast as possible'. These kind of stories are far more interesting than the quick summary articles found on most shitty websites. If you don't like the style, then don't click through to the New Yorker, New York Times, etc.

Re: The island where people forget to die

#40

Post by mistercow »

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #15
kolinko wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the fact, that the man could've been simply misdiagnosed. It was 60s after all...

It's possible but not so likely, the 60s was not the Middle Ages. In any case, he was clearly very sick when he returned to the island and eventually felt better, became strong and lived into his 90's. Not that that proves anything in itself. It's just a journalistic device to illustrate the point of the story which is that people on this island do live a remarkably long time and that it's worth asking why this is so…

>It's possible but not so likely

There are a lot of people, so it's pretty likely that a handful will be misdiagnosed with terminal illnesses, but never find out they were misdiagnosed. Those handful are the ones you'll hear about.

After all, you aren't going to read the amazing story of the guy who was given nine months to live, and then died nine months later.

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