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Are blue zones real? Answering that question is harder then ever

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Re: Are blue zones real? Answering that question is harder then ever

#61

Post by nkurz »

smt88 wrote: post #45
hnfong wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstand. You think blue zones are "thoroughly debunked". And it might be even true that blue zones aren't real. But I am not seeing any evidence that the general public is aware of this. And thus we need more of the articles "asking" this question so that more people are aware of the issues on it. FYI, the article you linked basically tells the same story as the topical article. Are you too lazy to…

A) I can't read the article because it's paywalled. B) Regardless of what story it tells, the article is an opinion piece by a journalist and a cardiologist, not authorities on the topic, and has a misleading title: that "answering [the] question [of whether Blue Zones are real]" is harder than ever. It's not.

You keep saying that you "can't read the article" rather than that you choose not to. Are you philosophically opposed to clicking the archive link in this thread: https://archive.ph/cgUxZ?

Which is fine, although I personally wouldn't use "can't" to describe this stance. In any case, I think the discussion might be smoother if you were willing to review the article under discussion.

Re: Are blue zones real? Answering that question is harder then ever

#62

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

smt88 wrote: post #58
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me you didn't read TFA without telling me. And in fact, TFA is pretty sympathetic to your position, but not as absolutely certain as you are.

I didn’t read TFA because it’s paywalled. The question asked by the headline is fair, but the next sentence is too credulous and is actually false. There’s a reason this was published as “opinion”.

No paywall visible here (uBlock Origin, maybe?)

Re: Are blue zones real? Answering that question is harder then ever

#63

Post by dredmorbius »

smt88 wrote: post #58
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me you didn't read TFA without telling me. And in fact, TFA is pretty sympathetic to your position, but not as absolutely certain as you are.

I didn’t read TFA because it’s paywalled. The question asked by the headline is fair, but the next sentence is too credulous and is actually false. There’s a reason this was published as “opinion”.

https://archive.is/cgUxZ>

https://web.archive.org/web/20260504122247/https://www.statn...>

HN readers should know standard workarounds.

Re: Are blue zones real? Answering that question is harder then ever

#64

Post by dredmorbius »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #41
jeremyjh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its even better to have a government pension that sends checks to your address as long as you are alive.

For the statistics though, it's even better if those checks continue after your death.

[dead]

Re: Are blue zones real? Answering that question is harder then ever

#65

Post by Daishiman »

socalgal2 wrote: post #49
liquidise wrote: post #2

> Buettner himself says he oversaw the blue zones frozen meal initiative This really captures the reality of longevity, at least in US culture. Whether or not blue zones are verifiable or real, the ingredients to statistical longevity are well understood to minimally include: eat better and maintain a level of fitness. Those are not easy to do when laziness, sedentary device time and fast food options are just so eas…

> the ingredients to statistical longevity are well understood to minimally include: eat better and maintain a level of fitness. I went to a talk recently where someone who did longevity research listed high-impact things vs low-impact things for a long life. They claimed things like (numbers are from memory) * eating legumes - live 2 extra years * eating vegatables - live 3-6 extra month. * walk 5-6km a day - live 2…

Those findings are pretty robust as there are hundreds of experiments with an aggregate of tens to hundreds of thousands of subjects on the effects of moderate exercise and eating fiber. Fiber has pretty much linear benefits in all-cause mortality up until something like 50g per day and this shows up again and again. Likewise with the effects of moderate exercise.

More than the positive effects, the list does not list things that account for negative effects, like obesity (very strongly correlated with bad health outcomes), tobacco, alcohol, high non-HDL cholesterol thorough whatever eating habits enable it, etc.

The thing about the negatives is that they depend on dose across your lifetime, so being obese for several years, or having high levels of cholesterol has long-term impact even if you reverse the trend.

If you look at all that in the aggregate I think those factors can explain differences in life span quite well. Then again you still need to look at an individual's genetics and the randomness of cancer and various diseases that, while still affected by the previous factors, have enormous variance.

Re: Are blue zones real? Answering that question is harder then ever

#66

Post by dredmorbius »

verteu wrote: post #11

Why not simply use median life expectancy, which is more robust to fraud and outliers, instead of "number of centenarians"?

Extreme agers are rare enough that they're highly unlikely to show up in median statistics. If there are people living exceptionally long, they're still a small proportion. You might get some mileage from percentile analysis (95%ile, 99%ile), and there may be robust research methodology along those lines (I'm not tapped into that).

Which actually does leverage your concept somewhat (increase the sample size to include more members, and reduce extreme outliers). There is also plenty of analysis which does benefit by median (vs. mean or maximum) analysis, or by looking closely at observed distributions and outlier characteristics.

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