Blue Zones--The Secret to Longer Life?

Blue Zones are places around the world with the healthiest, longest living populations. The phrase was coined by Dan Buettner in 2004, who was a National Geographic Explorer and Fellow.  Buettner and his team traveled the world in search of communities where people not only lived longer but also enjoyed a high quality of life in their old age. After all their travel and analyzing demographic data, they named five regions that stood out for their extraordinary longevity. The five regions include Okinawa, Japan, Nicoya, Costa Rica, Ikaria, Greece, Sardina, Italy, and Loma Linda, California. These are all areas where there is a high concentration of centenarians and low rates of chronic diseases. The studies that Buettner and his team have done revealed that genetics and lifestyle factors have played a role in their longevity. Some lifestyle factors involved include a plant-based diet, exercise, and strong social connections. (Blue Zones).  
 
Blue Zones are beneficial in many ways such as encouraging better eating habits with plant-based and whole grain diets, increased exercise habits such as walking and manual labor, and emphasizing the importance of having strong social and family connections.

Main Ideas and Benefits of the Blue Zone Diet: 

• Move Naturally 
  • Living in environments that nudge you into moving without thinking about it improves your overall longevity.  
• Purpose 
  • Knowing your sense of purpose is worth up to seven years of extra life expectancy.  
  • A study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine found that a sense of purpose was related to a reduced risk of dying from any cause and a reduced risk of cardiovascular events. However, further research is needed.  
• Downshift 
  • Stress can lead to chronic inflammation, associated with every major age-related disease. Having routines that shed stress increases life longevity.  
• 80% Rule 
  • People in Blue Zones eat their smallest meal in the late afternoon or early evening and then do not eat any more for the rest of the day.  The 80% rule refers to eating more nutritious options 80% of the time and indulging in less healthy options 20% of the time.
  • A 2020 review published in the journal Ageing Research Reviews showed that the rule may improve risk factors involved in the development of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and neurological disorders
• Plant Slant
  • Beans are the cornerstone of most centenarian diets, meat is eaten on average only five times per month, and serving sizes are 3-4 oz.  
  • A study published in the Journal of Nutrition in February 2021 showed that the focus on whole grains you get with the Blue Zones diet could also lower your risk of pancreatic cancer.  
  • ScienceDirect did a study where it was found that high-fiber diets can reduce the risk of ovarian cancer. 
• Wine at 5  
  • People in Blue Zones tend to drink alcohol moderately and regularly. The trick is to drink 1-2 glasses per day with friends and/or with food.  
• Belong 
  • Attending faith-based services four times per month will add 4-14 years of life expectancy.  
• Loved Ones First 
  • Centenarians in Blue Zones put their families first. This means keeping aging parents and grandparents nearby or in the home which can lower disease and mortality rates of children in the home, committing to a life partner which can add up to three years of life expectancy, and investing in their children with time and love.  
• Right Tribe 
  • The world’s longest-lived people chose or were born into social circles that supported healthy behaviors. Research from Framingham Studies shows that smoking, obesity, happiness, and loneliness are contagious. Social networks of long-lived people have favorably shaped their health behaviors. 

Critiques of Blue Zones: While many see the Blue Zone lifestyle as a way to live longer and promote a healthier lifestyle, there are several contrasting opinions by people who feel the lifestyle may be overhyped or inaccurate. 
 

• The Claim that Drinking Wine Will Reduce Mortality Rates 
  • This claim has been proven not true in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. They said that wine does not produce a different mortality rate compared with other types of alcohol. Some science also suggests that people in the Blue Zones do not necessarily live longer. 
• The Number of Centenarians in Blue Zones is Inaccurate 
  • According to a study in the journal Gerontology, it was found that people in Okinawa, Japan do not live as long as their counterparts elsewhere in the country. Many people argue that the number of centenarians in the Blue Zone is inaccurate. 
  • There have been many people saying that there is no proper record keeping of these individuals and some have claimed that most of the centenarians have already died but the families are not filing death certificates so they can keep receiving payments from the government. (New York Times)  
  • There have also been speculations that there are false or no birth certificates. According to a study by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, only 18% of validated supercentenarians have a birth certificate and have birthdays concentrated on days divisible by five. This is a pattern indicative of widespread fraud and error. This study also pointed out that the designated blue zones corresponded to regions with low incomes, low literacy, high crime rates, and short life expectancy compared to the national average. They claim that relative poverty and short lifespan constitute unexpected predictors of centenarian and supercentenarian status and support a primary role of fraud and error in generating human age records. This study also found substantial error rates in every Blue Zone. For example, in 1997, thirty thousand Italian citizens were discovered to be claiming their pension while dead. Another issue is a Type I error. If someone has documentation proving their age, what is stopping their siblings from presenting the documents as their own? How could an independent observer distinguish this Type I substitution? This study questions why critical questions have not been asked, such as why Japan's population and lifestyle surveys have not been used to evaluate population and lifestyle patterns in Japan after 20 years. This could be beneficial as one of the key issues with the Blue Zone's credibility is that many of the centenarians and supercentenarians do not register their deaths. This study discusses discrepancies that are being overlooked and need to be studied more to justify why Blue Zones are or are not effective.  ​

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