What’s the Truth About the “Blue Zones”?

From the time I purchased my assisted living homes, I have been evolving in my thinking of what is the best environment I can create for my residents health.

Five or six years ago, I thought it would be a vegan diet. I was reading books like ‘How Not to Die’, ‘The China Study’ and ‘The Blue Zones Secrets for Living Longer’. They all advocated for a plant-based diet to increase longevity.

So I implemented a vegan diet. I tried it in one of my homes to see how it would work. I hired some vegan nutritionists, including a PhD in nutrition.

It was pretty much a disaster. I had to drive all over town trying to find their specialized ingredients. When we served breakfast, the residents were pretty much horrified that they had to eat salads. They asked where their traditional eggs, bacon, cereals etc. had gone.

I had talked to the residents and their families beforehand so it wasn’t a surprise to them. However, once they started trying the meals, they pretty much wanted nothing to do with them.

The experiment lasted about a month.

What about those books I read advocating for the vegan diet? There seemed like each one had a lot of studies to back up their advocacy.

The trouble is that many of those studies are epidemiological studies. That means the scientists conducting the studies go out and talk to people about their eating habits. Or they fill out surveys.

They’re relying on people’s recollections about what they ate over a certain time period. Do you remember all your meals over the past couple of weeks?

People also tend not to be completely truthful in their eating habits. Many people don’t want to let on that they just went to McDonald’s for a McRib, fries and a Coke. Finished off with a nice ice cream cone. They want to sound like they are more health-conscious.

The Blue Zone book went beyond the studies. They just looked at where in the world people lived the longest. They called those places ‘Blue Zones’. Then they looked at what people ate who lived in those areas and tried to make the connection.

They made the claim that the Blue Zones are full of vegetarians. I was a little skeptical. I was stationed in Okinawa, Japan (one of the Blue Zones) for several years in the Air Force. Yes the people eat a lot of veggies. They also eat a lot of beef. I loved their Kobe beef. They also eat a lot of fish.

Sushi anyone?

Now a new analysis debunks the Blue Zone idea more. The analysis found:

“In the United States, supercentenarian status is predicted by the absence of vital registration. The state-specific introduction of birth certificates is associated with a 69-82% fall in the number of supercentenarian records. In Italy, which has more uniform vital registration, remarkable longevity is instead predicted by low per capita incomes and a short life expectancy. Finally, the designated ‘blue zones’ of Sardinia, Okinawa, and Ikaria corresponded to regions with low incomes, low literacy, high crime rate and short life expectancy relative to their national average. As such, relative poverty and short lifespan constitute unexpected predictors of centenarian and supercentenarian status, and support a primary role of fraud and error in generating remarkable human age records.”

In other words, these areas had incomplete, inaccurate and fraudulent data. That’s why it’s so hard to just rely on studies. We are all experimenting and need to find what works for each of us.

What I am noticing is low-carb seems to work for an awful lot of people!