Summarised by Centrist
The myth of extreme longevity in “blue zones,” regions where people supposedly live significantly longer, may boil down to poor record-keeping rather than superior health, according to researcher Saul Justin Newman.
Newman, from University College London, found that many centenarians and supercentenarians—people who live past 100 or 110—originate from areas with high poverty and unreliable documentation.
Newman’s findings include cases like Japan, where a 2010 review revealed 82% of registered centenarians were missing or dead, including Sogen Kato, whose family collected his pension for decades after his death.
“Their paperwork is in order, they’re just dead,” Newman remarked. He argued that birth certificates with errors get replicated across official records, creating “perfectly consistent, perfectly wrong” data.
The booming lifestyle industry around blue zones, such as Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula or Greece’s Ikaria, is also questionable. Newman pointed to research showing 42% of Costa Rican centenarians lied about their age. For Greece, 72% were either deceased or fabricated, prompting his wry conclusion: “They’re only alive on pension day.”
Newman believes true validation requires physical age testing, like the “methylation clock” developed to detect fraud.
As debates continue, Newman’s advice for longevity is refreshingly blunt: “Listen to your GP, do some exercise, don’t drink, don’t smoke—that’s it.”
