How to Live Forever (or Die Trying)

From ‘Blue Zones’ branded food to anti-aging peptides, the marketplace is flooded with products promising to help us live longer and better. On this week’s On the Media, a researcher calls into question the data behind some of the most popular ‘longevity science.’ Plus, why Silicon Valley billionaires are obsessed with the end of the world. 

[01:00] A new book titled Morbid: Debunking Modern Longevity Science, out this week, alleges that much of the research underpinning longevity science is hot air. Host Micah Loewinger explores the contours of this heated debate within the field, and speaks with the book’s author, Saul Newman, a research fellow at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, about the prevalence of fraudulent 100+ year olds, and his gripes with the popular “Blue Zones” research and the multimillion-dollar business that grew out of it. We also hear from New York Magazine writer Kerry Howley and one of the originators of Blue Zones, demographer Michel Poulain. Plus, the growing grift within the field, and the Silicon Valley tech giants spending millions to try to vanquish death.

[31:39] Micah speaks to Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor, co-authors of End Times Fascism And the Fight for the Living World, about a new strain of apocalyptic fascism emerging in Silicon Valley and the White House that rejects the idea of a future on Earth, and how to fight back.
 

Further reading / watching:

• “Demographers at War: Fake centenarians, faulty data, junk science, and contested “blue zones,” by Kerry Howley
• “Supercentenarians and the oldest-old are concentrated into regions with no birth certificates and short lifespans,” by Saul Newman
• “The validity of Blue Zones demography: a response to critiques,” by Steven Austad and Giovanni Pes
• Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones, Netflix

Statement from Dan Buettner, founder of Blue Zones LLC:

The Blue Zones findings are based on more than two decades of demographic and scientific research, with methods and conclusions documented in peer-reviewed literature and examined by independent researchers.

Age validation and record-keeping have already been carefully investigated, and Newman’s theories were explicitly debunked in a recent peer-reviewed article published in The Gerontologist. Presenting conspiracy theories or allegations that have already been disproven as equivalent to a large, well-established body of evidence is misleading to the public.

Email exchange with Dan Buettner:

• FROM OTM: Michel Poulain told us that there is “no proof” that Loma Linda, California is a blue zone because “we don’t have the same possibility of validation of age.” He said that “When I discussed with Dan Buettner, he admitted that he had to introduce this Loma Linda because National Geographic wanted to have a US taste in the system.” In response to those statements, we intend to paraphrase the statement you sent us via email about how Loma Linda likely no longer qualifies as a blue zone under a new formal definition you’re working on. 
• DAN BUETTNER: Before I wrote about Blue Zones in National Geographic in 2005, it was not known to anyone by a roomful of demographers and the 50 or so readers of Experimental Gerontology.  It was my idea to make it an international term and absent a clear criteria, I named Loma Linda a Blue Zone. We have not evaluated Loma Linda with the new criteria yet.
• FROM OTM: New York Magazine writer Kerry Howley told us that “Poulain says that Buettner went ahead and [trademarked] the term Blue Zones, the term Poulain had originated without his permission, without his even knowing.” Do you agree with this characterization?
• DAN BUETTNER: If you do some research, you’ll find that Gianni Pes coined the phrase Blue Zones. He has blessed my use of blue zones over the past 25 years.... I encourage you to reach out to him before you make the error of implying or saying that Michel originated the phrase or the international concept which is the foundation of my books.Gianni and I published an article identifying a new Blue Zone last week. Michel is an excellent demographer and I have appreciated his collaboration as part of our National Geographic explorer grants, in helping me validate blue zones in Costa Rica, Ikaira and Sardinia.
• FROM OTM: Michel Poulain claimed that after you asked him to testify in a case against Chanel for using the term “Blue Zone” to market a skincare product, he did not collaborate as much with you anymore. Is that how you remember it?
• DAN BUETTNER: There has been no widely agreed upon criteria for a Blue Zone until AFAR pulled together their consortium earlier this year. I named Singapore a new blue zone for the 2024 Netflix “Live to 100” documentary because, at the time, the global burden of disease project ranked Singapore #1 in health adjusted life expectancy.
   

Statement from demographer Michel Poulain, one of the originators of blue zones research: 

To summarize the [origin of the] BZ [Blue Zones] story shortly:

1. The team of Sassari and Gianni Pes presented their AKEA results on exceptional longevity in Sardinia in October 1999 in Montpellier.

2. As the demographers attending the meeting were highly suspicious on the validity of the age of centenarians in Sardinia, they charged me to go in Sardinia to validate individually the age of the centenarians expecting that I will be back with the explanation on errors in age reporting.

3. I landed in Alghero on January 22, 2000 and started the age validation of many centenarians with the support of Gianni Pes and Ciriaco Carru.

4. I was quickly convinced of the validity of the age of all centenarians and doing so the individual longevity was proved and my mission could be completed.

5. This is the moment when, in spring 2000, I switched from individual longevity to population longevity and, as demographer, I reported the number of centenarians born in a village by the total number of newborns in the same cohort. This proportion of centenarians became the Extreme Longevity index (ELI).

§. Thereafter WE (Gianni and me) marked on the map of Sardinia all municipalities with high value of ELI, using a Blue Marker. Who chose the blue is unknown except that it is my preferred color and my eyes are blue… If it was in red, the red zones will never exist. Concretely already in April 2000 I sent a message to Gianni and Ciriaco where I mentioned the term 'BLUE ZONE.’

6. It took us 4 years to publish our results as all our colleagues remained skeptical and finally were so happy to put their name in the paper published in Experimental Gerontology of whom I am the first author.

7. So I consider that Gianni, Ciriaco and the team of AKEA were the researchers that discovered the exceptional longevity in Sardinia. Personally I validated the age of centenarians with the support of Gianni and Ciriaco and thereafter I initiated the demographic concept of Blue Zone when with Gianni we used a blue marker to identify the villages with higher ELI.

8. Dan Buettner mentioned in his paper of 2005 that the team of demographers named Blue Zone the area with higher longevity in Sardinia.

9. Thereafter he asked me to find another Blue Zone and we visited Nicoya in August 2007 and validated the second BZ in early 2008 before to do the same in Ikaria in spring 2009. I was responsible for these choices.

10. He is responsible for the large popularisation of the Blue Zones.

11. As such we are equally responsible for the importance of the Blue Zone story whereas Saul Newman appeared in the story only in 2018, amazingly after he followed my talk on Blue Zones in Canberra University.

Statement from demographer Giovanni Pes, one of the originators of blue zones research: 

Regarding the origins of the term [Blue Zones], the story goes back to October 9, 1999, when I presented, for the first time, evidence of an exceptional concentration of centenarians in central Sardinia at a demographic conference in Montpellier, France. My findings were initially met with skepticism, including from Michel Poulain. However, at the end of the conference, Michel expressed his willingness to visit Sardinia and verify the data with me.

In January 2000, we began traveling through Sardinia's 377 municipalities, collecting information on centenarians from local civil registry offices. I had prepared a map of the island by hand, and whenever we identified a municipality with more centenarians than expected, I marked it with a blue felt-tip pen.

Soon, the blue dots revealed a clear geographical concentration in central-eastern Sardinia, particularly in the region of Ogliastra. As we traveled from one municipality to another, we spontaneously began referring to this area as the “Blue Zone.” We later adopted the expression in our first scientific publications.

Although the map and the blue pen were mine, I consider the term “Blue Zone” to have emerged naturally from our conversations rather than having been invented exclusively by either of us. The earliest written evidence of the expression that I am aware of is an email exchange between Michel and me dating from March 2000.

I therefore believe it would be historically accurate to say that myself and Michel Poulain jointly coined the term “Blue Zone” in 2000, building on the demographic research I had initiated earlier in Sardinia.

Regarding Dan Buettner's use of the term, I have never objected to his use of “Blue Zones” for commercial purposes. My interests have always been purely scientific and academic. Unlike Dan and Michel, who have developed commercial activities associated with the concept—the latter through the Living Blue Zone trademark—I have no commercial interests in the name.

My relationship with Dan remains excellent. In fact, we recently co-authored a scientific paper on exceptional longevity in Bolotana, Sardinia. I see no reason why he should not make use of the findings of my scientific research, provided that their scientific meaning is accurately represented.

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