What makes people living very old in the so-called “blue zones”, the regions of the world famous for the extreme longevity of their inhabitants and a high proportion of centenarians? Mainly faulty data, states a researcher from the University College London. He found that centenarians are concentrated in areas with bad record-keeping.
In a world where life expectancy has dramatically increased but where, according to Euromonitor, there is a growing concern about the possibility of living a long and healthy life, “blue zones” have captivated longevity researchers.
The term was coined to refer to regions of the world where people are said to live longer and healthier lives than elsewhere. Italy’s Sardinia island was the first to be referred as such in 2004.
Fraud, error and wishful thinking
However, Saul Justin Newman, a researcher at University College London’s Centre for Longitudinal Studies, told AFP that most data regarding the “blue zones” and extreme old age “is junk to a really shocking degree”.
Newman’s research, which is currently being peer-reviewed, looked at data about centenarians and supercentenarians — people who live to 100 and 110 — in the United States, Italy, England, France and Japan. Contrary to what one might expect, he found that supercentenarians tended to come from areas with poor health, high levels of poverty — and bad record-keeping. [
