Talk:Blue zone/Archive 1

Scientific criticism of the Blue Zones longevity data
A preprinted study at https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v1 seriously questions the validity of the data supporting blue zones.

"Here, we reveal new predictors of remarkable longevity and ‘supercentenarian’ status. 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."

I would like to add this to the main page but think it might be better to wait for peer review of the paper. Leaving it here to raise awareness. Wabi sabi method (talk) 13:10, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Humorous references
The reference of "Tiberium successfully cleared" is certainly funny but I'm not sure that it pertains to the article or should at least be more clearly labeled as to be a reference to the "blue zones" in Command&Conquer video game. -Dominique —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.248.91.98 (talk) 11:17, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Marketing Red-Flag
I'm going to unequivocally state, right now, that I agree that Dan Buettner basically created this idea out of "whole cloth." The original meaning in the 2004 article has been vastly distorted by someone with a personal, financial interest in promoting cruises to these alleged "blue zones." Ryoung 122 10:20, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. I was saddened to read this wiki entry, as it is the first one I'd come across that read as a ad for the author that created the term and his website/businesses rather than an article about the subject matter. Could someone remove the info not relevant to Blue Zones, that being anything other than that addressing the concept of areas where people live to old ages? It is this type of article that brings justification to the idea that wiki is not worth the term encyclopedia. 108.180.176.122 (talk) 06:23, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Yep seems like a self promotion article. No real good references, lots of hearsay. T.Nuvolari (talk) 07:25, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Origin of the name Blue zone
I went back to the original meaning of this page entitled Blue zone and defined as a generic name until version of 30 July 2007. Also this generic name seems to be first scientifically published in 2004 (citation is also given). Thus it is not the name of a single project. As far as I know a few different projects are involved.--Nbrouard (talk) 16:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I am sorry that this edit is not in accordance with Wiki preceding. I hope that someone will be generous enough to reformat it and remove these two sentences.  I came to this wiki page looking for empirical research and verifiable facts for a theory proposed by an author.  Instead of having data and facts this page was advertisement for a book.  This theory is without any scientific research to substantiate its claims.  This is clearly a case in which wikipedia has been infiltrated by a PR firm selling a book.  Don't let it be a black eye for the site!!!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Snboard976 (talk • contribs) 01:36, 10 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I have no idea how to point this out, or if this is even a legit concern, but it appears that this entry is a whole cloth creation by the person who also created the entry for the author of the book by the same title (and which is used as a source). The account that created this and the author entry did no other edits.  On my "home" wiki network (Wiki Spot), I'd feel comfortable handling this, but I'm just pointing it out and leaving this to the Wikipedians more familiar with local standards and all those regulations.  Do not reply to this IP's talk address: I am raising the somewhat questionable history of this entry as a point of information for editors familiar with Wikipedia.  (Incidentally, the author is on tour supporting the book) 68.63.165.28 05:56, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
 * As a follow up and clarification: In other words, I don't know the No Original Research versus "I published a book with a concept that I invented, so I am creating an entry about that concept" works. Still, it seems questionable enough to raise a flag. 68.63.165.28 (talk) 18:31, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Specific Statistics from the Blue Zones?
Thanks for the information about the four Blue Zones: 1.) Barbagia region in Sardinia; 2.) Okinawa, Japan; 3.) Loma Linda, California; 4.) Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica.

I am wondering if there are detailed statistics, such as the average life-spans, the percentages above 90 or 100 years, and so on in these regions. How outstanding are these statistics as compared with other countries and/or regions? --Roland 09:59, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

i second the call for more statistics. how old are those people exactly? how much of a statistical outlier are they? are there any other factors to consider? f.e.: a high average age in a region does not prove longevity, it might also be the case that all young people moved away. and even outright fraud cannot be ruled out in some cases. in greec and italy families are known to keep their deceased grandpa alive on paper for decades, for pension-fraud purposes. in societies where old people are revered the old are known to embellish their age: the 60-year old claim to be 100 years old, the 80-year old say they are 150, and so on (of course the reason old age is revered is usually because it is rare. if reaching a high age is a common occurrence people are more likely to claim they are younger than their actual age) Selena1981 (talk) 22:23, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello! I'm not an official editor or whatever you guys are but I wanted to share this which I think is the original article about Blue Zones before it became a trademark and company (lol). It took me a while to find myself but it should have many of the answers you were looking for and should probably be linked on the Blue Zones page: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.368.2742&rep=rep1&type=pdf 85.229.122.117 (talk) 20:15, 28 February 2019 (UTC) ellen

Is this actually a significant phenomenon?
If in Okanawa, the average life is 7 years longer that of an average American, it's certainly significant. However, sub populations (such as whites) in America live significantly longer than the average American, and a large number of average years of life can be accounted for by obesity alone (6-7 years according to Wikipedia). Perhaps it should be noted in the article that the magical properties of turmeric may not need to tapped to predict the results illustrated by the Blue Zone concept. 67.244.2.127 (talk) 21:20, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * In Okinawa, the life expectancy is only one year higher than Japan as a whole.


 * one year difference seems like it might very well just be a coincidence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Selena1981 (talk • contribs) 22:07, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Also, legitimate researchers identified Okinawa as a region of high longevity; that doesn't mean that those marketing the "Blue Zones" book have merit or legitimacy. Ryoung 122 10:21, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Tobacco smoking? References please!
The note about the lack of longevity of smokers, is counter intuitive to my real life experiences. Heavy smokers are over-represented in the group of centenarians I know, or know of, that have been very active and healthy at old age (or was, in the case that they are now diseased). (But the most repeated as an counter-example, old-age active, famous, heavy smoker, Winston Churchill, only lived to be 91 and was at poor health after the age of 85).

Smoking (the nicotine mostly, but tobacco contains many other substances that effect the nervous system) cure or inhibit several age related sicknesses, like gut inflammations and senile dementia, as well as many other, not age related, deceases (e.g. schizophrenia, depression, migraine) that may lead to early deaths or poor physical health. Granted, all of the heavy smoking centenarians that I know of, is/was cigar or pipe smokers and none of them smoked tobacco from USA (known for its high content of pesticides and heavy metals (most notably, the radioactive lead-210 and polonium-210)).

Also, within USA, where most studies of the health effects of smoking have been conducted, smoking is often performed in stressful situations, or in combination with other, heavier, drugs (e.g. alcohol); often indoors in smoke cloud rooms. While in countries where there are a disproportional high number of centenarians that are heavy smokers (e.g. rural Cuba and Spain), smoking is usually performed in more relaxed situations, often outdoors, with no heavier complementary drug use then perhaps a cup of tea, or a similar "light" drug, if any. Also, those parts of the world have less polluted air then USA, so the ill effects caused by smoking on the respiratory system is not as accentuated. Such countries also have more non-smokers that reach old age at good health then USA; perhaps there is a threshold where the ill effects of tobacco, accelerated by a negative environment, overpowers the good health effect of tobacco smoking.

PS. Alcoholics with a moderate daily alcohol intake, that started to drink at an early age, are also over-represented in the group of centenarians I known (none is still alive). But while in splendid physical condition at old age, they had alcohol caused dementia since they where middle-aged.

--Se mj (talk) 09:27, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

well, i think you might want to take into account that at certain times in the 20th century there were not much non-smokers (so there wouldn't be much non-smokers left alive either), the practice was encouraged among women to loose weight and among men to give them something to do in the trenches of ww1 (and in ww2 to stick it to the nazi's, who were anti-smoking).

you do have a point about the type of smoking having an effect: day-round smoking of cigarettes is generally considered to be much more detrimental to your health than the occasional pipe (or chewing: lots of people chewed their tobacco back then)

tobacco-smoke was originally used as a medicine by native americans. it seems there must have been something to that, given how widespread it was used. the theory is that it was used against (bacterial) infections and as a primitive disinfectant.

but while i agree that there are presumably also some health-benefits to smoking it seems the total net-effect is negative (and thus those elderly heavy-smokers are the outliers, not the norm). this ill effect was first discovered by german scientists doing epidemiology studies about a century ago (the correlation between smoking and reduced life-span was later hidden by american tobacco-producers) Selena1981 (talk) 21:56, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Advert tag
I'm adding an "advert" tag to this article. Just looking from the comments above, I'm not the only one who has concerns.

Also, out of 9 references:
 * 1 is "The Blue Zones" book itself
 * 2 are other articles written by Dan Buettner
 * 3 are from the bluezones-dot-com website

...which seems a little heavy on the original research. Dracunculus (talk) 14:01, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

PS: I'm really tempted to add similar tags to Dan_Buettner and AARP/Blue_Zones_Vitality_Project. Anyone have an opinion on the matter? :) Dracunculus (talk) 14:10, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Characteristics section & Venn diagram
I'm removing some edits made by user:Iloneelk. The edits were made to the "Characteristics" section, and add unnecessary information to what was originally a concise list. As well, a few of the points in the list have been changed so that it no longer matches the Venn diagram which illustrates the section.

And... now I'm looking more closely at the Venn diagram. Is this diagram really in the public domain? The picture has this summary: "Venn Diagram created by the Quest Network to illustrate longevity clues in Blue Zones." There's a link to the bluezones.com website, but when I follow the link it takes me to a login page - which makes me suspect that the diagram might be copyrighted. Dracunculus (talk) 21:39, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm questioning the correctness of one aspect of the Venn diagram. Fava beans are probably not eaten much in Sardinia since most people from the island suffer from Favism. Actually, from what I gather, being allergic to fava beans might be the cause of longevity, rather than eating them. http://thebittersweetgourmet.com/fava-beans-favism/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.58.113.155 (talk) 17:26, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

I would be interested to learn more about favism as well. Do you have more information relating to it? I did some research and found that it is a very common thing in Sardinia but was unable to find any reference to what you stated that "being allergic to fava beans might be the cause of longevity". I would have guessed it was the other way around that the centenarians of Sardinia might be the ones not allergic. Excited to learn more and discuss! JvDynasty21 (talk) 15:35, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

In the diagram, "sunshine" should be in Loma Linda's circle, but "culturally isolated" should not. We probably only see rain on 10-15 days a year, and for most of the time there is not a cloud in sight, with daytime temperatures between 80-110. Only around 40% of households are totally Adventist, most Loma Linda residents do not work in the city (and vice-versa), and Adventists and non-Adventists interact with each other all the time. Loma Linda is part of an urban sprawl that extends from Santa Monica to Indio, with San Bernardino, Redlands and Riverside all bordering us - hardly isolated! 22:10, 4 November 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by LDGE (talk • contribs)

Theoretical statistics.
The mean lifetime of people from small populations have larger standard deviation than the mean lifetime of people from big populations. So extreme mean lifetime is supposed to occur in a small population. There need not be a reason why some small population has extreme mean lifetime. It will occur by pure chance. (If the standard deviation of lifetimes of all people is L years, then the standard deviation of the mean of a sample of n people is Ln−1/2). Bo Jacoby (talk) 10:05, 13 January 2016 (UTC).

Blue Zone Locations
Hi All, I'm new to the editing world of wikipedia so wanted to reach out before making any changes. I recently read the Blue Zones book and it is my understanding that there are only 5 confirmed Blue Zone locations in the world while the site states there are 7 "The seven regions identified and discussed by Buettner in the book The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest". When I follow the citation it simply cites the book but I believe this is false. I believe it should just be Sardinia, Okinawa, Icaria, Nicoya and Loma Linda. Does anyone have thoughts on this? Thanks!JvDynasty21 (talk) 20:58, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Trademark question
What I think that I saw in the URL cited as evidence of a trademark for "Blue Zone" is from a 2012-2014 effort to trademark the term "Blue Zone" (rather than evidence of an already-existing trademark on the name). Blue Zones is a trademark of Blue Zones, LLC that reflects the lifestyle and the environment of the world's longest-lived people.

Since the term has been widely used before that application, how could that concept be hijacked by a private commercial interest? MaynardClark (talk) 23:58, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Evidence
The article basically takes the word of the people who own this trademark without critical analysis. This article needs independent sourcing. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:20, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 August 2021 and 14 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cassiebisson. Peer reviewers: Tuckinator.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:11, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 September 2020 and 17 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Marilake1998.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:00, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

This article need work
If anyone wants a stab at it, this article seems to be a bit of a tug-of-war between sources purporting, sometimes uncriticised, the benefits of Blue Zones, versus some sources that criticised their actual existence, or at least their purported benefits.

It strikes me as a very "Studies Have Shown" article - science and health is not my forte, but I think the standard of references could definitely be improved; I wonder that there isn't something on the References MOS to do with unreviewed studies that someone more invested couldn't spend some time applying here. --Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 11:26, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

I tried to find information about when Loma Linda was added as a Blue Zones, but I could not find this information. However, I did find that it is considered a Blue Zone.Cassiebisson (talk) 21:25, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

MEDRS Sourcing
I removed a large amount of content sourced to non-peer-reviewed articles by Dan Buettner, with no prejudice against reinstatement if WP:MEDRS-compliant sources can be found. See here for preserved content. –dlthewave ☎ 03:43, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I thank the editors that have been doing clean up here, but some of the removals may have gone too far. Buettner's books are not MED-RS, sure, but it looks to me like he was the main popularizer of the term to a general audience, and completely removing any mention of him seems a bit harsh. Apparently he expanded a bit on the previous researchers' work, and also added Loma Linda to the list. I get it that divulging his ideas in a non-critical way would mean spreading unreliable information, but maybe some more historical information on what his claims were, with attribution and rebuttal where possible, would make the article more complete.VdSV9• ♫ 01:01, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The key question is: are there secondary sources? Alexbrn (talk) 05:54, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

There are five Blue Zones, as cited in Dan Buettner's book. The only one in the United States is Loma Linda, California. This is a predominantly Seventh-Day Adventist community, which believes in a supportive social structure, a healthy diet, and moderate exercise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RossinaGil (talk • contribs) 18:04, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Not controversial at all
Two or the articles don’t mention anything about being a controversy one says need more study, the other points out the decline in longevity in Okinawa due to the change in diet (aka adopting a SAD diet there). It is surprising that there is such unanimity in opinion on the blue zones given the whole food plant based vs. Keto wars. 2600:1003:B13A:78FB:CC2D:1629:436:4066 (talk) 14:17, 2 November 2022 (UTC)