Nutrition ⇒ Super aging mostly fraudulent? Time to re-evaluate "longevity diet"?

[AlbertY]

check this out! "Supercentenarians and the oldest-old are concentrated into regions with no birth certificates and short lifespans".

"The observation of individuals attaining remarkable ages, and their concentration into geographic sub-regions or ‘blue zones’, has generated considerable scientific interest. Proposed drivers of remarkable longevity include high vegetable intake, strong social connections, and genetic markers. 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."

Maybe it is time to re-evaluate "longevity diet" based on 'blue zones' and local supercentenarians ratio. Anyone is following any diet like the Okinawa diet?

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v1.full

[Macrobian]

That's a great paper especially now that the age of J. Calment is being disputed. Even if there were no fraud or error associated with the blue zones it would still be extremely difficult to identify dietary factors that are causal for long lifespans (e.g. do people live longer because they eat fish or despite eating fish?). For an average person interested in maximising their lifespan through diet, double-blinded placebo-controlled studies might be more helpful than simply replicating blue zone diets (which, as the paper shows, might be less blue than previously thought).

[AlbertY]

That's a great paper especially now that the age of J. Calment is being disputed. Even if there were no fraud or error associated with the blue zones it would still be extremely difficult to identify dietary factors that are causal for long lifespans (e.g. do people live longer because they eat fish or despite eating fish?). For an average person interested in maximising their lifespan through diet, double-blinded placebo-controlled studies might be more helpful than simply replicating blue zone diets (which, as the paper shows, might be less blue than previously thought).

You are definitely right. Don't just follow a diet blindly. I would say currently the most promising longevity diet is intermittent fasting or fasting-mimic diet. Check Dr. Longo's book.

[NewLifeScience]

This is a weird issue, but since we are only talking about a handful of people, i don't think it interferes with true scientific studies.

One alleged 120 year old may only be 98, but that is still remarkable. But you also need to consider, 120 years takes you back to the end of the 1800s so of course in the non western world records were not kept as tightly as the west, and neither as tightly as now.

But it has been long known that there are people who are born with the materials to live to around 100. and the rest of us around 80. It seemingly was eventually tracked to a tail like thing at the end of our DNA strands called telomeres. If they were longer than average, you lived longer than average. And until the whole Resveratrol/NMN discovery there wasn't much you could do about it to get to the 100 year group.

I am sure there are exaggerations in many places, so i really only pay attention to repeatable scientific studies.

[OzSport]

There was a book written awhile back called "The Telomere Effect", premise was that people had more control over aging than they think - check out this article that speaks about it: https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/03/agi ... re-effect/

[AlbertY]

There was a book written awhile back called "The Telomere Effect", premise was that people had more control over aging than they think - check out this article that speaks about it: https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/03/agi ... re-effect/

As far as I know, telomere is a dead-end for aging research.

[toriamac]

As far as I know, telomere is a dead-end for aging research.

I've been seeing quite a few TV commercials about a telomere test to get your "real" age.

[OzSport]

There was a book written awhile back called "The Telomere Effect", premise was that people had more control over aging than they think - check out this article that speaks about it: https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/03/agi ... re-effect/

As far as I know, telomere is a dead-end for aging research.

In what way?

[AlbertY]

There was a book written awhile back called "The Telomere Effect", premise was that people had more control over aging than they think - check out this article that speaks about it: https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/03/agi ... re-effect/

As far as I know, telomere is a dead-end for aging research.

In what way?

Telomere was a very popular topic in aging research decade ago. But now, people find out that it is more a result of aging, rather than the "cause". You can make a mouse live longer a little bit by activating telomerase, however, keep it in mind that telomerase activation is also a hallmark of cancer. Therefore, people in the field of aging are just not interested in telomere anymore, for its very limited application in the therapeutic approaches.

[Youvion]

There was an interesting account of the twin astronauts, one who was on the space station for a year, and one that remained on earth. They found that the astronaut in space had significantly lengthened telomers upon return compared to his earth bound brother. BUT after a short time his telomers shrunk to be even smaller than his brother's. Scientist are not sure why.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/11/nas ... human-bod/

I agree with other posters that telomers where once thought to be the secret to longevity, but the evidence now is very murky.