Show Notes
After visiting Blue Zones all over the world, today, we're visiting our home country, Australia. Not because Australia has been declared a secret seventh Blue Zone, but because, months after the first six episodes of this podcast dropped, an Australian researcher, Saul J. Newman, has been awarded an Ig Nobel Prize... for debunking the Blue Zones phenomenon.
In this bonus episode of Blue Zones: Revisited, we dissect Newman's award-winning paper, and the Blue Zones team's response to it.
Further Reading:
The 34th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony
Newman's acceptance speech
UCL demographer's work debunking 'Blue Zone' regions
Dr. Newman has uncovered the 'secret' of living to 110 (ANU)
Scientist snares Ig Noble gong for work debunking 'Blue Zones' (RNZ)
Ig Nobel Prizewinner Debunks Supposed 'Blue Zones' (IFL)
Oxford don wins Ig Nobel Prize for debunking ageing research
Supercentenarian and remarkable age records exhibit patterns indicative of clerical errors and pension fraud (the paper)
Living beyond age 105: When the improbable becomes reality
The Science Behind Blue Zones: Demographers Debunk the Critics (the response)
End government support for pro-alcohol research
Ig Nobel nominations
More from Blue Zones: Revisited
Singapore is Live to 100's evidence that a Blue Zones approach can work in a modern city-state. But just how well does Singapore meet the Blue Zones definition - and, after exploring six different 'Blue Zones', three of which do not contain higher-than-average concentrations of centenarians, one of which was based on faulty data, and one of which isn't even a geographical zone, what does this phrase even mean? Furthermore, how well can these lessons be applied to completely different countries, cultures, and climates?
Nicoya, Costa Rica is, according to Dan Buettner, home to the 'most extraordinary centenarians on the planet'. One which, for many years, he contends, went unnoticed because researchers couldn't believe the residents of 'such a poor country' could possibly live past 80, let alone 100.
Ikaria, Greece might not have gotten a big feature in the first edition of the Blue Zones book, but it certainly made a splash in the second edition - and the Live to 100 Netflix series. After all, who doesn't associate the beautiful blue Mediterranean sea and sky with a healthy lifestyle?
Loma Linda, California is the long-awaited American Blue Zone... or is it? Not only does it turn out to be not so 'blue' (we don't see a single centenarian), but it's not even really a 'zone' - at least in a geographical sense.
Sardinia isn't just a 'Blue Zone', an area with a higher concentration of centenarians than usual. It's better described as the beginning of the Blue Zones phenomenon. And it's also a place where you can buy a home for as little as one euro. In this second episode of Blue Zones: Revisited, we ask what happens to the people whose villages are designated as Blue Zones, consider whether red wine, goats milk, or even pizza might be the secret to a long life, and untangle what is knowable from what researchers maintain is unknown.