That's not true. In Sardinia and Okinawa studies have shown that genetics play a significant factor in longevity. For example, Sardinians have historically tended to reproduce later in life. This has favoured genes that contribute to longevity, or at least it has selected against those that contribute to early mortality.
A healthy lifestyle will contribute to a longer life, but it's misleading to imagine that everyone could achieve 100 if they just made the effort.
Wait, wait... so you're saying that all we have to do to make ourselves live longer as a species, is to not let anyone procreate until they hit whatever that generation considers "old age"? Interesting; I'm surprised this has never been a part of any sci-fi description of a utopia...
That link doesn't reference your exact idea, but I thought that was part of that. However, since I can't grep my collection I can't prove if that's actually something Heinlein said, or a confabulation on my part.
I'm not sure it's a utopia. An increase in longevity coupled with an increase in age at which you have kids would put enormous pressure on government welfare systems. Actually, this is already happening in many places in the world--Europe, Japan, Taiwan... China, with their one child policy will be in a very tight spot much sooner than might be thought as well.
Besides these more direct effects, I wonder what other unintended effects mass-increased longevity would have. Imagine everyone retiring around 75 instead of 65, 30+ years of retirement instead of 20. The younger generation, either through private sense of obligation or government taxes are going to be facing a huge burden. With that kind of economic burden, there may be even less incentive to have children, especially at younger ages, and thus even fewer tax payers to support the retired masses. At the same time lot of the jobs that would've been available to younger rising stars remain occupied by a group that is retiring later and later. So there would be a squeeze on both the expenses front and the income front. For an individual, especially if you could _expect_ and _plan_ for a longer life, it may be individually fulfilling, but on the whole, I'm not sure that it would result in some kind of ideal society, especially in the transition.
One notable difference was that the whole part about Sardinia revolved around a group of people roasting whole lamb and then washing it down with copious amounts of wine. "Low on meat" diet, right :-)
As far as I remember their conclusions were (a) eat less (b) stay active (c) keep an interest in life. With (c) being the most important part.
Anybody know how many 'hot-spots' like this would be predicted due to clustering at levels predicted by chance?
"The only way to determine whether a cluster is a "real" cluster or just a "chance" cluster is to do a full scale epidemiological study, which is an expensive and time consuming process, and may still give disappointing results." http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/TIB/epidemiolo...
because i think the point of this post is that location doesn't actually matter. the "blue zones" are places where culture and/or circumstances have forced all of the people in the area to live a healthier lifestyle. makes it impossible to live there and not be healthy, so the area's statistics improve.
Given how much one's behavior is impacted by external constraints, location does matter quite a lot. I suspect that if you moved the newborn offpsring of two morbidly obese Americans into a family on Okinawa the child would most likely live a rather healthy lifestyle.
the point, though, is not that that there is anything special in the water or something. its just circumstances that promote general health as we currently understand it. want to live longer? exercise and eat right.
With nothing on how exactly he identified the groups this is just silly pop sci. You can't arbitrarily select your subjects.
The whole thing immediately looks very suspicious if you go to http://www.bluezones.com/
Obviously somebody is out to build a cult and make a lot of money.
The lesson I walked away with is: live a stress free happy life with plenty of continuous low stress excersize and a healthy diet not consisting of fried fatty sugary foods.
Sub points
Excersize can lead to stress - incorporate a lifestyle of excersize
Have good relations with family -- less stress but out of your controll often
Organic food is good.
That's not true. In Sardinia and Okinawa studies have shown that genetics play a significant factor in longevity. For example, Sardinians have historically tended to reproduce later in life. This has favoured genes that contribute to longevity, or at least it has selected against those that contribute to early mortality.
A healthy lifestyle will contribute to a longer life, but it's misleading to imagine that everyone could achieve 100 if they just made the effort.