Everybody wants to live longer, and for two decades the Blue Zones, places with the highest percentage of people 100+ years old, have promised to show us how with nine tidy behaviors we can all copy. According to Saul Newman, a demographer at the University of Oxford, almost none of it holds up.
I sit down with Newman, author of Morbid: Debunking Modern Longevity Science, to take apart one of the most popular ideas in health and longevity. When the Japanese government actually checked, 82% of its "over-100" population turned out to be long dead, many killed in World War II and kept alive on paper to collect the pension. Greece found most of its centenarians were drawing checks from the graveyard. America's Blue Zone in Loma Linda was, by the founder's own admission, spotted from the freeway on a drive to Vegas. And the towns with the most 105-year-olds tend to be the poorest places with the worst records, because it's far easier to be a clerical error than to outlive everyone else.
Newman explains where the real errors come from, why the longevity industry keeps selling the same con sold to the first emperor of China, how bad centenarian data quietly shapes your pension and insurance rates, and what actually works if you want a longer, healthier life. (Spoiler: talk to your doctor, exercise, don't drink, don't smoke, and stop panicking about living to 105.)
Check out Saul's new book here.