💬 “82% of people in Japan over the age of 100 turned out to be dead. And they didn't check them all. It is crazy. It is completely crazy.” -Dr Saul Newman
⚡️ Dr Saul Newman from the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, won an Ig Nobel Prize for research debunking data on the world’s oldest people. His soon to be released book ‘Morbid: an iconoclastic debunking of ageing science’ is all out about fraud, wishful thinking, and ageing research.
⚡️ In this episode Saul and I debunk the fantasy of “blue zones”, where an extraordinary number of people live beyond 100. Should we really be basing health and fitness advice on these longevity hotspots?
🎧 Stay tuned to find out:
➡︎ Why some of the most unhealthy and poorest regions are churning out so many centenarians
➡︎ How “blue zone certificates” are being sold to US towns for $40mil
➡ Why the blue zone myth is dangerous to our health
➡︎ The real secret to living beyond 100
➡︎ How blue zones even impact insurance premiums
📕 Chapters
(6:14) What classifies as a blue zone?
(15:35) Do people forget their age?
(18:05) The real secret to a long life
(25:25) Dangers of the blue zone myth
(27:31) Facing “big alcohol”
(31:07) What do we know about longevity?
(33:19) Corruption all the way down
(35:59) How blue zones impact insurance premiums
(38:19) Who benefits from the blue zone lie?
(46:51) What works for healthy ageing?
(48:17) Selling blue zone certificates for $40mil
(54:18) Will blue zones ever go away?
(56:56) Anti-ageing drugs?
📱 Connect with me:
TikTok: https://www.instagram.com/drkaranrajan
Instagram: https://www.tiktok.com/@dr.karanr
📱 Connect with Saul:
X: https://x.com/saul_newman
📕 Sources:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.09.06.24313170v1.full-text
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v3.full
🔥 For more useful science for your everyday life, grab my best selling book “This Book May Save Your Life”: https://geni.us/DrKaranBook
🎙️ An OG Podcasts production.
