The island where people forget to die.
October 24, 2012 5:38 AM Subscribe
Ask the very old on Ikaria how they managed to live past 90, and they’ll usually talk about the clean air and the wine. Or, as one 101-year-old woman put it to me with a shrug, “We just forget to die.” The reality is they have no idea how they got to be so old. And neither do we.
Ikaria, an island in the Aegean, is home to one of a group of exceptionally long-lived, healthy human populations. For a decade, Dan Buettner has been organizing a study of such places. Together with other researchers, he identified a region of Sardinia’s Nuoro province as the place with the highest concentration of male centenarians in the world. As they zeroed in on a cluster of villages high in Nuoro’s mountains, they drew a boundary in blue ink on a map and began referring to the area inside as the “blue zone.” Starting in 2002, they identified three other populations around the world where people live measurably longer lives than everyone else. The world’s longest-lived women are found on the island of Okinawa. On Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, they discovered a population of 100,000 mestizos with a lower-than-normal rate of middle-age mortality. And in Loma Linda, Calif., they identified a population of Seventh-day Adventists in which most of the adherents’ life expectancy exceeded the American average by about a decade.
Ikaria, an island in the Aegean, is home to one of a group of exceptionally long-lived, healthy human populations. For a decade, Dan Buettner has been organizing a study of such places. Together with other researchers, he identified a region of Sardinia’s Nuoro province as the place with the highest concentration of male centenarians in the world. As they zeroed in on a cluster of villages high in Nuoro’s mountains, they drew a boundary in blue ink on a map and began referring to the area inside as the “blue zone.” Starting in 2002, they identified three other populations around the world where people live measurably longer lives than everyone else. The world’s longest-lived women are found on the island of Okinawa. On Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, they discovered a population of 100,000 mestizos with a lower-than-normal rate of middle-age mortality. And in Loma Linda, Calif., they identified a population of Seventh-day Adventists in which most of the adherents’ life expectancy exceeded the American average by about a decade.
He never went through chemotherapy, took drugs or sought therapy of any sort. All he did was move home to Ikaria.
Well long life is one thing. Claims of miraculous cures would seem to be something else.
posted by three blind mice at 5:47 AM on October 24, 2012 [3 favorites]
Well long life is one thing. Claims of miraculous cures would seem to be something else.
posted by three blind mice at 5:47 AM on October 24, 2012 [3 favorites]
Oh, probably a combination of genetics and a lifetime of not eating crap.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 5:48 AM on October 24, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by GallonOfAlan at 5:48 AM on October 24, 2012 [2 favorites]
They have clearly stolen health from the rest of the world by evil magic! Bombing is the only answer!
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:49 AM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:49 AM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
Who would want to die if you were on an island, eating great food? If I lived in some trailer park in Kansas death couldn't come quickly enough.
posted by SnuffyMcDuffy at 5:50 AM on October 24, 2012 [5 favorites]
posted by SnuffyMcDuffy at 5:50 AM on October 24, 2012 [5 favorites]
It's all about our quality of life. I am skeptical about the cancer going away and would want to see some documents, but being a happy, active 97 is great news either way. The "mind-body connection" sounds so woo, but the more we discover, the more we realize that a reasonable pace, enough sleep, emotional peace, social connections with others, good clean food, and exercise are pretty much the prescription for a system in balance.
posted by Miko at 5:54 AM on October 24, 2012 [17 favorites]
posted by Miko at 5:54 AM on October 24, 2012 [17 favorites]
Sounds good to me! A mostly plant-based diet, views of the Aegean, good friends with some wine....yeah, I'd forget to die, too.
(Except for the bit about the honey. I don't like honey.)
posted by Kitteh at 5:55 AM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
(Except for the bit about the honey. I don't like honey.)
posted by Kitteh at 5:55 AM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
In the article, the alleged cancer survivor says he went back to the US to talk to his former doctors and find out what had happened to him, but the doctors had all died.
posted by unSane at 5:55 AM on October 24, 2012 [15 favorites]
posted by unSane at 5:55 AM on October 24, 2012 [15 favorites]
In Samos, they care about money. Here, we don’t. For the many religious and cultural holidays, people pool their money and buy food and wine. If there is money left over, they give it to the poor. It’s not a ‘me’ place. It’s an ‘us’ place.”
I love this.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 6:02 AM on October 24, 2012 [21 favorites]
I love this.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 6:02 AM on October 24, 2012 [21 favorites]
Oh, hey, it's the Texas sharpshooter fallacy again! I think that we've already gone through this with supercentenarians before, often people living in an isolated community with haphazard birth records and age claims of varying plausibility. (You'll notice that the guy mentioned at the beginning of the NYT article gives his age as being five years older than the official record.) The upshot of this will probably be a fad diet, especially if someone can claim that a particular local food must be the X factor for near-immortality.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:08 AM on October 24, 2012 [8 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:08 AM on October 24, 2012 [8 favorites]
Pointing across the Aegean toward the neighboring island of Samos, he said: “Just 15 kilometers over there is a completely different world. There they are much more developed. There are high-rises and resorts and homes worth a million euros. In Samos, they care about money. Here, we don’t. For the many religious and cultural holidays, people pool their money and buy food and wine. If there is money left over, they give it to the poor. It’s not a ‘me’ place. It’s an ‘us’ place.”
I was on Samos about 15 years ago and I happened to stay at a hotel run by a guy from New Jersey who had moved back because it seemed a better place to work and raise a family than running a filling station in Raritan. Those people in the tourist industry? They work their asses off and they're not getting rich. I don't think they care about money like he thinks they care about money. They're trying to make a living and they don't need some sanctimonious old fart living off the taxpayers in Samos taking smack about 'em.
posted by three blind mice at 6:12 AM on October 24, 2012 [6 favorites]
I was on Samos about 15 years ago and I happened to stay at a hotel run by a guy from New Jersey who had moved back because it seemed a better place to work and raise a family than running a filling station in Raritan. Those people in the tourist industry? They work their asses off and they're not getting rich. I don't think they care about money like he thinks they care about money. They're trying to make a living and they don't need some sanctimonious old fart living off the taxpayers in Samos taking smack about 'em.
posted by three blind mice at 6:12 AM on October 24, 2012 [6 favorites]
I'm with Halloween Jack. The world is large enough that you're guaranteed to find a concentration of long-lived people some place, probably many places. And it will be as random as:
Starting in 2002, we identified three other populations around the world where people live measurably longer lives than everyone else. The world’s longest-lived women are found on the island of Okinawa. On Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, we discovered a population of 100,000 mestizos with a lower-than-normal rate of middle-age mortality. And in Loma Linda, Calif., we identified a population of Seventh-day Adventists in which most of the adherents’ life expectancy exceeded the American average by about a decade.
posted by vacapinta at 6:16 AM on October 24, 2012
Starting in 2002, we identified three other populations around the world where people live measurably longer lives than everyone else. The world’s longest-lived women are found on the island of Okinawa. On Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula, we discovered a population of 100,000 mestizos with a lower-than-normal rate of middle-age mortality. And in Loma Linda, Calif., we identified a population of Seventh-day Adventists in which most of the adherents’ life expectancy exceeded the American average by about a decade.
posted by vacapinta at 6:16 AM on October 24, 2012
Blah blah olive oil, fish, gardening etcetera. Also, antioxidants! And don't eat that evil meat!
posted by Kitty Stardust at 6:19 AM on October 24, 2012
posted by Kitty Stardust at 6:19 AM on October 24, 2012
Still waiting for that knot of healthy, obese centenarians who gorge daily at the IHOP in Akron, Ohio.
posted by unSane at 6:38 AM on October 24, 2012 [15 favorites]
posted by unSane at 6:38 AM on October 24, 2012 [15 favorites]
Ikaria, an island in the Aegean, is home to one of a group of exceptionally long-lived, healthy human populations.
Direct descendants of the immortal gods, no doubt.
posted by grog at 6:44 AM on October 24, 2012 [2 favorites]
Direct descendants of the immortal gods, no doubt.
posted by grog at 6:44 AM on October 24, 2012 [2 favorites]
My 101-year-old grandfather-in-law's answer to how he's lived so long and so healthily (still lives alone and cooks himself a fried breakfast every morning) is "brandy." Also, smoking since he was ten.
posted by Catseye at 7:18 AM on October 24, 2012 [8 favorites]
posted by Catseye at 7:18 AM on October 24, 2012 [8 favorites]
If I lived in some trailer park in Kansas death couldn't come quickly enough.
That's an unfair way to speak about people who may be just fine with their lives.
posted by Coatlicue at 7:22 AM on October 24, 2012 [7 favorites]
That's an unfair way to speak about people who may be just fine with their lives.
posted by Coatlicue at 7:22 AM on October 24, 2012 [7 favorites]
But a perfectly fair way to speak about people who probably aren't fine with their lives at all. Trailer parks are very rarely nice places to live, and there aren't many who want to live there.
posted by Mr. Excellent at 7:27 AM on October 24, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by Mr. Excellent at 7:27 AM on October 24, 2012 [2 favorites]
often people living in an isolated community with haphazard birth records and age claims of varying plausibility.
The author addresses that specific point in the article you didn't read. I don't think we have a fancy name for that fallacy, though.
posted by mhoye at 7:29 AM on October 24, 2012 [2 favorites]
The author addresses that specific point in the article you didn't read. I don't think we have a fancy name for that fallacy, though.
posted by mhoye at 7:29 AM on October 24, 2012 [2 favorites]
There's a saying I heard a couple of times from older people in Cornwall: "those who'm regular live longer", meaning that people with regular, predictable habits tend to live longer. I suspect most of that comes from regular sleep patterns and maintaining the same level of exercise as long as they can - walking to the local shop, keeping the garden tidy, socialising and so on. Doing pretty much the same things from one day to another is also very low-stress.
I sometimes wonder whether recent generations are as likely to live long lives as a lot of people who were kids in the 1930s. There are some old people here in my village that put me to shame.
posted by pipeski at 7:32 AM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
I sometimes wonder whether recent generations are as likely to live long lives as a lot of people who were kids in the 1930s. There are some old people here in my village that put me to shame.
posted by pipeski at 7:32 AM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
I have been to Ikaria. Sorry, I just wanted to mention that.
posted by Decani at 7:33 AM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Decani at 7:33 AM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
Okinawa is another place with a high number of centenarians, apparently. Scientists looked at everything they could. Is it eating tofu, or seaweed, or what? The explanation they proposed was that in Okinawa, the local version of 'Bon appetit!' translates as 'eat until you are 80% full!' So, apparently, over-eating is virtually unheard of as it goes against cultural norms. The idea that longevity may be associated with eating less and being more or less always (at least a little) hungry is supported by research regarding calorie-restricted diets in mice. From what I can gather, when it comes to longevity, one of the key things you can do is not eat too much. What you eat doesn't seem to matter as much. (Or smoke or drink.) Of course, the other key to longevity is have good genes.
posted by Bartonius at 7:35 AM on October 24, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by Bartonius at 7:35 AM on October 24, 2012 [4 favorites]
It turns out it's Amway.
posted by ODiV at 7:36 AM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by ODiV at 7:36 AM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
No Lego to step on.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:47 AM on October 24, 2012 [6 favorites]
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:47 AM on October 24, 2012 [6 favorites]
Oh, this is making me want to go dig out my old (pre-digital) photo albums. Ikaria is a pretty magical place, and the people there are indeed different and special. I have a number of friends who are from there originally, or lived there for a period as teachers and doctors and they all feel the same way, and sort of deeply devoted to the place. (I won't claim that kind of kinship, as I was a visitor, and a foreign one, to boot, but a friends-of-Ikarians visitor, and invited to participate in community stuff.)
It was always sort of amusing to me that Ikaria was an exile island... like, WE SHALL BAN YOU TO THE DEPTHS OF... Paradise? I mean it's a hardscrabble paradise, but it's amazing, and beautiful, and a one-of-a-kind place (though each island is, really; completely different personalities from one island to the next). Sending all these lefty anti-establishment radicals off to a fabulous place that was already fiercely independent and closeknit was an interesting choice, and I do feel like it's a fascinating aspect of the culture there, which might have otherwise trended more toward the mainstream cultural Borg. I'm not at all surprised that science has found Ikarians... different.
posted by taz at 7:57 AM on October 24, 2012 [6 favorites]
It was always sort of amusing to me that Ikaria was an exile island... like, WE SHALL BAN YOU TO THE DEPTHS OF... Paradise? I mean it's a hardscrabble paradise, but it's amazing, and beautiful, and a one-of-a-kind place (though each island is, really; completely different personalities from one island to the next). Sending all these lefty anti-establishment radicals off to a fabulous place that was already fiercely independent and closeknit was an interesting choice, and I do feel like it's a fascinating aspect of the culture there, which might have otherwise trended more toward the mainstream cultural Borg. I'm not at all surprised that science has found Ikarians... different.
posted by taz at 7:57 AM on October 24, 2012 [6 favorites]
my great-grandmother died of 104 yrs old. used to smoke a tabaquito that she herself rolled up and gobs or black coffee throughout the day. she also used to make her own backyard moonshine. i called her the black widow because she buried 3 husbands and 2 fled for their lives. she was my mom's grandma and one of the living proofs taínos still walked the earth of Puerto Rico. i mean, you looked at her and she was definitely indigenous. my mom is this tall white/blonde woman and bisa (short for grandnan) was this little copper skinned lady with squinty eyes and long black hair. she looked like a cemí. i attribute her long life to having literally survived spanish genocide.
posted by liza at 7:57 AM on October 24, 2012 [15 favorites]
posted by liza at 7:57 AM on October 24, 2012 [15 favorites]
I'm not sure if the article mentions it --hi, NYT paywall--, but Ikaria is also the kind of place where the local store might open at 11 or 12 am in the middle of the tourist season. Great food though.
posted by ersatz at 8:14 AM on October 24, 2012
posted by ersatz at 8:14 AM on October 24, 2012
But also might be open at 2 am+! Not every village on Ikaria is the same, but I have a sort of longstanding visual poem in my head from one friend describing to me how amazing it was that this one mountain village where she lived would mostly do all their business after 11 pm. She was describing a winter night when everything was open, gently drifting snowflakes and warm lights aglow as people went about their errands, buying bread, meeting and greeting, making exchanges, hoisting a cup, and generally carrying on like a little community does – all in deep, deep night, as an ordinary thing.
posted by taz at 8:31 AM on October 24, 2012 [6 favorites]
posted by taz at 8:31 AM on October 24, 2012 [6 favorites]
There a bunch of populations in the world, statistically there will be some that are at demographic extremes; it doesn't necessarily imply causality with locale or lifestyle, although it's certainly worth investigating.
Put another way, if everyone on MetaFilter flipped a coin ten times, the average number of heads would be around 5, but somebody would flip ten heads. Doesn't mean they're a gifted coin-flipper.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:33 AM on October 24, 2012
Put another way, if everyone on MetaFilter flipped a coin ten times, the average number of heads would be around 5, but somebody would flip ten heads. Doesn't mean they're a gifted coin-flipper.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:33 AM on October 24, 2012
You know that day that not a single fuck was given? I bet these people just string a bunch of those together.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:41 AM on October 24, 2012 [5 favorites]
posted by louche mustachio at 8:41 AM on October 24, 2012 [5 favorites]
Just spent two weeks this summer on Ikaria and nearby Fourni.
It's an odd place, in that it was very much off the map in recent history, given that the Colonels liked to exile Communists there. (This feeds into the explanation why the inhabitants of Xristos Raches prefer to live under cover of the night.) They're also the islanders who recently toyed with the idea of annexing themselves to Austria - allegedly; locals I spoke with said: we, unlike most islands, have plenty of water - we could trade it for oil with some Arab sheikdom, pay off our per-capita debt and go independent!
(Anyone needing travel tips, memail me. Fourni is also a wonderfully lost place.)
They also produce an excellent local limonada (Ikaria brand) that I'm still trying to import a case of...
posted by progosk at 8:44 AM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
It's an odd place, in that it was very much off the map in recent history, given that the Colonels liked to exile Communists there. (This feeds into the explanation why the inhabitants of Xristos Raches prefer to live under cover of the night.) They're also the islanders who recently toyed with the idea of annexing themselves to Austria - allegedly; locals I spoke with said: we, unlike most islands, have plenty of water - we could trade it for oil with some Arab sheikdom, pay off our per-capita debt and go independent!
(Anyone needing travel tips, memail me. Fourni is also a wonderfully lost place.)
They also produce an excellent local limonada (Ikaria brand) that I'm still trying to import a case of...
posted by progosk at 8:44 AM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
I'm always so amazed that the basic foods and the laid-back lifestyle gets all the credit. I firmly believe that wholesome, uncontaminated foods and a healthful lifestyle contribute to their longevity. But what amazes me is that we don't credit the immense pollution we live with daily for shortening our lives. The earth, air, and water we live with is crap, full of industrial pollutants, car exhaust, and chemicals. As the apex predator, anything nasty is going to be concentrated in our food supply anyway, and we help things along by feeding hormones, antibiotics, garbage, and ground-up dead things to our protein sources, and by putting herbicides, pesticides, plastic, and other shit on our carbohydrate sources.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go out and spray RoundUp on the wild geranium in my garden so they won't take over next year.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:55 AM on October 24, 2012 [5 favorites]
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go out and spray RoundUp on the wild geranium in my garden so they won't take over next year.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:55 AM on October 24, 2012 [5 favorites]
"I sometimes wonder whether recent generations are as likely to live long lives as a lot of people who were kids in the 1930s. There are some old people here in my village that put me to shame."
It might be something of a tradeoff between better medicine and less healthy diets. Your average Canadian or American born in the 20s/30s started off with less medicine but a healthier diet and sort of shaded over to the other end of the spectrum as they got older. Our generation is starting at this end and is unlikely to move away from it, so we might be more likely to get serious illnesses like heart disease and cancer, but also be treated more effectively for them as medicine continues to advance.
posted by Kevin Street at 8:59 AM on October 24, 2012
It might be something of a tradeoff between better medicine and less healthy diets. Your average Canadian or American born in the 20s/30s started off with less medicine but a healthier diet and sort of shaded over to the other end of the spectrum as they got older. Our generation is starting at this end and is unlikely to move away from it, so we might be more likely to get serious illnesses like heart disease and cancer, but also be treated more effectively for them as medicine continues to advance.
posted by Kevin Street at 8:59 AM on October 24, 2012
Epigenetics explains a lot. It's not only a healthy diet, but a healthy diet over dozens of generations. Your Diet Affects Your Grandchildren's DNA.
posted by stbalbach at 9:47 AM on October 24, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by stbalbach at 9:47 AM on October 24, 2012 [4 favorites]
Well, according to the commercials I saw as a kid, the secret is yoghurt.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 10:24 AM on October 24, 2012
posted by TWinbrook8 at 10:24 AM on October 24, 2012
This story seems like such an echo of all past research - the benefits of diet, low-chemicals/stress are seen as the only variables. This is an example of research limited by the researchers. I would really like to see some studies of systems underlying human suffering -- i.e., social/political system which thwart long life (actually, thwart all healthy life).
Studying patriarchy in these long-living cultures might be a good beginning. Okinawa has long been studied for its history of "more equal and mutual social environment in gender roles". In early times the men were fishing for days/months at a time, so women governed. In recent times, women have been in the forefront of resistance to militarism (patriarchy on steroids).
A healthy future will not come from just tweaking the variables.
posted by Surfurrus at 10:29 AM on October 24, 2012 [2 favorites]
Studying patriarchy in these long-living cultures might be a good beginning. Okinawa has long been studied for its history of "more equal and mutual social environment in gender roles". In early times the men were fishing for days/months at a time, so women governed. In recent times, women have been in the forefront of resistance to militarism (patriarchy on steroids).
A healthy future will not come from just tweaking the variables.
posted by Surfurrus at 10:29 AM on October 24, 2012 [2 favorites]
My grandma is 89 (...and on the other side, grandma is 88 and gramps is 90). She's the oldest person in her Senior Water Aerobics class - and she teaches the class. On days when class doesn't meet, she does a half-mile or a half-hour of laps. She's still as sharp as she ever was, still drives around no problem (though not at night, not for a long time). When we go to the store (she lets me buy stuff on her Costco card), we help 70-year-old people in handicapped spaces with their groceries. She credits this to the swimming, and eating different colored food at each meal.
posted by notsnot at 10:55 AM on October 24, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by notsnot at 10:55 AM on October 24, 2012 [2 favorites]
The idea that longevity may be associated with eating less and being more or less always (at least a little) hungry is supported by research regarding calorie-restricted diets in mice.
Hasn't that been debunked? Or, at least, it doesn't work in monkeys: http://www.nature.com/news/calorie-restriction-falters-in-the-long-run-1.11297
posted by lesbiassparrow at 11:14 AM on October 24, 2012
Hasn't that been debunked? Or, at least, it doesn't work in monkeys: http://www.nature.com/news/calorie-restriction-falters-in-the-long-run-1.11297
posted by lesbiassparrow at 11:14 AM on October 24, 2012
This sounds like paradise, but then my inner Go-Get'em-American makes me start to wonder if I'd die of boredom...
posted by gottabefunky at 11:21 AM on October 24, 2012
posted by gottabefunky at 11:21 AM on October 24, 2012
"Hasn't that been debunked?"
Don't know about the science of it, but there seem to be positive results in both mice and humans that follow the regimen. The video in this Mefi post has been removed from Youtube, but there's lots of discussion in the comments and the Telegraph article is still working:
The science behind intermittent fasting
posted by Kevin Street at 11:37 AM on October 24, 2012
Don't know about the science of it, but there seem to be positive results in both mice and humans that follow the regimen. The video in this Mefi post has been removed from Youtube, but there's lots of discussion in the comments and the Telegraph article is still working:
The science behind intermittent fasting
posted by Kevin Street at 11:37 AM on October 24, 2012
I know the American public is going to focus on the "diet and exercise" aspect of the Ikarian lifestyle. Because that's just what we are like: we want things that are easily measured and quantified. And our corporations want to push things that can be monetized.
But what really struck me about this article is the social/community aspect of life as an Ikarian. No one feels alone, and the elderly all seem to spend a significant portion of their time in social activities. At night they aren't sitting at home watching TV alone, they are over at friends' houses having a group dinner, or down at the pub playing dominoes with friends.
It sounds like every elderly person on Ikaria feels like a valued member of a tightly-knit community. This is very much NOT the case with most American elders.
Back when I had a dog, he and I were certified to visit nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Although well cared-for physically, emotionally the residents felt so, so isolated. Warehoused. Abandoned by their families.
I can't tell you how many times someone would burst into tears as they hugged my dog. The lack of contact, of companionship was the single greatest factor of their lives.
I get the feeling that kind of thing would never happen on Ikaria. In fact, I suspect the Ikarians would be outright horrified to hear of it. And I think it's a much more significant factor in longevity than we (culturally) want to believe.
posted by ErikaB at 11:38 AM on October 24, 2012 [13 favorites]
But what really struck me about this article is the social/community aspect of life as an Ikarian. No one feels alone, and the elderly all seem to spend a significant portion of their time in social activities. At night they aren't sitting at home watching TV alone, they are over at friends' houses having a group dinner, or down at the pub playing dominoes with friends.
It sounds like every elderly person on Ikaria feels like a valued member of a tightly-knit community. This is very much NOT the case with most American elders.
Back when I had a dog, he and I were certified to visit nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Although well cared-for physically, emotionally the residents felt so, so isolated. Warehoused. Abandoned by their families.
I can't tell you how many times someone would burst into tears as they hugged my dog. The lack of contact, of companionship was the single greatest factor of their lives.
I get the feeling that kind of thing would never happen on Ikaria. In fact, I suspect the Ikarians would be outright horrified to hear of it. And I think it's a much more significant factor in longevity than we (culturally) want to believe.
posted by ErikaB at 11:38 AM on October 24, 2012 [13 favorites]
Hmmmm. Decani and taz have both been to Ikaria, and they are both still alive! Two more data points!
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:39 PM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:39 PM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
I'm pretty sure their secret is not having nice green lawns, because then they'd have to yell at kids all the time, which is gonna give you a stroke or a heart attack or both sooner or later.
posted by kozad at 2:03 PM on October 24, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by kozad at 2:03 PM on October 24, 2012 [2 favorites]
Social contact and other aspects of life satisfaction can be quantized. Personality aspects can be quantized, and that is well established.
For example we might ask, How often do you do X, how happy are you before you do it (perhaps over several days), and how much happier does it make you feel to have done it (again over several days)? A one-to-ten scale is subjective but over large numbers of measurements at different times it will stabilize for an individual, and over large numbers of individuals it will even out, to the point where we can make reasonably defensible assertions and recommendations, eg persons of this personality profile type are made this much happier by this amount of social contact during this period of time, and (for example) not organizing social activities for elderly folks in nursing homes or prisoners or other institutional residents is roughly equivalent, in terms of quality of life, to depriving them of food.
Nutrition is by no means an exact science, and there are implications in the data that certain populations divided by blood type, race, age, and various other factors require somewhat different diets for optimal nutrition, however we can broadly speaking design a diet that will keep a person alive and in reasonably good health, with individualized supplementation.
I see no reason why "keeping people happy and mentally healthy" is any more difficult in principle.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 2:23 PM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
For example we might ask, How often do you do X, how happy are you before you do it (perhaps over several days), and how much happier does it make you feel to have done it (again over several days)? A one-to-ten scale is subjective but over large numbers of measurements at different times it will stabilize for an individual, and over large numbers of individuals it will even out, to the point where we can make reasonably defensible assertions and recommendations, eg persons of this personality profile type are made this much happier by this amount of social contact during this period of time, and (for example) not organizing social activities for elderly folks in nursing homes or prisoners or other institutional residents is roughly equivalent, in terms of quality of life, to depriving them of food.
Nutrition is by no means an exact science, and there are implications in the data that certain populations divided by blood type, race, age, and various other factors require somewhat different diets for optimal nutrition, however we can broadly speaking design a diet that will keep a person alive and in reasonably good health, with individualized supplementation.
I see no reason why "keeping people happy and mentally healthy" is any more difficult in principle.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 2:23 PM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]
I am skeptical about the cancer going away and would want to see some documents
Isn't it convenient that the doctors are dead? Did the fact checkers ask for any real medical records? I say this having been an observer in the alternative health community for some time. There are some cases of spontaneous unexplained remission and these cases are often touted out as "skip chemo, just eat diet XYZ or drink this rare island water instead like that guy who beat cancer without modern medicine!"
Of course, most of the people who follow that kind of advice are not so lucky.
And you can make your own "blue zones" usually by excluding people who lived in bad conditions. If I look at my ancestry and exclude people who were victims of war, poor immigrants in tenements, or the like, there are plenty who lived til 90 and even 100.
Fun fact is that Asian immigrants in modern New Jersey, if they were there own island or country, would be celebrated as a blue zone. It's not a coincidence that blue zones are often islands or isolated mountain communities with relatively egalitarian homogenous populations.
posted by melissam at 2:51 PM on October 24, 2012
Isn't it convenient that the doctors are dead? Did the fact checkers ask for any real medical records? I say this having been an observer in the alternative health community for some time. There are some cases of spontaneous unexplained remission and these cases are often touted out as "skip chemo, just eat diet XYZ or drink this rare island water instead like that guy who beat cancer without modern medicine!"
Of course, most of the people who follow that kind of advice are not so lucky.
And you can make your own "blue zones" usually by excluding people who lived in bad conditions. If I look at my ancestry and exclude people who were victims of war, poor immigrants in tenements, or the like, there are plenty who lived til 90 and even 100.
Fun fact is that Asian immigrants in modern New Jersey, if they were there own island or country, would be celebrated as a blue zone. It's not a coincidence that blue zones are often islands or isolated mountain communities with relatively egalitarian homogenous populations.
posted by melissam at 2:51 PM on October 24, 2012
mhoye: The author addresses that specific point in the article you didn't read. I don't think we have a fancy name for that fallacy, though.
Way to cherry-pick a comment, dude. I did in fact read the article, and although the author makes claims of scientific rigor, he didn't say what their sample size was, especially if/when they weeded out anyone whose age wasn't verifiable. (Heck, I even went back through it to see if he, you know, linked to the study that he keeps citing; no luck.) If I'm being a little too excessively skeptical here, it's because he's working for National Geographic, where I originally read about supercentenarians in the Caucasus and elsewhere back in the seventies--you know, the claims that he now poohpoohs. NatGeo is pretty good usually about accurately describing natural wonders and exotic societies with a fair degree of accuracy, but they're not entirely immune to the woo.
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:04 PM on October 24, 2012
Way to cherry-pick a comment, dude. I did in fact read the article, and although the author makes claims of scientific rigor, he didn't say what their sample size was, especially if/when they weeded out anyone whose age wasn't verifiable. (Heck, I even went back through it to see if he, you know, linked to the study that he keeps citing; no luck.) If I'm being a little too excessively skeptical here, it's because he's working for National Geographic, where I originally read about supercentenarians in the Caucasus and elsewhere back in the seventies--you know, the claims that he now poohpoohs. NatGeo is pretty good usually about accurately describing natural wonders and exotic societies with a fair degree of accuracy, but they're not entirely immune to the woo.
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:04 PM on October 24, 2012
Many years ago I asked an 85 year old friend what he considered key to longevity. His answer: "only the good die young".
posted by she's not there at 3:59 PM on October 24, 2012 [3 favorites]
posted by she's not there at 3:59 PM on October 24, 2012 [3 favorites]
These people who "don't care about money" - they're the ones drawing a government pension, right? It's easy to say you don't care about something when it's provided to you.
We're takin' what they're givin'
'Cause we're livin' for a livin'...
posted by Benny Andajetz at 4:10 PM on October 24, 2012
We're takin' what they're givin'
'Cause we're livin' for a livin'...
posted by Benny Andajetz at 4:10 PM on October 24, 2012
I've never been to Ikaria, but I know a few people who have spent some time there. I heard a CD of traditional Ikarian folk music: 'The Ikarians are Dancing', which is pretty cool if you like this sort of thing.
Despite being close to Samos and almost in the South-East middle of the Aegean, Ikaria is outside of the loop of regular sea travel in the area: less ferry connections, yachting, trade and tourism than you would see in other Greek Islands, I'm thinking probably because it's rocky and didn't have the layout for an inviting harbour.
In 1978 the talented British author Lawrence Durrell published a travelogue, 'The Greek Islands', where he described the unique charm and character of each isle of of the Cyclades, Sporades, Dodecanese, etc. He devoted about two sentences in this book to Ikaria, paraphrase: "Tired and boring, and not worth seeing."
Ikaria is the site of one of the older classic outdoor drama theatres from Ancient Greece.
posted by ovvl at 4:41 PM on October 24, 2012
Despite being close to Samos and almost in the South-East middle of the Aegean, Ikaria is outside of the loop of regular sea travel in the area: less ferry connections, yachting, trade and tourism than you would see in other Greek Islands, I'm thinking probably because it's rocky and didn't have the layout for an inviting harbour.
In 1978 the talented British author Lawrence Durrell published a travelogue, 'The Greek Islands', where he described the unique charm and character of each isle of of the Cyclades, Sporades, Dodecanese, etc. He devoted about two sentences in this book to Ikaria, paraphrase: "Tired and boring, and not worth seeing."
Ikaria is the site of one of the older classic outdoor drama theatres from Ancient Greece.
posted by ovvl at 4:41 PM on October 24, 2012
I don't really care whether the people there really live longer or not. It sounds like they live a hell of a lot better, though. To me, that's the important point. Even if it just feels longer, win.
posted by Miko at 6:43 PM on October 24, 2012
posted by Miko at 6:43 PM on October 24, 2012
Many years ago I asked an 85 year old friend what he considered key to longevity. His answer: "only the good die young".
Billy Joel's 85? He's lookin' pretty good.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:46 PM on October 25, 2012
Billy Joel's 85? He's lookin' pretty good.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:46 PM on October 25, 2012
Halloween Jack: Oh, hey, it's the Texas sharpshooter fallacy again! I think that we've already gone through this with supercentenarians before, often people living in an isolated community with haphazard birth records and age claims of varying plausibility.
So, okay, I hear you, but you do know that part of what epedemiologists do is examine clusters, and why that is valid and important research, right?
posted by misha at 1:49 PM on October 25, 2012
So, okay, I hear you, but you do know that part of what epedemiologists do is examine clusters, and why that is valid and important research, right?
posted by misha at 1:49 PM on October 25, 2012
When you invite someone to lunch, they might come at 10 a.m. or 6 p.m. We simply don’t care about the clock here. ...
posted by Greg Nog
... Not every village on Ikaria is the same, but I have a sort of longstanding visual poem in my head from one friend describing to me how amazing it was that this one mountain village where she lived would mostly do all their business after 11 pm. She was describing a winter night when everything was open, gently drifting snowflakes and warm lights aglow as people went about their errands, buying bread, meeting and greeting, making exchanges, hoisting a cup, and generally carrying on like a little community does – all in deep, deep night, as an ordinary thing.
posted by taz
Fascinating taz and Greg Nog, because I have a friend in his sixties who is by almost universal acclamation notably younger-looking than any of his contemporaries: no gray hair, no wrinkles, sagging skin, crow's feet or settling, no decline in running times since his late twenties, and etc.-- looks late thirties at most, in short-- but who has never ever been able to reliably function during the day and sleep at night the way other people do.
And to his own great detriment. He had huge difficulties in high school and as an undergraduate, could not TA morning sections as a graduate student, and chose not to try to become a professor after getting his PhD because he didn't think he could accommodate himself to even those flexible scheduling demands.
But he came into his own as a researcher, and often finds himself happy and alertly working in his office as the cleaning crew is packing up and going home. He's not just a night owl though; his bedtime seems to advance by an hour a day or so, and he sometimes finds himself in sync with the rest of the world, but only briefly.
He also reached puberty a couple of years after everyone else and grew several inches after age 24 (to average stature).
He's never been diagnosed, but he almost certainly has delayed sleep phase syndrome, and the normal time cues (such as sunrise) fail to lock his internal rhythms to the daily round.
His experience and what you two say of the Ikarians make me wonder whether the Clock of Aging ticks along with the days for most of us, and whether my friend and some Ikarias get extra time because theirs does not.
Not that different from "forgetting to die."
I would love to see some circadian rhythm monitoring of Ikarians with long-lived relatives.
posted by jamjam at 2:57 PM on October 25, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by Greg Nog
... Not every village on Ikaria is the same, but I have a sort of longstanding visual poem in my head from one friend describing to me how amazing it was that this one mountain village where she lived would mostly do all their business after 11 pm. She was describing a winter night when everything was open, gently drifting snowflakes and warm lights aglow as people went about their errands, buying bread, meeting and greeting, making exchanges, hoisting a cup, and generally carrying on like a little community does – all in deep, deep night, as an ordinary thing.
posted by taz
Fascinating taz and Greg Nog, because I have a friend in his sixties who is by almost universal acclamation notably younger-looking than any of his contemporaries: no gray hair, no wrinkles, sagging skin, crow's feet or settling, no decline in running times since his late twenties, and etc.-- looks late thirties at most, in short-- but who has never ever been able to reliably function during the day and sleep at night the way other people do.
And to his own great detriment. He had huge difficulties in high school and as an undergraduate, could not TA morning sections as a graduate student, and chose not to try to become a professor after getting his PhD because he didn't think he could accommodate himself to even those flexible scheduling demands.
But he came into his own as a researcher, and often finds himself happy and alertly working in his office as the cleaning crew is packing up and going home. He's not just a night owl though; his bedtime seems to advance by an hour a day or so, and he sometimes finds himself in sync with the rest of the world, but only briefly.
He also reached puberty a couple of years after everyone else and grew several inches after age 24 (to average stature).
He's never been diagnosed, but he almost certainly has delayed sleep phase syndrome, and the normal time cues (such as sunrise) fail to lock his internal rhythms to the daily round.
His experience and what you two say of the Ikarians make me wonder whether the Clock of Aging ticks along with the days for most of us, and whether my friend and some Ikarias get extra time because theirs does not.
Not that different from "forgetting to die."
I would love to see some circadian rhythm monitoring of Ikarians with long-lived relatives.
posted by jamjam at 2:57 PM on October 25, 2012 [4 favorites]
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I find such extreme venerability intimidating. It's like talking to Lao Tzu with a Kleenex in his sleeve.
posted by Egg Shen at 5:45 AM on October 24, 2012 [17 favorites]