WEBVTT - What are Blue Zones? 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:07.720 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.680 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.439 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:23.520 should know. Our episode on blue zones, which is not well, 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:27.319 we'll explain it. It's not immediately apparent what we're talking about. 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:29.800 You have to kind of know the ins and outs. 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:31.320 And I think that's kind of what we're going to 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:34.400 do here, is explain the ins and outs of blue zones. 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:35.600 No why I said all that? 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:38.360 Yeah, Well, I mean I'll just go until people right 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:40.559 off the bat that a blue zone is supposedly an 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:45.519 area on planet Earth where people they have an extraordinary 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.919 amount or higher than average amount rather of people that 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:50.440 live to be one hundred years old. 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:52.760 Well, there you go. Now you know the ins and 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:54.480 outs of blue zones everybody. 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:57.200 But the story behind blue zones is what's super interesting. 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:01.400 I think it started well, we're going to jump back 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:03.000 to the seventies at one point, but it started out 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:04.679 basically in two thousand and four when there was a 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.080 paper that came out they said, hey, there's a large 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.520 number of centenarians, people that live to be one hundred 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:17.400 at least in a small area in the mountains of Sardinia, Italy, 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:21.039 and the author of the papers shaded it blue on 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:23.440 a map called it a blue zone. And then in 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:25.800 two thousand and five it really picked up steam because 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:30.840 there was a national geographic reporter named Dan Butner who 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:33.800 wrote an article called the Secrets of Long Life in 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:38.119 which he talked about Sardinia and his own finding of Okinawa, 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:41.800 Japan and Loma Linda, California, his two more blue zones, 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.759 and was like, Hey, what's going on here? We got 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.279 to figure this out because people there are living longer. 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:50.280 Yeah, And the whole premise was, Hey, don't you want 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.280 to live longer? Let's find out what these people's secrets are, 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.000 because clearly, if there's a bunch of them clustered together, 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.560 that means they're all doing something similarly. So let's get 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:01.160 to the bottom of this everybody. 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:01.880 Yeah. 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.320 And the way that he put it, what if I said, 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:06.520 you could add up to ten years of your life. 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:09.760 A long healthy life is no accident. It begins with 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:12.320 good genes, but it also depends on good habits. 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.640 Yeah. I mean I think everyone agrees with that generally. 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:20.959 Sure, But one of the reasons why it does seem 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:25.520 like there's a set of habits that you can engage in, 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:31.359 from the Mediterranean lifestyle or the Mediterranean diet to getting 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.360 out there and walking every day. A large part of 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:38.560 that is based on how popular the concept of blue 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:42.480 Zones became. And you can thank Dan Buttener I believe 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:44.840 his last name was Butner, like he just blew the 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:47.639 whole thing up and is I don't want to say 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.400 single handedly, because there are definitely people working behind the scenes, 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.040 but he's the one who made it, who introduced it 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:54.160 to popular. 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:57.240 Culture, Yeah, for sure. And sort of off the jump here, 0:02:57.280 --> 0:02:59.520 I want to talk one second about a side article 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.160 I read in Times recently, because one of the things 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:04.480 that you're going to hear talk about or us talk 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:08.040 about him talking about, is one of the things you 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:10.919 can do to live longer, supposedly is tight social networks. 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:13.919 I just read a New York Times article last week 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.480 about superagers, and it's not necessarily people that live to 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:19.440 be one hundred. That's what blue Zones is talking about, 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:21.519 but it's just people that live into their eighties and 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:25.000 nineties without getting dementia. And it was a pretty robust study. 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:27.160 They had a large cohort over like twenty five years, 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:30.240 and they said some of them drink booze every day. 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:32.880 Some of them there have been smokers. Some of them 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:35.000 eat a lot of red meat. They said. The one 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:37.440 single thing that they found in common with all of 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:44.240 them was social relationships. Active social relationships with people outside 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:47.200 of your house and going out and seeing people. They 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:49.560 said they tend to be extroverts, so people that go 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:52.680 out and socialize with other people was the one commonality 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:53.520 between all of them. 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:58.360 That sucks. Oh no, I'm in big trouble man. We 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:01.160 got to get you out, buddy, So I'm gonna have 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:02.840 to update my wardrobe. 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.240 You're like eating fish and olive oil and walking every day. 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:07.440 Doing everything else. 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:09.200 I just don't want to talk to anyone, but yeah, 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:10.000 and momo. 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.320 I'd put my hand up by my face when I 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:14.680 walk past somebody when I'm out walking every day. 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:16.880 I thought it was really interesting because you know, most 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:19.839 of us in our gen X category are dealing with 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:23.280 aging parents, and I feel like everyone I know is 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.679 going through it in some capacity. So I'm just reading 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:27.799 a lot about that stuff lately. 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.159 Oh that's nice of you. Yeah, prepping yourself. 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.960 Prepping myself, so I don't do this to Ruby. 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:39.279 Nice, you know nice. So yeah, tight social network site 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:41.600 is a big one as far as the blue zones 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:43.599 are concerned, and I guess that's the only one that 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.279 really matters. But they have other stuff too, like you 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.039 need to have a sense of purpose. Anecdotally, I know 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:53.680 that makes sense because a lot of people I don't 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:55.560 know if a lot's the right term, but there are 0:04:55.680 --> 0:05:00.640 definitely people who die very shortly after retiring. Yeah, and 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:03.880 in the United States, your job in a lot of 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:08.600 cases is your identity and your purpose in life. People 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:13.919 are like family forget that accounting is my purpose in life, 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:16.400 and then once they retire, they don't have any numbers 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:20.480 to crunch and they keel over dead. So that I mean, anecdotally, 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:22.080 it definitely makes a lot of sense. 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.440 Yeah, for sure. But this nat Geo article that Butner 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:30.479 wrote went viral. Buttner was basically like, Hey, this is 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:34.040 it for me. He did a Ted talk and has 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:39.599 developed quite a robust cottage industry around blue zones. He's 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:42.080 written in a lot of books. He's written blue Zone cookbooks, 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.080 There's been a blue Zone Netflix series, there are blue 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:49.840 Zone branded like he copyrighted the term blue zone or 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:53.560 trademarked it rather, and there are skincare products and iced teas, 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.520 and there's hot sauces, and you can do a Blue 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:59.080 Zone retreat or pay monthly for a Blue Zone app. 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:02.680 There's a lot of stuff that he's selling. 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:07.000 Yeah, for sure. He basically blew it up into a 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:08.040 lifestyle brand. 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:12.359 Yeah, which is one reason some people have come along 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:16.480 and criticized it and said, wait a minute, is this 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.040 like real science and real research or is this just 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:23.360 creating a brand and making money. I mean, not with 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:27.039 maybe nefarious intent or anything, but like, let's look at 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:29.160 the science. And a big person that you're going to 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:31.520 hear come up a lot in this is a guy 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:36.320 named Saul Justin Newman, and in twenty nineteen he put 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:41.120 out a statement basically that said, hey, I think this 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:42.919 is all just bad data. 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:45.359 Yeah. He wrote a paper on it essentially. 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.200 That yeah, like bad record keeping on ages. 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:51.880 Yeah. And this is not new. The idea of superagers 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:57.840 or centenarians, especially once clustered together, has been long controversial. 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.400 Anytime somebody's come along and been like, hey, we found 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:02.040 a bunch of people that are living to their hundreds. 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:03.760 Let's look at what they're doing. So the rest of 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.720 us can do that too. But back in nineteen seventy three, 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:10.640 there was a guy named Alexander Leif. He was a physician, 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.440 and he got kind of caught up in this whole thing, 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:16.800 just trying to figure it out, and he wrote an 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:19.920 article for National Geographic, just like Dan Butner did in 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:23.360 two thousand and four, but this is in nineteen seventy three, 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:27.080 and he went to different parts of the world and 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:31.280 where there were anecdotally, I guess, a bunch of centenarians 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.600 living and he investigated it and he found, yes, there 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:39.040 are some groups of people around the world who have 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:41.840 some sort of secret to aging late in life because 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:44.840 there's a bunch of hundred plus year olds who live 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:48.160 in these usually isolated areas. 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:53.040 Yeah, but he himself, in credit to Alexander leaf, he 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:55.040 was like, you know what this all like? Even this 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.880 was after the article was published. He didn't just like 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:01.880 sit back and collect his million dollars and say, hell, 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.280 I guess that's that. He was like, wait a minute, 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:06.400 this like some of this stuff is nagging at me 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:09.280 and doesn't seem to make much sense. So he kind 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:12.360 of went back on his own research even and started 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:16.560 looking through these records basically, and he in one case, 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:18.480 he saw a death certificate of a man who was 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:21.400 allegedly one hundred and sixty eight years old, and he 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:23.400 was like, that's pushing it, I feel. 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:24.120 Like for sure. 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.119 And in another area he met a villager who claimed 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:29.040 to be one hundred and twenty two. He went back 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:30.440 a year later and the guy said he was one 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.120 hundred and thirty four, So he was like, all right. 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:35.640 Five years later, in nineteen seventy eight, he partnered with 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.439 a couple of other scientists to sort of get down 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.520 to the bottom of it all and dug through records 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:45.040 in these places and found a lot of like discrepancies 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.520 where people were off by decades on their actual age, 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:51.760 and they reckon that, like, I think they're doing this 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:54.439 because it brings them a lot of prestige. Instead of 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:56.520 being like eighty something years old, they say they're one 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:58.800 hundred and five, and all of a sudden, they're like 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:00.240 the village elder, you. 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:05.440 Know, right exactly, but a fraudulent village elder. So essentially 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:09.760 what happened was an outsider, a Westerner got tripped up 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:14.880 into what is probably some a custom in the area. 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.280 It's like that people just kind of inflate their ages 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.440 and the like. People like Alexander Leaf are obsessed with 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.920 finding out exactly how that happens and not stopping to 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:27.959 be like, I don't know if this is actually real, 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.439 but yeah, hats off to Alexander Leaf for going back 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:33.920 on his own findings and admitting, like, now, this is 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:38.080 probably not right because they concluded without a doubt that 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:44.720 the Ecuadorians in this village of bil Cabamba were fraudulent. Yeah, 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:47.040 and he's like, I'm sure that also applies to the 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.080 other places too, So everybody just forget the article I wrote. 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:52.880 Yeah, I mean that's a again, hats off, because that's 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:55.400 to put your own name out there as like, hey, 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:57.839 I got it wrong, Like I don't know if I 0:09:57.840 --> 0:09:58.480 would have done it. 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.360 You don't think So we do that all the time. 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:03.720 Oh well that's a good point. 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:05.520 Yeah, we correct ourselves. 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:07.600 So we're going to introduce you to a couple of 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.640 more people that factor in pretty heavily here. In nineteen 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:15.040 ninety nine, there was an Italian researcher named Giovanni Pisses 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:18.160 never heard that last name. He presented a paper at 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:22.280 a demography conference, and then there was a why Is 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.240 that funny? Is it? Demography conferences? 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:24.600 Yeah? 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:25.760 Party central? 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:28.880 Yeah. I can imagine somebody going what segment of the 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:30.920 population here is ready to party? 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.040 Yeah? Or I wonder if they just stand around at 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:36.600 break and look out on the street and they're like, 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:38.480 how many people you think are over there on that sidewink? 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:43.280 People are smoking Marlboro lights. 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:46.840 So in that audience though, where Giovanni Pess was presenting 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:50.240 a paper, there was a guy named another demographer, obviously 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:55.120 named Michael pournin French guy, and he had recalled this 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.240 fiasco in the early seventies, and he was like, wait 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:01.679 a minute, he's talking about Sardinia, Italy that you know, 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:07.320 originally the area where Butner wrote the article. Turns out 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.600 Butner wrote the article about this research on Sardinia that 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:13.320 Giovanni Pest had done. 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:17.200 Yes, So if it's very easy to just assume that 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:21.040 Dan Butner came along and either piggybacked on Pess and 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:26.360 Poulaine's research or kind of invited himself into their little party, 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:31.000 he was actually already looking into this, Like I think 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.600 as far back as ninety nine he had set up 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:41.280 a project to investigate how Okinawan's who are widely reputed 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.920 for living into their hundreds, and we should say healthy, 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.800 not like decrepit old balls of yarn, like healthy people 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:52.960 who still move around and do stuff on a daily basis. 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:57.080 How they were doing that so long before Pez and 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:01.559 Poulain put their stuff together, I guess about the same time. 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.960 But independently, Buttner was doing his own thing too, So 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:07.240 he didn't just come along and steal their their idea 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:08.080 or their research. 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:10.520 Yeah, for sure. And as you'll see, they worked together 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.400 for quite a while after this too. But so Pooland 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:15.160 remembered the thing from the seventies and he was like, 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:17.360 all right, I'm gonna go to Sardinia myself and sort 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.560 of dig into this. So he did that, started started 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:24.840 cross checking birth records and marriage records and anything he 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.079 could get from archives, you know, in the town or 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:30.120 from the church or whatever. And they are the ones 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.720 they put x's when they clustered, they shaded it blue. 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:36.200 And they're the ones Polan and Pass in two thousand 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:40.640 that coined the term blue zone, even though I guess 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.319 Butner trademarked it. So I don't know. I'm not sure 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:43.960 what happened there. 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:47.160 I couldn't find anything about Polan or Pezz's reaction to 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:48.520 him trademarking that. 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:50.800 I wonder if it was he did. 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:55.800 But so, yeah, it's like all the exes. Whenever they 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:58.320 confirmed somebody, they started to cluster so much that it 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:02.920 just became a blue region. And so so now Dan 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:07.000 Buttner had a name for this idea, this concept that 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.320 he'd been working on for years, and he yeah, he 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:12.160 took it and ran with it and turned it into 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:16.240 that lifestyle brand. Pez and Poulaine Essentially we're like, Okay, 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:21.000 that's fine, We're going to stay academic here and try 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:23.920 to keep studying this, and Bututner would kind of come 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:28.040 in and out of their research over the next couple decades. 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.920 Yeah. And the key thing as far as the original 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:34.440 three places in Buttner's article, like you mentioned, he had 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.760 already studied Okinawa, he picked up on what Pulin and 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:41.280 Pez were doing with sardinia. But Loma Linda, California is 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:43.199 in there, and everyone was like, what the heck is 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:47.280 Loma Linda got going on? And just last year Buttner 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.840 told The New York Times that Lobolina was apparently included 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:53.240 because the editor at nat GEO said, we got to 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.200 get an American blue zone in there, like this needs 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:58.520 to be I know, it needs to be like applicable 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.680 to our readers here. So a lot of critics, of course, 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:03.560 are going to come out and say, like, that's that 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:05.120 just kind of that's not science. 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:11.480 No, you don't like editors don't dictate scientific methods or results, right, 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:16.520 So yeah, that's a big criticism. But and I think 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.840 also like I haven't seen anything that says Poulaine or 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:26.040 Pez are irritated by or just like Buttener or anything 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.200 like that. But just looking at the whole thing thing 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:34.040 from the outside, Butner just keeps attracting just you know, 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:39.920 contradiction or naysayer after naysayer, and Plan and Pesz are like, dude, 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.680 we're doing like real science over here, Like stop giving 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.040 our work a bad name because you're out there selling 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:48.560 Low Melinda because your editor told you to put it 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:50.280 into the original article. 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:51.640 Or selling hot sauce. 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.480 Yeah, selling hot sauce is another great one. But so 0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:01.280 in I guess his defense, Buttner said, well, actually, Low Melenda, 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:06.040 statistically speaking, people there tend to live anywhere between I 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:10.800 think four to ten years more than the average California resident. 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:13.960 And there's actually a really good reason for that. There's 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:18.080 a huge cluster of Seventh Day Adventists there, and you'll 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:22.680 remember from our Kellogg Live episode on the Kellogg Brothers, 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:25.960 the Seventh Day Adventists kind of inspired them than their 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:30.120 health food movement. They don't tend to smoke or drink 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:33.560 or eat meat, and so he was like, that's great, 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:35.440 We're going to include them in there. So it's not 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:37.840 like he just threw a dart like the Bay City 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:41.480 Rollers and picked whatever city that it landed on, like 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.960 there was a reason why. And it turned out to 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:48.080 be a pretty good business move because five years ago, 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:52.760 in twenty twenty, Adventist Health, which is a essentially the 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:57.040 hospital arm of the Seventh Day Adventists, they bought the 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:00.640 Blue Zone trademarks and all of the brand. They now 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:01.960 own it the Adventists. 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.200 Very interesting, all right, I'm going to ponder that. Let's 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:07.960 take a break and we'll come back and talk more 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:08.720 about Blue Zones. 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:39.480 So Chuck, like I said, Butener and Pess and Puline 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:43.840 all started working together in the early two thousands, and 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:48.320 Buttener was funded by National Geographic. He was a fellow 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:50.680 for them, I think even before he wrote the article 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:55.480 for National Geographic but they started funding expeditions to look 0:16:55.520 --> 0:17:00.000 for more blue zones, and in the mid two thousands 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.360 the aughts, I guess they identified two more, one in 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:08.800 Costa Rica on the Nikoya Peninsula and another one in Akaria, Greece, 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.399 which is between Greece and Turkey. It's the island between 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.760 Greece and Turkey. It looks absolutely amazingly beautiful. But they 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:19.720 added them too. There they because they went and studied 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.240 the centenarians and said, yep, this qualifies as a blue zone. 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:25.800 I was just laughing because I was wonder if the 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.040 NAT Geo editor was like, I kind of want to 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:31.800 retire near Sedona. See if you can find me some 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:32.840 olds there. 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.200 Is right, I heard there's lay lines there. 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:40.800 I'm trying to sell the wife. More recently than that, 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:44.240 they've added more blue zones. Besides the area of Costa 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:48.600 Rica and Akaria, Greece, Singapore was added in twenty twenty three. 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:52.200 That's in the book Blue Zones Secrets for a Living 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:53.400 Longer Colon. 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:54.960 Nothing to add here. 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.359 Martinique in twenty twenty three that was added as well. 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.879 This was not Butner. Apparently Poohlin is the one that 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:07.320 put that Caribbean Island, which is a department of France. 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.840 He put that one on the list because there were 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:14.879 twice as many centenarians per capita in mainland France. And 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.840 so they're saying like they're basically finding these things that 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:20.840 happen and saying like, hey, that's a blue zone. We're 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:22.520 gonna call it that because we made up that name. 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:26.440 Yeah, but according to Poohland's very strict definition, there has 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:32.560 to be a higher than normal or usual percentage of 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:36.239 centenarians people who are over age one hundred, yeah, and 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:40.520 that they typically are healthy actor yeah, yeah, they're still 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:43.679 living life, right, That is the true definition of a 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:47.199 blue zone. I get the impression. Butner is including with 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.840 low Melinda got a little fast and loose with the definition, 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:53.400 and that that's probably a point of contention. 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.600 Well, they came up with, each of them independently came 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:01.639 up of their own list basically of things to do 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.920 to live longer. Bututener has his. They're called the Power Nine, 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:09.359 which is trademarked, and Pounland calls his the Seven Principles. 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:13.120 I didn't see if that was trademarked. I don't here, Yeah, 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:15.080 I don't think so either. Here they are one is 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:18.560 moved naturally, and that is basically like you're not going 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:20.960 to the gym every day and quote unquote working out. 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:23.439 You're just you're moving through the world. You might be 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:27.199 herding goats in this village every day, or working in 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:29.480 the garden all day long, or just walking back and 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:33.320 forth to the village to do your daily trading. They 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:35.959 found that if you just move naturally through the world 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:38.280 as you age, instead of just sitting on the couch, 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:39.840 then you're going to live longer. 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:43.639 Yeah, if you have the same daily routine as Balki Bartakamus, 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:47.520 you are probably going to live into your hundreds. 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:49.040 Good one. 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:54.920 Also, eating meat in very small proportions or not at all, 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:58.800 seems to be correlated with living a long life among 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:03.159 blues owners. Yeah, usually essentially plant based diets, some fish, 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:04.320 depending on where you live. 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:05.000 Yeah. 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:09.320 And then Okinawan's are very famous for something called Harahachi boo, 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:14.040 which is the eighty percent rule where you eat until 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.400 you feel about eighty percent full and then you stop, 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:20.440 which is extremely clever because you get fuller and fuller 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:24.600 after you start to feel full, so that that rounds 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:27.560 up to the full hundred percent of fullness. Almost every 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.800 time you taught me that, and it really works. So 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:34.840 it's really difficult to stop eating when you're eighty percent full, 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.560 when you're eating processed Western food, it's nearly impossible. But 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:40.040 if you can pull it off, you're like, wow, this 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:41.080 actually works. 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:43.440 You should probably slow down to a bit that helps. 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:47.640 That's what they say, because all of a sudden, if 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:49.560 you're like me, you're like, oh, oh god, I'm in 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:50.760 one hundred and five percent. 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.120 Right, let's try to stop. But also if you slow 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.879 down and really like you can sense the food that 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.440 you're eating more, you can enjoy it more mindful too. 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:01.880 So I mean, say, for sure. 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:05.320 Since a purpose we talked about, it's called different things 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:07.080 in different parts of the world, be coustor Weekns call 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:10.600 it pura vida mm hmm. It's basically like, you know, 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:12.720 do things that give you joy and like that you 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:14.200 want to get out of bed and do. 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:18.440 Like accounting, right, sure, if that's your thing, But yeah, 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:20.959 I mean it could be like a hobby, It can 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:24.320 be anything like just having a reason that you're alive. 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:28.200 Is that's your purpose? I think that's you got to 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:31.000 have that, man, And I just hate to think that 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.000 anybody doesn't feel like they have a purpose in life, 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:36.679 especially like I get it, you go through like chunks 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:38.760 of life, like say your early twenties where you're like, 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:41.760 oh my god, everybody else is more successful than me, 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:44.040 and my life is off the rails already and I'm 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:46.920