Key points from article :
Blue Zones are regions where people supposedly live extraordinarily long lives.
Based on this idea, a whole industry of longevity advice has emerged, including the "Power 9" behaviors and the Blue Zone diet.
However, Saul Newman, a demographer and lead author of the study, argues that Blue Zones might not be real.
He points out inconsistencies like Okinawa's high rates of poverty and KFC consumption despite being a Blue Zone.
He also highlights the difficulty of verifying ages for supercentenarians, leading to potentially bad data.
For example, the UK's Blue Zone is Tower Hamlets, an area known for poverty and crime, not longevity.
Additionally, supercentenarian rates in the US dramatically dropped after states implemented birth registration.
Even within Blue Zones, like Nicoya, the longevity effect might be limited to specific genders and generations.
Preprint article of the study by Oxford University was published in BioRxiv.
