
Eating to Break 100: Longevity Diet Tips - filipmandaric
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/04/11/398325030/eating-to-break-100-longevity-diet-tips-from-the-blue-zones
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upofadown
First the article says:

>The people who live in the Blue Zones — five regions in Europe, Latin
America, Asia and the U.S. researchers have identified as having the highest
concentrations of centenarians in the world — move their bodies a lot. They
have social circles that reinforce healthy behaviors. They take time to de-
stress. They're part of communities, often religious ones. And they're
committed to their families.

Then it goes ahead and talks entirely about diet without bothering to show
that diet has anything to do with long life at all...

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Roodgorf
It really is an odd way to start the article. The first three paragraphs seem
to undermine the idea that diet is such a central element in a long lifestyle,
but then in the next two it just sort of waves that away with a "but diet is
worth a close look, too".

I think the interview linked to later expanded on the nuances of this argument
pretty well.
[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9127414...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91274144)

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AnimalMuppet
I think they're trying to avoid people thinking that it's _all_ about diet.
They don't want you to think that you can be physically inactive, live a high-
stress life, but eat this magic diet, and you'll live to 100.

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darioush
I'm tired of media abusing and bullshitting people's health consciousness and
wanting to know what to eat. I'm even more appalled at the scientists who have
no idea how nutrition works. We're down to treating the body like a black box
and resorting to laws of thermodynamics (aka calorie counting) or anecdotal
knowledge of veggies are good cheesecake is bad. It is increasingly absurd in
an era of synthesizing proteins designed to combat specific diseases that we
can't tell people who want to eat healthy what to do with any scientific
backing.

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vannevar
Aside from their diet, the other factor these communities all have in common
is that they are _isolated_ , either socially or geographically, or both.
Which means that their gene pool is also isolated. Which means that if they
happen to have mutations that lead to long life, those mutations are likely to
persist locally.

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aNoob7000
The real question is, who wants to live to 100? I don't.

I was recently talking to my dad about my grandfather who lived to the ripe
old age of 98. He was relatively healthy, mobile, and mentally sharp but the
thing that seemed to bother him the most was a particular type of loneliness
he was experiencing. The loneliness of not having those individuals in his
life that he grew old with like my grandmother and childhood friends. Life
without those you love and shared experiences with just doesn't seem worth it.

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digitalshankar
If you don't have friends when you are that old then that's not your problem,
it's theirs. I would have hobby or my grandchildren if I feel lonely at that
age. I want to live forever, yes I'm not greedy, think about the vastness of
the Universe, even if everyone on this planet occupy a new planet still we
have so many planets and stars. It's our limited beliefs to not live forever.

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pjbster
As with so many of these kinds of articles, it skips talking about what they
_don 't_ eat: sugared drinks, refined carbs, industrially refined oils,
factory farmed animal products, etc. etc.

Living healthily is really, really simple: if it comes in a packet, don't eat
it!

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GhostVII
What is unhealthy about factory farmed animals? Asside from maybe some growth
hormones, they seem pretty much the same as regular animals.

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crypto5
They move much less, and have much more fat and maybe something else in them.

