
The island where people forget to die - adam
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-where-people-forget-to-die.html?hp&_r=0
======
physcab
I cringed when reading the HN comments to this article. Seriously folks, this
article isn't about how to get to the fountain of youth. It's also not about
quick fixes, so unfortunately if you want to get to the good stuff, you're
actually going to have to read the entire 7 pages. Trust me, if you have an
open mind, its worth the read.

It's enlightening for me to read accounts about how others live their lives
and derive happiness from simple pleasures. Breathing fresh air, enjoying the
company of others, eating food that you've grown. This is such a stark
contrast to the lifestyle I have lived for the past 28 years. I've worked at
software companies for the past 5 years and have spent most of my waking life
in front of a computer screen. Even though I am happy, I do admit that I
wonder if life is supposed to be more than this. And here we have incredible
proof of someone who had broken out of their Comfort Zone, possibly had to
give up many of their "luxuries", and changed their life completely.

The point of this story isn't that this man beat cancer and lived to be a
centenarian, its that by changing his life he dramatically improved his
happiness and began to take advantage of all the things we take for granted.

~~~
viviantan
I read the article per physcab’s suggestion (and because I was curious why a
story about Greek centenarians could generate so much lively discussion on
HN). Good read indeed, thanks!

I think it's easy to be dismissive when the topic of discussion has little to
do with our own lifestyles, at least not on the surface. Old people on Greek
isles and fountains of youth are light-years away from stuff that concerns
your typically young and techie HN reader. (I'm generalizing, you guys can
attack me if you must.) So it would seem that the only intelligent commentary
one can make on such a subject is to question the author's scientific approach
and to take apart his analysis -- how else could a 20-something
programmer/entrepreneur partake in this discussion, right?

But dig a little deeper and you'll find some interesting parallels that maybe
most HN readers can relate to and think about. A couple of things that the
author and his interviewees said jumped out at me: (1) developing an ecosystem
that fosters healthful and satisfactory lifestyles, and (2) adapting work
schedules so you can work into the night even when you don’t feel productive
during the day.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? A bit like startup culture? Ok, nobody wants
their employees hanging out and milking goats all day (unless that’s your
industry) and Silicon Valley will never be as stress-free and laidback as
Ikaria (I doubt we would want it to be) but the article does inspire some
ideas about what makes people tick and what makes people happy -- and those
people could be your employees and your users.

------
reasonattlm
Arguing anything other than differences in levels of exercise/activity and
calorie intake has a large mountain of evidence to overcome. The effects of
those two are very large, the effects of everything else comparatively small
per decades of animal and longitudinal human studies.

Nonsense about antioxidants in the diet is exactly that: nonsense. The weight
of evidence suggests that, if anything, ingested antioxidants have a net
negative effect on long term health. But there's money to be made keeping up
the lie:

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/03/attempting-to-
add...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/03/attempting-to-address-the-
popular-myth-of-antioxidants.php)

Lastly, beware of pseudo-pop-science that opens with one person's story.
People manage to survive cancer without treatment all over the world; one
story is not remarkable and tells us nothing. In general the whole blue zones
thing has little to no value in any serious consideration of health and
longevity: it's about on the same level of credibility as diet fads.

~~~
pg
If there's one thing I wish I could do to improve HN, it would be to detect
this sort of middlebrow dismissal algorithmically.

Unsophisticated people read an article like this and think: Gosh, I better eat
honey for breakfast! People a little more sophisticated think: Hey, this is
anecdotal evidence! Yeah, we know that. But is that the _most_ interesting
thing one can say about this article? Is it not at least a source of ideas for
things to investigate further?

The problem with the middlebrow dismissal is that it's a magnet for upvotes.
The "U R a fag"s get downvoted and end up at the bottom of the page where they
cause little trouble. But this sort of comment rises to the top. Things have
now gotten to the stage where I flinch slightly as I click on the "comments"
link, bracing myself for the dismissive comment I know will be waiting for me
at the top of the page.

~~~
gjm11
I'm not commenting on this article specifically (not least because I haven't
read it), but there are plenty of articles that _deserve_ little more than
"middlebrow dismissal".

Very likely one could find plenty of more interesting things to say about
those articles. One can find interesting things to say about anything. But if
an article is about an attention-grabbing subject, is superficially plausible,
but is just plain unsound in the sort of way the grandparent of this comment
is alleging, the "middlebrow dismissal" -- predictable as it is for the
cognoscenti -- may still be the most _useful_ thing there is to say about it,
and a comment thread that _didn't_ have "please note, this is probably wrong
in the usual way" near the top of it would be a bad and misleading one.

If HN is worse off for being full of middlebrow dismissals, the real problem
may not be the middlebrow dismissals but the articles that provoke them.

~~~
pg
I'd been thinking about this. It's true that sometimes an article is so
obviously mistaken that the most valuable comment would be one that pointed
out how. But such articles are fairly rare here. Ideally comment threads in
which the top comment was a dismissive one would be proportionately rare.
Whereas now they're almost like background radiation.

~~~
Jd
I agree, but I'm not sure that there is any other way to establish positive
discourse -- for most posts there are the enthusiasts and the middlebrow
detractors, and virtue may often only appear after both of these positions are
raised and discarded in favor of an hopefully Aristotelean mean. This is also
to say that appropriate discourse depends largely on the context (i.e. what
has already been said on the topic), and not simply on a single right answer
(as in the sciences).

------
binxbolling
TIL that even if you study longevity for 10+ years, you're never allowed to
share anecdotes (or god forbid, close with a joke) ever again unless you're
prepared to be crucified by twentysomething pseudo-experts in Silicon Valley.

~~~
starpilot
I think this is how every expert in a non-CS/IT field feels about HN
commentary on their field. 95% of what I read about aviation/aerospace here
makes me cringe. It's like hearing my parents talk about computers, but with
10x more self-assurance.

~~~
koko775
Seconded. Any posts having to deal with entertainment media have proven to
have armchair experts all over them, and few if any voices of reason.

------
kghose
Single page, for those who prefer.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-
where-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/magazine/the-island-where-people-
forget-to-die.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=all)

------
CWuestefeld
I hate this kind of reporting. I read through the entire first page without
the slightest clue as to what the article is actually _about_ \-- I'm pretty
sure it's not all just for one guy's life story.

But by that point I was tired of reading, and quit.

Cut it out with the pathos and human interest, and get some of the real point
in there quicker.

~~~
krschultz
No.

Don't worry, 57 blogs will distill it down to the core 5 points and post them
in a bulleted list with a link-bait title by Friday. But writing is much more
than 'get to the point as fast as possible'. These kind of stories are far
more interesting than the quick summary articles found on most shitty
websites. If you don't like the style, then don't click through to the New
Yorker, New York Times, etc.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
> But writing is much more than 'get to the point as fast as possible'.

I agree with you, but my personal reading sweet spot is to get to the point a
bit faster than the author of this piece did.

------
antman
Disclaimer: Greek islander. Their diet is not that different from many other
Greek islands. What I find different is the total lack of stress. It's not
that people wake up late. It's that they are worry free. You go to a cafeteria
sit and wait and noboby comes. You get up go inside and ask for a coffee and
they show you the coffee pot. Or they smile and tell you that you are free to
make it yourself. They will probably not move a finger. Then you leave the
money on the table and leave. When the article says they wake up late, there
are no shops in the morning. They are open when the owner feels like it, and
the system works quite well since everybody else knows it... Doors in villages
are unlocked. Funerals and marriages of the locals are a special occasion but
people don't dress up that much. Everything is serene and simple. Comming from
Athens this is very very frustrating at the beggining but I grew to like it.
The place is very different from anything else I have seen.

------
ozgune
I wonder if this article has some sort of selection bias. After all,
communities that have the lowest _and_ highest rates of cancer in the US are
small towns of <100 people.

It's easy to find several small towns in the US where people have unusually
high longevity. After all, you have many to choose from.

What's more curious is to make a hypothesis around diet and exercise, and then
show causality across _all_ similar islands in Greece.

~~~
wisty
There's also crazily high variation in rare events, like living past 100 or
surviving "incurable" cancer. But those are the things which people are
interested in.

------
OldSchool
That the guy survived lung cancer seems more likely a misdiagnosis or rare
spontaneous remission than some kind of cause-effect.

My vote however does go for: stress level, diet, and enough physical activity.
Genetics too but you can't control that.

~~~
mmagin
It's not entirely clear how rare it is:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_remission#Frequency...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_remission#Frequency_of_spontaneous_regression_in_cancer)

------
skittles
Stories like this are a little dangerous when taken at face value. Americans
sometimes get diagnosed with cancer and then have spontaneous remission too.
We don't know anything concrete about this guy's case. It's also not a good
idea to say that a Mediterranean diet is ideal for anyone that doesn't have a
Mediterranean ancestry. Greeks have been eating the same sorts of foods for a
long time and are most likely more adapted to them than I would be. My
hypothesis is that any society that doesn't drink sugary drinks, eats enough
fat (olive oil, goat cheese in this case), doesn't often overeat, and gets
plenty of exercise should have a healthy population.

------
superasn
The point that interested me most was how instead of a quick fix or a band-aid
approach the whole being healthy is interwoven in their lifestyle. They don't
exercise to reduce a few kilos, rather it is impossible for them to not
exercise because there isn't any other way of getting around. Same with food,
they're not trying to eat healthy like us but the food they know to cook is
just healthy.. it's not as a quick-fix to reduce weight.

This point is interesting to me because I was recently reading a book called 8
Weeks To Optimum Health and the author (Andrew Weil i think) mentions that it
is good to add a little turmeric to your diet. Now having been lived in India
all my life, we all have been eating turmeric all our lives without ever
giving much thought to it. It's not something we do to remain healthy, but
rather something without which you can't food here. I don't remember not
eating it for the last 30 years. Unfortunately, we counter-balance it with
fried samosas, etc but still the point to take is when a society as a whole
develops good habits it often becomes way too easy for everyone to follow
through without missing a day of that (for decades).

------
nspattak
I come from a near by island and I had heard some of the facts about people in
Ikaria before reading this article (eg that they do not wake up ealy) as well
as some more that I did not see mentioned in the article (eg I have been told
that they do not lock their stores, they just leave them open in case anyone
needs something).

I would really*very much AND strongly like to give a hint to all those who are
skeptical about this article that they should consider that a vastly different
way of their life can very well exist. You do not HAVE to be a well educated
smart hard working entrepreneur to exist on earth. People existed well before
that and will do for some more time (if our "civilized" "modern" world does
not succeed in destroying our planet.

I would also like to point out that the western world (especially the
"civilized" world) has actually failed in the FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN NEEDS, ie food
and sleep. Having lived in a place where organic food was the only food I am
sick and tired of seeing people eating "healthy" food which in fact is nothing
more than a company's new product.

------
JoeAltmaier
The easiest way to live past 100? Use your father's birth certificate.

~~~
nealabq
Guess I'm a cynic because that occurred to me too.

It's easy to imagine. You've got six months to live. You move to a place where
you won't run into people you know. You reconnect with relatives and childhood
friends. You realize you could transfer your identity to a brother or friend
and hand off your pension/social-security. Or avoid inheritance tax. Your wife
and parents agree.

You die and are buried overlooking the blue Mediterranean. There's a small
ceremony. The sun is shining. Life goes on.

------
csl
Dan Buettner also held a presentation at TED in 2009 called "How to live to be
100+":

[http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100....](http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100.html)

------
enraged_camel
This reminds me of something I've noticed lately.

I spend every Saturday afternoon, and most Sunday afternoons, taking 2-3 hour
naps. They are _great_ for decompressing and relaxing. I actually enjoy them a
lot more than the normal sleeps I get at night. There's something very
satisfying about waking up and finding out that it's still the same day!

On a related note, most of my friends who complain about being "stressed out"
never spend their weekends actually relaxing. Instead, they rush from one
activity/event to another, drive from location to location. Then when the
weekend is over they say in dismay, "I can't believe it's Monday _already_."
My guess is that if they spent their weekend being laid back, the weekend
would feel a lot longer and they would be re-energized before the next week
starts.

------
sbierwagen

      Another health factor at work might be the unprocessed nature of the food they 
      consume: as Trichopoulou observed, because islanders eat greens from their gardens 
      and fields, they consume fewer pesticides and more nutrients. She estimated that the 
      Ikarian diet, compared with the standard American diet, might yield up to four 
      additional years of life expectancy. 
    

Oh boy, 4 years.

Eureka. You've done it. You've found the secret to eternal life.

    
    
      She also pointed out a preliminary study of Ikarian men between 65 and 100 
      that included the fact that 80 percent of them claimed to have sex regularly,
      and a quarter of that self-reported group said they were doing so with 
      “good duration” and “achievement.” 
    

If you had asked me the same question in middle school, I would have said that
I was having all sorts of sex too.

    
    
      Although unemployment is high — perhaps as high as 40 percent — most
      everyone has access to a family garden and livestock, Parikos told me.
      People who work might have several jobs. Someone involved in tourism,
      for example, might also be a painter or an 
      electrician or have a store. 
    

This is a common pattern in the very poor. When you don't have any savings,
you can't afford any interruptions in your income stream. Consequently,
they're forced to be jacks of all trade, master of none. This makes it
impossible to specialize in any one field, and lack of income means they can't
make any capital investments.

    
    
      "When everyone knows everyone else’s business, you get a feeling of 
      connection and security. The lack of privacy is actually good, because
      it puts a check on people who don’t want to be caught or who do 
      something to embarrass their family."
    

I'd hate to be homosexual here, or be a member of any kind of minority group.

Anyway, the effect is almost certainly due to a "small study effect" sampling
bias. In a tiny population (one island) a handful of exceptions (164 people
over 90) massively affects the average lifespan. There's no randomization or
blinding at all: observational studies like these are exquisitely sensitive to
methodology errors, especially when examining small effects.

~~~
rubashov
I wish someone like Bill Gates would stop doing sisyphean third world do-
gooder junk and fund some long term, large controlled studies on humans
instead. It seems to me that to do actual science on human health you need
space program like money. So instead we get all this observational garbage.

------
goldfeld
Really interesting to see this here on my first morning after beginning my
segmented sleep experiment. I took a quarter pill of melatonin yesterday
around 6pm and slept from 6:30 till 8:30, then quickly fell asleep again till
11:30. I then failed to fall asleep at 2:30am after a wonderful mellow
productive night programming session, and had to skip the second sleep.

During the morning I found, completely by chance, some articles on a fasting
diet from the mark's daily apple blog. And I had been without eating since
first falling asleep (and still am), so I eagerly gobbled it up as validation
on all those breakfasts I have skipped.

And finally I talked with my roomate about living long as related to these
little body hacking experiments.

~~~
arbuge
Segmented sleep? Melatonin?

Maybe it's just my Mediterranean upbringing talking but I think I'll stick
with healthy food, good wine, 8 hours sleep, and surrounding myself with
people I like.

~~~
sukuriant
Nontraditional sleep patterns are a common fad here at HN; though you've been
around to probably see one or two of those and are probably trolling to catch
people like me, so ... I'll just shut up now.

~~~
arbuge
Eh? That comment looked like a troll?

~~~
sukuriant
Not entirely. You sounded like someone that is very happy with their current
lifestyle, and even proud of it. This is good. However, given how long you've
had an account here, I guessed that you had probably seen the "how to live off
>4 hours of sleep a day" articles, and were familiar with that perplexing (to
me) style of living.

------
viggity
would anybody like to give a TL;DR synopsis?

~~~
goblin89
If we assume the article is true, people for whom it would have most utility
would be least likely to have patience to read it.

~~~
StacyC
Precisely. What is the hurry with everyone?

We’re all gonna die. Let’s be cool to each other and try to enjoy the ride.

Oh, time for my nap!

------
padobson
If nothing else, the article made me want to eat some Mediterranean food.

------
julnepht
While reading the story of this man that cures his cancer without resorting to
modern medecine is endearing. I cannot stop thinking about Steve Jobs that
tried to cure himself of cancer without modern medicine and of the fatal
consequences of his actions.

------
mapster
I heard tell or a similar tale in he Med. where he natural hot springs were a
trace radioactive. It was thus hypothesized that this small, consistent dose
was partially responsible for the almost zero rate of cancer on the island.

~~~
wtracy
It might be BS, it might not be:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis>

------
dschiptsov
It is not that much about diet, it is about having less stress and worries of
all kinds, and have good habits, such as mixing periods of physical activity
and with total rest (taking naps).

It is not like staying all the time in a passive stress (or depression) -
having a high level of stress hormones without any physical activities.

And the last but not least, there are emotion contagiousness - one can see it
a subway. "Toxic people" is very real thing.

Then comes the media with its pressure about sex (which is about youth and
health) and wealth (which is a weak substitute for the two former), and these
material pseudo-achievements that one must accomplish.

All these factors together, plus many more - such as drinking water, air, soil
in which vegetables and grapes grown, contributes to longevity, of course. But
it seems like there is no one which makes it all - no shortcut, no way to buy
it.

I believe it is much more about the state of the mind, which influence
everything, including inner bodily processes and rhythms. Mind is first,
environment is second, adversaries is third. ''Hell is other people'', you
know.)

~~~
stephengillie
The real magic to this island is the Zen its residents practice without
trying.

