Not exactly. It establishes that error rates are high in those areas, demolishing the centarian numbers. It doesn't give much investigation into the averages at all. Where it does, it seems to compare adjusted numbers of one data set with unadjusted numbers of another. If you really want to get into the averages, you'd have to determine error rates and adjustments for each specific area, probably by jurisdiction or record keeper, and then compare them. The problem is, nobody is going through that process for the entire world so we just use the face value numbers until we want disprove a specific area and then compare the adjusted numbers against unadjusted numbers. The data is too massive to rigorously investigate. But this whole effort is moot. What tangible benefit comes from disproving blue zone data? These population level studies aren't meant to provide answers. They're meant to provide new variables. Each of the blue zone longevity recommendations have their own studies to either prove (food stuff) or disprove (drinking wine daily) them.
So yeah, it's great the errors in the data have been called out it's a bit surprising that the author interviewed is so angry in the article. I guess it's fitting that he got the Ig nobel, since this correction doesn't have any applicable impact to end result, which were additonal studies investigating the individual suggestions/variables, such as specific dietary practices.
It would be different if these were new studies, but this is all in the past. This new finding of unreliability doesn't have any impact, hence the Ig nobel instead of the real nobel.
The Ig Nobel is not for trivial achievements, it is to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think." This takes different forms.
The part of the wikipedia article you are referencing is an inference from a particular article: "A September 2009 article in The National titled "A noble side to Ig Nobels" says that, although the Ig Nobel Awards are veiled criticism of trivial research, history shows that trivial research sometimes leads to important breakthroughs."
The definition of "blue zones" never had anything to do with average longevity. The entire concept is predicated on unusual numbers of centenarians, not long average life spans. In fact, as is pointed out in the Ig Nobel winning paper, Blue Zone places like Sardinia, Okinawa, and Ikaria have always been paradoxical: they are supposed to have higher numbers of unusually long lived people, but have shorter average lifespans than the rest of their countries. The paradox goes away with the finding that the count of centenarians is incorrect. There's nothing left to the Blue Zone concept without the centenarians.
Yes, it is definitely satirical. But isn't specifically for "trivial", it gets deployed in different ways.
Some of the awards are straight up criticism of the research, like for bunk homeopathy stuff. It was awarded for the prank paper used in the Sokal affair, in which it's definitely praise of what Sokal did. Sometimes it is awarded for a bizarre but funny thing from something being studied in another more serious context like the magnetic frog levitation paper.
What topic are you suggesting to search on Pubmed? I have yet to see anything that supports some places have places with exceptionally long lived people. Especially to the massive outlier values that is often put forth. (So, 105 is not that crazy of a number to consider. 110, however, already starts to stretch credibility quite heavily.)
(Leaving discussion of the ignobel to the other thread.)
So link me a single bloody paper that goes over this? Searching "blue zones" on pubmed shows mainly things older than this paper. And a lot of stuff that, frankly, feels highly suspicious.
Similarly, if there are places that have debunked this paper, link one. It is a genuinely interesting topic to read about.
Please see the comment history for my opinion on blue zones, a link, and the areas to search on Pubmed. You can even find the areas of blue zone recommendations in TFA. You're not supposed to search for blue zones, but for studies on those recommendations (plant heavy or mederteranian diets, exercise, etc).
There are basically zero studies which prove anything about particular foodstuffs. It's all observational studies with small effect sizes and multiple uncontrolled confounding variables: junk science.
We know we need certain essential nutrients to prevent deficiencies, an energy intake surplus causes weight gain, and a few substances like trans fat are problematic. Beyond that, people seem to be making claims and recommendations not backed by hard evidence and frequently confuse correlation with causation.
We aren't talking about unequivocal proof. If someone asks what they can do to increase longevity, it's perfectly reasonable to tell them about studies that show strong correlations and mention the way the confounding factors play a role.
You might be interested to look into some of the twin studies that put twins on similar exercise regimens and differening diets. They seem to be the strongest evidence possible for this sort of thing. Hardly what I would call junk science.
The exercise part I can believe as we have somewhat better quality evidence there. But if you have seen dietary studies on twins that actually meet evidence-based medicine criteria then I would greatly appreciate a citation as those would be interesting to read.
As I suspected, another low-quality study which changed a bunch of variables in a small study group for only a few months and found a minor change in a few blood tests (no actual measured change in longevity or other health outcomes). The most obvious flaw in the study design is that the two diets weren't isocaloric, which basically invalidates all of their conclusions. It's really disappointing to see junk "science" like this make it through peer review. I mean this is the kind of garbage that an undergraduate journal club could rip apart without any advanced statistics.
And I have searched on my own before. Never found much of anything reliable or actionable.
So yeah, it's great the errors in the data have been called out it's a bit surprising that the author interviewed is so angry in the article. I guess it's fitting that he got the Ig nobel, since this correction doesn't have any applicable impact to end result, which were additonal studies investigating the individual suggestions/variables, such as specific dietary practices.