Aidan:
Hello and welcome to the Ideal Nutrition Podcast. My name is Aidan Muir and I’m here with my co-host, Leah Higel. And this is episode 141, where we are going to be doing a bit of a review on the Blue Zones. And this is going to be in reference to both the book and the series on Netflix. I was reflecting a little bit earlier this week, being like I feel like I’m doing a lot of work. I’m spread pretty thin and not putting as much effort into like every individual thing as I want, including a podcast. I was like, I’d love to prep even more for the podcast than I do. And then I thought about it, I was like, I literally watched this documentary literally just for the podcast. Literally just for content. I read the book many, years ago, just out of my own interest.
I’m obviously trying to learn as much as I can, but I like, there’s no way watching this documentary, I’m going to learn anything useful or whatever. This is just for content. I was like, you know what? I am putting effort into this. But we are going to be talking a bit about this, trying to give a bit of a balanced summary of it and everything like that. So a bit of background on the BlueZones.
The concept of blue zones is interesting. I actually am just interested a little bit in longevity stuff just in general. And I think there’s a lot to be learned from the whole blue zones kind of concept. There’s pros and cons. We’ll talk about both sides of that. But I do find this kind of stuff interesting. A brief summary of blue zones is that these are populations and areas where people are significantly more likely to live to 100 years old in comparison to the average American.
I believe, don’t quote me on this, but I believe it was about three times more likely to live to 100 than the average American. That data obviously would have changed over the years. I think that was like way back when the book was written, but don’t quote me on that. I had a quick Google just out of my own curiosity, being like, what’s the average lifespan in Australia versus America? And it was a bigger gap than I thought. So the average lifespan in Australia is 83 years old. The average lifespan in America is 77 years old.
Leah:
That is a much bigger gap than I would have anticipated as well.
Aidan:
That is a much bigger gap. And like, I don’t want to like jump to my own conclusions. Because like some people instantly will jump on the food thing. And honestly, that like, it does annoy me a little bit. Like there is a difference in the food. But like, from the last time I checked, rates in America were 36%. In Australia, it’s 32% that explains a gap, but that doesn’t explain like this whole gap. People talk about processed foods, et cetera, et cetera. There’s heaps you could go on with that. But another thing, my own thoughts is like maybe medical care, like in Australia, like we get a little bit sick. go see bulk billing, GP, we’re not paying anything.
Anything goes wrong in the US like I don’t like there’s there’s a lot that goes into that but that’s my own thoughts I should probably talk about nutrition instead Talk about blues and stuff specifically a lot of a lot of these populations have things in common But there are also plenty of differences which partly makes it interesting as well and the goal of the whole blue zones book and series was basically to find common themes while acknowledging the differences.
Leah:
So let’s start with the common themes that was identified in the blue zones that are pretty easy for us all to agree with. It’s pretty clear what the common themes were. So just going through these one by one, community and social connection is huge, having family or friends around like having this kind of greater social connections was a really big part of a common theme identified. And of course that is going to play a role in overall health outcomes. We know that that is an important aspect of living. They also live pretty low-stress lives but also have a sense of purpose.
So compared to I guess the current average American or Australian, overall stress does seem, it’s said to be lower but it’s not like they were like hopeless and like didn’t have any goals or anything like that. They still had a sense of purpose, but it wasn’t as high stress and maybe not as fast paced.
Aidan:
Not as many hours worked for sure. Yeah.
Leah:
Yeah and also like the kind of hours worked, firstly in terms of activity, I’m is a huge difference.
Aidan:
So many examples of like having an afternoon nap and stuff like that. Yeah.
Leah:
Yeah. And how many people do we know like that take an afternoon nap every day? Probably not many.
Aidan:
Who also has a sense of purpose.
Leah:
Exactly. So those two things often don’t go together in like kind of our population. But something that I also touched on there was activity levels. There is a huge gap in activity levels. was lots of activities, activity seen in these blue zones, whether it was kind of just general day-to-day stuff, like lots of gardening or like how they travelled in terms of like, there more walking and cycling as opposed to car trips? The kind of work that they were doing, was it less sedentary and desk-based like a lot of us kind of have. So the activity is super different. There was also an overall lower calorie intake.
And that could be for a multitude of reasons. But overall, there was a lower calorie intake seen in these blue zones. They also stopped eating when about 80% full. In terms of how that compares to, I guess, the general person, I think it’s pretty common to eat past the point of fullness for a lot of people. And we know that that ties into excessive calorie consumption. the fact that they were eating to kind of 80% full could be playing a role in some of these outcomes. A big thing that as a plant-based kind of person myself, I guess I’m a little bit biased to this, but higher plant-based intake.
So that was something that was a common theme that was identified. So while they followed higher carb diets, they’re often really high in fibre and micronutrients as well. And if we look across like the research on plant-based living, we know there are pretty good health outcomes from being predominantly plant-based.
And then the final thing I want to touch on is just low intakes of processed foods. So there was a much lower intake of processed foods in comparison to what we see in the American Australian populations currently. So I don’t think anybody can really disagree with those being relevant factors. It’s pretty clear that all of that would help in terms of overall health outcomes and living to a later age.
Aidan:
Yeah, I don’t know if I’m jaded from seeing so many nutrition documentaries that I struggled to watch because there’s so much misinformation. But personally, while watching this and looking for things I disagreed with just for content, like 99% of the stuff it was pretty easy to agree with. Like every now and then they’d like to chuck a line out where I’d be like, I don’t agree with that. But like a lot of stuff was like, yeah, as you said, like higher plant-based intake, less processed food, lower calorie intake in general, more physical activity, stopping eating when you’re 80% full and stuff like that.
Pretty hard to disagree with that. those are the fundamentals. We know that those play a role for sure. And you might hear then, you’re like, that’s so simple and stuff like that. But it is still interesting to actively see that kind of stuff. Somebody actually asked me last night, I don’t know if they listened to the podcast or not, but they’re like, what are your thoughts on biohacking in terms of longevity and stuff like that?
And like it is still actually interesting being like, well, what are the longest-lived people in the world doing? Like, so we have a bit of a comparison point. Are they taking 30 plus supplements or are they just living a chill life, sense of purpose, physical activity, et cetera, etc. Like obviously there are ways to optimise things, but at a population level, it’s cool to see what people are doing. So now let’s get into the more complicated stuff. That’s simple stuff, and really easy to agree with.
They often drink alcohol, usually not heaps, but they typically drink regularly. I’m just gonna list a bunch of stuff, including stuff like that, and I’m not gonna try and add my own thoughts. We’ll probably come back and add some thoughts. They don’t seem obsessed with health. When I was originally looking to longevity before I read all the Blue Zone stuff, that was a very common theme that I kind of saw. People didn’t seem obsessed with health. They happened to be living pretty healthy lives. They weren’t trying to live long lives. They weren’t trying to be super healthy. And I was like, is that part of the secret?
One of the things that is a bit of an exception that is found in the Blue Zones area is Loma Linda is the exception to that. That’s one of the Blue Zone areas. It is a seventh-day Adventist community largely, and that has a big emphasis on health. I could get into like the religious reasons, etc, why they care about this, but they are trying to be healthy. They mostly follow a plant-based diet to a certain degree because they’re trying to be healthy.
And, interestingly, there’s a suburb that’s like five miles away that I, once again, don’t quote me on this, but their average life expectancy is about 10 years lower. It’s like, it’s the same area. It’s just they’re different lives. So it’s not just about where you’re living like it is also these other things. Other complicated stuff. Some people have questioned the accuracy of the stats in certain areas, particularly in Okinawa, in Japan.
There are some issues with birth certificate documentation. This is outside my area of expertise. I haven’t looked into it super closely, but like one of the things from memory that people have talked about is like, there was something about the pension age. It’s kind of like if you faked your birth certificate, so you’re a little bit older, you get the pension earlier, et cetera, et cetera. That’s just not my space. Like I’m just looking for the stuff that we can take away from this, but it’s also worth knowing that there is a little bit of controversy with some of these things.
Other people have pointed out that like, these blue zones have changed over time. We’ve also modernisation and stuff like that, but that was also addressed in the documentary too. I found this more in the book than in the documentary. There was a bit of a plant-based bias. In the book in particular, the author kept mentioning multiple times how he found it surprising that these people ate animal products at all. And he seemed going into this plant-based diet is what he had predicted would be optimal. That’s different to just like looking at what people do. Like that’s just every now and then you just like chuck his own two cents in there.
In the documentary, it wasn’t as heavy on that. In the Lumber Linda section, because obviously they are predominantly trying to follow plant -based diet, they were a bit harsh on meat and how big of a risk factor it is on its own for many conditions. But that was me really looking at being like, well, what is something that I disagree with? And you can hear my wording there, was like, they’re a bit harsh. weren’t right saying stuff that I’m like, this point here, I actively really disagree with and I’m gonna show research. I was just like, they seemed a bit harsh on that.
And then the other thing there’s a lot to unpack which you can talk about. Some people have highlighted these populations often have comparatively lower protein attacks but is it the protein or is it everything else? Going into this, this was also a common thing that I noticed among longer-lived people. They often have lower protein intakes. And I was like, that sucks. I come into fitness. I’m into lifting. I want a high protein intake. this actively detrimental? But then you’ve also got to ask when you look at all of these other things, is it everything else? And it’s not about like the protein intake. We’ll talk about it.
Leah:
Yeah, absolutely. Something to address at a deeper level. So there are two main points we want to kind of go a little bit deeper into at this point so alcohol being the first one. With alcohol, you could look at the findings of the study, look at the documentary and say clearly a glass of wine like occasionally is not an issue for longevity. These people are consuming alcohol relatively consistently but in moderate amounts and it doesn’t seem to be obvious that they still have these great health outcomes in terms of longevity.
Where I wouldn’t twist that or take that to is wine is good for longevity. And this comes a lot out of like, you know, the Mediterranean space as well. People like, yeah, drink red wine every night for longevity. It’s like, small amounts of alcohol can be part of a healthy diet. like animal products can be part of a healthy diet like we see here. But it’s like, it’s really about the quantity that we’re consuming and the frequency. So I wouldn’t say that like wine is good for longevity. It’s just that we can have some alcohol intake and that be not an issue for longevity.
So even though there were arguments made around things like antioxidants in wine, the current scientific consensus is that drinking alcohol in any amount isn’t better than not drinking. There’s just a level that we can have that is not gonna be overly detrimental to our health.
Aidan:
And jumping in on that as well, like another very simple argument I’ve heard people to unpack this is like, you could just eat grapes. Like if we’re talking about the antioxidants, like you say, great.
Leah:
Then you don’t have the downside.
Aidan:
Yeah. And like, another one people point to a fair bit is resveratrol, which is one of the antioxidants in wine. And like the amount of wine that you need to drink to get a very meaningful amount of resveratrol. It’s just like, you have to have a pretty excessive intake to get to that level. And then when people have looked at isolating resveratrol and being like, does this help longevity? The current conclusion is it’s probably not helping longevity as well. So like,
It’s not adding to it. Totally. Yeah. Yeah.
Leah:
Yeah. 100%. So that’s a little summary on the alcohol point. From a protein perspective, we do want to dive a little bit deeper into that.
Aidan:
Actually, there’s one more thing I’ll jump in on the alcohol then we’ll go. So like the other thing is like that’s very, very, very clearly from a nutrition perspective.
Leah:
Yeah, true. We’re not accounting for other variables and aspects of it.
Aidan:
Something that I think about is like, what if somebody having one glass of wine every now and then with friends, social interaction, etc, helps them unwind heats and they feel less stress and like, well, like the less stress is a big variable. And like, there’s so many so many ways that this could fall into places like how could this play a role? And it’s like, maybe maybe I don’t know, maybe you would actually see people who have a tiny amount of alcohol every now and then having slightly longer lives on average than people who have no alcohol ever, but is it due to the alcohol, is it due to like every other variable that’s involved?
Leah:
Yeah, it could be like part of that cultural and social connection. So there’s no point in discounting that completely. So jumping back onto protein, so definitely something we want to hit on as part of this. We see a lot of benefits in research from increasing protein intake later in life. We know that this helps with longevity in terms of muscle retention and reducing the muscle wasting we can potentially see in elderly populations. And that is incredibly beneficial. But one of the most difficult things about assessing that is staying active and exercising is far more important.
So in terms of longevity, we know keeping that active lifestyle is super, super important. So overall, I wouldn’t say that you should follow a relatively low protein intake because that is what we are seeing in these populations. The interpretation here is that all of this other stuff probably matters more. Like we know if we have a high intake of protein from animal products in the absence of an active lifestyle in the absence of fibre and plant-based foods that that can be problematic but the protein intake on its own probably not.
Aidan:
Yeah, and that’s such a huge topic as well. There’s a good I don’t know if it’s for this audience, like Simon Hill’s podcast, he does plant-based, the proof, is it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the proof. Like, I listen to a big string of episodes back to back of his, super scientific and stuff like that. And very long, but he interviewed like a massive string of experts in succession on longevity-type stuff. And one of the biggest things that they focused on heaps was protein.
And it was really interesting because he would like, obviously, let all of the guests speak and everything like that, but then like challenge them on certain stuff about being like, the string of guests he had on was like one into the spectrum, very plant-based heavy, but also very much like protein will increase mTOR and that’s going to reduce longevity. And then the other end of the spectrum, get like Stuart Phillips on, like, protein late in life is really important, right? And obviously some pretty different views, but all of them were smart people who had backing behind what they had to say. But one of the easiest takeaways and the clearest things is most people aren’t staying as active as they obviously could be later in life.
And if you stay active your entire life, do you need that high of a protein intake to get those benefits that we’re talking about? Like, heaps of these benefits are things like fall prevention and stuff like that. But like, if you do keep active, that stuff would matter later in life and you can maintain a decent amount of muscle mass even on a very moderate or even semi-low kind of protein intake too. Yeah, absolutely.
So as a bit of a summary, I don’t think I’ll ever view any nutrition documentary as perfect. This was one of the least frustrating ones I’ve watched. But I’ve also heard a lot of people speak to me said they were very frustrated by this one, which is part of why I’m like, am I just so jaded by all the other ones? And I’m like, this wasn’t as bad as the ones like, like, yeah, I don’t know. But anyway, like, I think the key takeaway for me is like, it’s just interesting seeing how these people live.
I don’t think you should look at these individual things as the sole contributing factor to all of these things. A bit of a story that I often tell is, a bit of a question, maybe think about it for a second. What is the longest that anybody has ever lived for? Take a moment. The answer is 122 years old, from memory. It’s absurd. It’s absurd. And she was from France and she smoked pretty much every day of her life.
But we don’t look at that and think smoking is the reason she lived that long. We kind of look at it as being like, is it the odds? Maybe she had some genetic factors that made it kind of less likely to get lung cancer and stuff like that. Heaps of these people, when you ask them, what’s your secret? They’re like, I have chocolate every day or I drink wine every day or whatever. But like, is that the reason?
Or is it all the other stuff? Is there a bit of a chance of chance and all the other stuff? There are so many things that kind of go into it that it’s worth thinking about. But I do think it’s interesting just kind of looking at this stuff as well.
Leah:
This has been episode 141 of the Ideal Nutrition podcast. If you haven’t yet left a rating and review, it would be so greatly appreciated for you to do so. As we said in our last podcast, has been a little while since a new review, so they’re literally always appreciated. But otherwise, thanks for joining us.