Last week was Respect for the Aged Day (敬老の日; keirou no hi) in Japan. As part of an annual ritual, the government celebrated some of its longest-lived citizens, giving the oldest special gifts. However, the very same week, a unique scientific award celebrated a researcher whose work questioned the entire concept of “Blue Zones.”
Are Japan’s oldest citizens as old as we think? In particular, is the so-called “Blue Zone” in Okinawa nothing but a myth?
110-year-old: “No freaking clue” how he’s lived so long
There’s no doubt that humans are living longer. Life span expectancies have risen consistently in developed nations for decades.
That holds true for Japan as well. In 1980, men lived to an average of 73.35 years, while women lived until 78.76 years of age. Today, men live until 81.05, and women live until 87.09. Those numbers saw their first downward decline in a decade in the past few years due to the public health crisis.
Women living longer than men isn’t a Japan-specific phenomenon. Across the world, women outlive men by a good five to seven years. No one really knows why. However, possible factors include women’s additional X chromosome, as well as elevated risk-taking behaviors and increased risk of cardiovascular disease in males.
What is unique to Japan is its supposed number of centenarians. According to data just released from Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW), there are 2,980 more of these people than last year in Japan, for a total of 95,119 centenarians. Of those, 83,958 are woman and 1,161 are men.
Livedoor News asked the country’s oldest man, 110-year-old Mizuno Kiyotaka, how he does it. His reply? “I have no freaking clue. I don’t get it myself but I’m just grateful I could live so long.”
Japan’s oldest woman is reportedly a 116-year-old woman in Hyogo Prefecture.
Is Okinawa really a long-lived “Blue Zone”?
Within Japan, the islands of Okinawa have long been recognized as a “long-lived zone.” According to stats from Japan’s MHLW, Okinawan women have the highest life expectancy, by prefecture, of anyone in Japan.
In recent years, Dan Buettner has expanded this concept of long-lived areas like Okinawa into the notion of “Blue Zones.” A Blue Zone is an area where people reputedly live a decade or more longer than the average US or European resident.
Buettner’s research designates Okinawa as one such Blue Zone, claiming the islands are home to the world’s longest-lived women. Okinawans reportedly have a 40% chance of living longer than anyone else in Japan. They also supposedly have lower incidents of cardiovascular disease and half the dementia rate of Americans.
These statistics have led people to study how Okinawans live to unlock their secrets to long life. Researchers claim that forging a support network and eating many veggies like sweet potatoes may be contributing factors.
Researchers cite other reasons for long life in Okinawa that sound more suspect. One is the so-called practice of “hara hachi bunme,” or eating until you’re only 80% full. Some researchers argue this may account for the huge differential in calories between Okinawans and Americans (1,900 and 3,600, respectively).
Other reasons proffered sound like plain old-fashioned Orientalizing of basic Japanese words. For example, a Business Insider article cites Okinawan’s tendency to practice 生き甲斐 (ikigai), or “living with purpose,” as a key to longevity. The Blue Zones Web site also cites “ikigai” as a motivating factor for Okinawans.
Given how rarely I ever hear this word fall from a Japanese person’s lips, I’m more than a little skeptical.
Ig Nobel Prize for a noble question
But is Okinawa as much of a “Blue Zone” as we think? The islands only rank 28th in the number of centenarians in Japan. Shimane, Kochi, and Kagoshima Prefectures lead the pack in the top three spots.
An even bigger question is: Does the notion of a “Blue Zone” even stand up to scrutiny?
One researcher doesn’t think so. And ironically, his work made news the week before Japan celebrated its oldest citizens.
The Ig Nobel Prize awards researchers whose work may seem weird at first glance but proves valuable to humanity in the long run. In the words of the Annals of Improbable Research at MIT, which runs the prize, it’s research that makes you laugh – but then makes you think.
Example: One award went to a Japanese team who said they discovered that many mammals can breathe through their anuses. Their research may provide new ways to help patients experiencing respiratory failure.
Another prize winner this year was Dr. Saul Justin Newman of the Center for Longitudinal Studies, who won the prize in the Demographics category.
What did Dr. Newman’s research cover? Well, it argued that Blue Zones are bunk.
Is Okinawa “long-lived” – or just poor?
Dr. Newman’s latest study argues that much of our global old-age data contains flaws consistent with clerical errors and pension fraud. While this current study is not yet peer-reviewed, Dr. Newman has previously written other peer-reviewed studies that debunked data used in other old-age research.
According to Dr. Newman’s research, there are three driving factors that lead some places to be christened “Blue Zones”: fewer 90-year-olds, a lack of birth certificates, and poverty. The last one in particular is a strong motivator for committing pension fraud.
Poverty might, indeed, explain why Okinawa seems to be a haven for centenarians. The islands are extremely poor, ranking dead last in average income across all prefectures in Japan. That’s reason to insist that grandma is alive and well at age 114 – even though she died ten years ago and you’ve been cashing her pension check ever since.
What about the prefectures in Japan with the most centenarians? Shimane and Kochi Prefecture – supposedly numbers one and two in longevity – rank 33rd and 39th in income, respectively. Number three, Kagoshima, ranks number 46 – just above Okinawa.
Dr. Newman also debunked some of the supposed “tips to long life” that Okinawans follow. He produced data showing that, contrary to the Blue Zone propaganda, Okinawans eat the least vegetables and sweet potatoes in Japan. Dr. Newman found similar flaws in the supposed nutritional wisdom gleaned from other countries by Blue Zone research.
Can we trust Japan’s centenarian data?
So, is Dr. Newman saying that Japan’s data is faulty? He is. And the Japanese government has even admitted this in the past.
Up until 2010, Japan claimed it had 230,000 centenarians. However, a government review found that many of those people were long dead.
In Japan, every resident must have their address registered with their local city hall. In the case of one woman who would have been 125, her address was a public park in Kobe.
After cross-checking the data with official residents records, Japan said it could confirm 44,449 people over age 100. However, it couldn’t verify the status of 400 of those.
That 2010 figure of 44,449 is over half of this year’s centenarian number. Which raises the question: how did MHLW calculate its current centenarian figures? And can that calculation be trusted?
I can’t find any reporting in the Japanese press questioning the current numbers. Everyone seems to be taking them at face value. Given Dr. Newman’s research, maybe we should look at them with a more jaundiced eye.
At the very least, the next time I see an article about “Okinawan principles for a long life,” I’m gonna roll my eyes, power down my desktop, and go to the combini for a sweet treat.
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厚労省：平均寿命（2023）が男性 81.05年、女性87.09年に！ 2年連続で前年下回る. Satsuki Jutaku
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平均年収320万円でワースト1位の沖縄県民が｢幸福度日本一｣であり続ける理由. President Online
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100歳以上の高齢者9万5000人余 54年連続で過去最多. NHK News
Japanese share 2024 Ig Nobel for finding many mammals can breathe through anus. NHK World Japan
Supercentenarian and remarkable age records exhibit patterns indicative of clerical errors and pension fraud. Saul Justin Newman, Leverhulme Center for Demographic Science, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford. Biorxiv
老齢年金 都道府県別受給者数及び平均年金月額. Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare
