<story><title>Blue Zones, where people reach age 100 at 10 times greater rates</title><url>https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6125071/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>codeflow2202</author><text>When speaking about Sardinia they keep saying that their diet was mostly vegetarian:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The classic Sardinian diet is plant based, consisting of whole-grain bread, beans, garden vegetables, and fruits. Meat is largely reserved for Sundays and special occasions. Sardinians drink wine moderately.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Truth is that the Shepherds (the centenaries are mostly found in this group) were actually eating more animal protein and fat compared to the rest of the population.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;snipboard.io&amp;#x2F;gbi9JY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;snipboard.io&amp;#x2F;gbi9JY.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;They can keep lying to most people just because you can&amp;#x27;t understand Italian but whenever people from those towns are interviewed they always repeat that they were not vegetarians. 
Here a quick translation from this yt video:&lt;p&gt;Graziano who got to 102 
got asked if he got to 102yo
because he had always followed a
mediterranean diet.
He asked what&amp;#x27;s that?
It means that you always ate vegetables.
Vegetables are bad for you, I 
ate the grass of 100 sheeps because
I ate the sheeps. And indeed
he only ate meat, meaning that this whole
alimentation thing should be checked again.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;LQTocSMm7tw?t=647&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;LQTocSMm7tw?t=647&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>franciscop</author><text>Wait, when people (mainly Americans) say &amp;quot;Mediterranean diet&amp;quot; do they think it&amp;#x27;s mainly a vegetarian one? That would be so wrong in so many levels, I am from a coastal really Mediterranean city and we def eat meat and fish (both traditionally and currently).&lt;p&gt;The main differences I&amp;#x27;d say from growing up with local food compared now with other international food is the extra use of olive oil (vs other oils or butter), that normally in our food it&amp;#x27;s easier to tell where the ingredients came from vs some other more processed diets, extra bread&amp;#x2F;wheat use, and that even when we eat meat, it&amp;#x27;s not a &amp;quot;meat fest&amp;quot; like American bbq, it&amp;#x27;s normally accompanied with other food. And of course the use of local ingredients, which is particular to our diet but I&amp;#x27;d guess most &amp;quot;regional diets&amp;quot; have this in common (with their particular ingredients).</text></comment>
<story><title>Blue Zones, where people reach age 100 at 10 times greater rates</title><url>https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6125071/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>codeflow2202</author><text>When speaking about Sardinia they keep saying that their diet was mostly vegetarian:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The classic Sardinian diet is plant based, consisting of whole-grain bread, beans, garden vegetables, and fruits. Meat is largely reserved for Sundays and special occasions. Sardinians drink wine moderately.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Truth is that the Shepherds (the centenaries are mostly found in this group) were actually eating more animal protein and fat compared to the rest of the population.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;snipboard.io&amp;#x2F;gbi9JY.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;snipboard.io&amp;#x2F;gbi9JY.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;They can keep lying to most people just because you can&amp;#x27;t understand Italian but whenever people from those towns are interviewed they always repeat that they were not vegetarians. 
Here a quick translation from this yt video:&lt;p&gt;Graziano who got to 102 
got asked if he got to 102yo
because he had always followed a
mediterranean diet.
He asked what&amp;#x27;s that?
It means that you always ate vegetables.
Vegetables are bad for you, I 
ate the grass of 100 sheeps because
I ate the sheeps. And indeed
he only ate meat, meaning that this whole
alimentation thing should be checked again.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;LQTocSMm7tw?t=647&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;LQTocSMm7tw?t=647&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dpq</author><text>I can&amp;#x27;t quickly find the paper but I recall having read something along the following lines: there were several areas in Greece where people consumed meat and cheese heavily but the life expectancy was decent. A subsequent investigation showed that the villagers had a very common SNP (mutation) which reduced the efficiency of LDLR (essentially making their bodies ingest less of the &amp;quot;bad&amp;quot; cholesterol into the bloodstream). And the theory went that since these populations had the same diet for centuries, everybody who was not very adapted to it sort of died out &amp;#x2F; was outcompeted in a Darwinian way by folks who had this genetic adaptation. So yes, a Sardinian villager may live to 102 eating solely mutton; it doesn&amp;#x27;t mean that the outcome would be as good if you took a random sample of Californians (for instance) and had them use the same diet.</text></comment>