What about blue zone diets?
>> Oh my god, don't get me started on that
one. [laughter]
I mean,
blue zones are fun. I mean, look,
there's a lot to say about blue zone
diet. The first is
again, you know, if you it's kind of
like a Mediterranean diet, but with even
less meat if you if you look at what it
prescribes,
you know, and but it also prescribes
um skipping breakfast. Um it tells you
to be social. um it tells you to uh not
finish your plate. Um you know there's
some social aspects to it but but what's
I find and you know if you look at the
the the the the
sort of prescription of the diet
especially nutritionally it's kind what
a lot of you know it's not far off from
the Mediterranean diet. Um I don't know
of any really good highquality studies
for the Blue Zones diet compared to say
the Mediterranean diet. But what I find
amusing about the Blue Zones diet is how
it's been advertised because it's
advertised and marketed as a diet
that'll help you live to be a 100. And
that's where I begin to have some
concerns because even if you look at the
data for the blue zones, like if you
there's these supposed blue zones,
there's these five regions on the planet
where
>> where are they?
>> Let's see. One of them is in the Nicoa
Peninsula of Costa Rica. One's a little
kind of little village in Sardinia. It's
like a little area of Sardinia. One is
uh an island in the Mediterranean. I've
never forgotten the name of the island.
Um, one is uh Okinawa and the other is
Lomol Linda, California, [laughter]
right outside of LA.
>> I didn't know that.
>> Those are the five blue zones. And and
the idea behind these are these are
supposedly areas where a twice as many
people live to be centinarians. They
live to be 100 years old. And so the
idea is if you eat like the people in
these areas, you too are going to live
to be 100 years old. Now, there's some
problems with this. The first is that
even if you believe the data that that
these these regions have a have a higher
percentage of centinarians, it turns out
that the percentage of centinarians is
tiny. So it's like it's like six people
out of 10,000 as opposed to in the
United States where it's three people
out of 10,000.
>> The base rate's so low that small
changes are massive proportions.
>> These are statistical outliers. So you
basically have to if if you're not a
statistical outlier, which most
[laughter] of us are not, it's
irrelevant. It's not a very it's
statistical nonsense basically.
Secondly, there's a guy in Oxford is in
um a demographer at Oxford. I'm trying
to remember his name. Saul Newman I
think his name is. He's published this
really fascinating paper. He did a deep
dive onto these blue zones and found out
that only 18% of the people in these
blue zones actually had birth
certificates.
So we don't even know who these people
are. They just self-report their age.
And these are areas. So, and he
>> Are you telling me Are you telling me
that a good chunk of the blue zone
fervor could have been around the fact
that people just didn't register how old
they were?
>> Correct. Or it could be insurance fraud.
I mean, I have no idea. Um, yeah,
exactly. [laughter]
I'm sorry. It's
>> You can get online, you can read Sol
Newman's paper. It's hilarious paper to
read. Um Um, but also think about it
this way. Like he there's this like
little area in Sardinia. If you go on if
you look on the blue zones map, there's
this like, you know, think about
Sardinia. It likes, you know, it's this
kind of ovalshaped island, right? And
there's this little area on the on the
western side, there's a little blue, you
know, zone on the map, right? And in
that little area, you have all these
centinarians. Now, tell me that if you
like go like 30 miles north or 30 miles
south that people have totally different
diets. And it's like, so why in this
little spot are they all centinarians
and just 20 miles north or 20 miles
south? They're not. It's kind of
suspicious.
>> What are the what is the blue zone
proponent explanation for that?
>> Uh I think he's answered I don't think
he's
>> is it a guy?
>> Uh yeah, this guy named um what's his
name? Um Wetner. Betner. I can't
remember. He's a he was a he was a um he
was a National Geographic reporter who
who got really excited by this and
figured out how to market all this. But
you know the one of the most interesting
blue zones is Lomol Linda, California.
Do you know who lives in Lomol Linda,
California? What why Lomol Linda is a
blue zone? Because obviously they're not
little, you know, peasanty, you know,
farmers eating their traditional foods.
>> No,
>> they're Seventh Day Adventists. And the
Seventh Day Adventists don't believe in
smoking. They believe in exercise.
They're, you know, they believe that
many of them are vegetarians. They
believe that
>> they don't believe in exercise.
>> No, they do believe in exercise. Yeah.
They they believe that that God gave us
our bodies. Our body is a sacred thing
and that it's our responsibility as um
as as as as Christians to to take good
care of our God-given body. And
>> that's the physiological theology. Very
good.
>> It is. It is. And and so um you know
they don't smoke, they exercise, many of
them are vegetarians. They have they do
all these sorts of things that the you
know most doctors will tell you is what
you should do. And guess what? They have
a high percentage of people who live.
>> Do they eat the same thing as the people
in Sardinia?
>> No, of course not. They're eating
>> What's going on with this Blue Zones
thing? Is it [laughter] fair Is it fair
to say that the Blue Zone diet
isn't a diet? It doesn't. It's It
doesn't do what it says it does.
>> Well, I mean, it does. If you read the
Blue Zones book, it tells you what to
eat. Tells you at least a half a cup of
beans a day. It tells you eat lots of
vegetables. It tells you not to eat too
much of this and not too much of that.
So there it's got some it's got some
parameters, you know, um but it's not a
it's not a it's not a rigidly defined
diet. Um and you know the the
suggestions aren't totally crazy. Um but
they're again it's it's kind of
oversold. I mean like one of the one of
my you know one of the refrains from in
I you know that I keep going back to in
my book is that there are a lot of
people telling sell telling us optimal
diets you know and I have come to hate
the word optimal. If you want to piss me
off, say your diet. That's your trigger
word.
>> That's my trigger word. Tell me your
diet is optimal. First of all, is it
optimal for you or optimal for me?
Because you and I are not the same,
right? We have different genetics. We
have different background. You're young
and strong. You have a lot more muscle,
you know, but I'm probably faster than
you. Who knows what suddenly? But
[clears throat] um um I'm 62. You're
probably a lot younger. um um um you
know um is is um are you are you more
worried about heart disease or
Alzheimer's or or arthritis or this or
that or the other? Are you are you do
you care more about the environment etc.
There's you there's no such thing as
optimal um and um and it's it's kind of
a it's just marketing and and we and I
and so I I now react against people who
claim their diet is optimal because it's
just marketing. It's salesmanship. It's
not science. Okay, let's piss off some
more people. What about low carb,
highfat? [laughter]
>> Oh boy, am I gonna get in serious
trouble after this one?
>> Yes. Yes. Yes. We both are. It's fine.
Low carb, highfat.
>> Well, again, there
>> used to be Atkins, now it's keto.
>> Yeah. I mean, look, both depends what
your goals are, right? Um, it turns out
if you want to if your goal is to lose
weight, for example, you can lose weight
on a low carb diet and you can lose
weight on a low-fat diet. Um it is true
that people tend to lose a little bit
more weight on low carb diets than
low-fat diets. Um but the but um and in
fact I'm one of the co-authors of the
carbohydrate insulin model big paper
that was recently American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition. So I've
congratulations I put my
>> I've signed my name in blood on the you
know I believe in the biology behind uh
the low carb diet. So we can
>> can you explain that in layman's terms?
We we can, but before we do, let me let
me just get to this, which is that
uh pretty much any non-crap diet can
help somebody lose weight. Uh um and the
hard part is to sustain it. And so you
need to make a distinction between
efficacy and effectiveness. So efficacy
is basically how well a diet works when
it in the perfect world, right? When
there's no cheating and you eat exactly
what you're told and you can do it for a
long time and and you know it's perfect.
effectiveness is how it works in the
real world. And it turns out that low
carb diets have this higher efficacy for
weight loss than low-fat diets.
This is for weight loss, but their
effectiveness because people have a hard
time sustaining them
>> is only slightly larger,
>> right?
>> Uh so
>> if you could do it, you might perform
very well, but being able to do it, the
difficulty is somewhat harder, which
means that it mitigates some of those
gains.
>> I mean, I tried it. I mean, I tried it.
I've tried every single one of these. By
the way, I I have done a much more bros
science equivalent of what you did in
the research for this book. I've tried
all of these.
>> Yeah. I mean, I tried the I tried an
Atkins diet and it was hard cuz I had
intense carbohydrate cravings and I'm a
runner and you know, it's hard to be a
runner and not eat carbs.
>> The hunger is rough.
>> Yeah. I mean, I just just [laughter] I
didn't like it that much. Um but I
didn't like a lot of the diets that
much.
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