The Daily Mail does a long report on Sardinian centenarians and questions their actual existence.

The title of the article is eloquent: «Are the famous centenarians of Sardinia real or is it all made up?» .

The Blue Zones are "nonsense" and "statistical rubbish" , he writes, hosting the opinion of Saul Newman , an academic at the University of Oxford, according to whom many elderly people who have passed the age of a century are actually many years younger than they claim .

The British tabloid's report starts from Perdasdefogu and his grandfather Antonio Brundu, who turned 106 on March 12th : «Smooth skin, straight back, well-groomed mustache and he doesn't seem even remotely tired after the birthday celebrations», we read in the article signed by Jane Fryer .

The journalist lists the names of some centenarians in the country, underlining that Pia Lai, 102 years old, looks 80 . Remember the studies of longevity expert Dan Buettner, who listed five Blue Zones in the world; Ogliastra in Sardinia, Nicoya in Costa Rica, Okinawa in Japan, Icaria in Greece and Loma Linda in California. He underlines that the Blue Zones has become a million-dollar industry and reports the opinions of Saul Newman: «Blue Zones? A bunch of old nonsense, statistical rubbish. Many seniors may be decades younger than they say. Some have been defrauding their pension systems for years. Many don't have a birth certificate or lost one years ago and are just guessing . Why were so many born on the first day of the month?”, he says.

The journalist collects the advice of centenarians and wonders if it is enough to "drink two glasses of wine a day, olive oil and go up and down the hills" to be so long-lived. She asks Sardinian centenarians if they really are that age ( "Of course, I think I know my age!", Usunta Floreddu, 96 years old from Villagrande Strisaili, replies piquedly ).

Newman tries to dismantle all of Buettner's studies: «He is not a scientist. In Japan there was a self-declaration system for births and deaths. In Costa Rica at the beginning there were two areas, then, a couple of months ago, they decided that one had shrunk by 90% and that all the centenarians were concentrated in the other. In Sardinia it's both, the research paper from which it all originated attributed longevity to a combination of mountainous terrain and inbreeding ."

And then the money: «The Blue Zones are a big business, the certifications are sold for between 3 and 40 million dollars». Money that, needless to say, the elders of Perdasdefogu do not see.

The Daily Mail also reports Buettner's response: « Newman's criticisms are so ridiculous that they are not worth addressing. He has never set foot in a Blue Zone, and it is strange that his is the only dissenting voice . National Geographic, which is very careful and thorough in its fact-checking, has exhaustively verified all my articles."

Don Paolo Filigheddu, archivist of the diocese of Tempio-Ampurias also speaks: «We are willing to invite Doctor Newman here in Sardinia to see with his own eyes the research coming from the ecclesiastical archive of 1559 and the civil archive of 1861 ».

(Unioneonline/L)

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