In 2010, welfare officials in Tokyo tried to visit Sogen Kato, a local man living in the city’s Adachi district, to congratulate him on his 111th birthday.
asserted
officials → try → birthday
Their records identified him as the oldest man in the city, but his family kept turning them away, saying he didn’t want visitors or had taken a trip somewhere five hours away.
asserted
he → identify → trip
When police finally entered the house, they found Kato’s mummified remains lying in bed, dressed in pajamas and covered with a blanket.
asserted
remains → enter → blanket
He’d been dead for at least 30 years, although his family claimed he’d shut himself away to become a living Buddha.
asserted
he → claim → himself
His pension kept paying, and someone withdrew 2.7 million yen, about $31,000 at the time, after officials started asking questions.
asserted
officials → keep → questions
Newman investigates how unreliable age records can shape our understanding of aging, including the research behind the popular Blue Zones guides promising lessons in living longer.
asserted
records → investigate → lessons
He also examines anti-aging treatments sold before anyone has established that they work.
asserted
they → examine → treatments
Across Japan, the audit identified 234,354 people still on family registers whose whereabouts couldn’t be confirmed.
asserted
whereabouts → identify → registers
Newman describes them as dead or missing and puts their share at more than 82% of the recorded centenarian population.
asserted
Newman → describe → population
“Imagine if 82% of the stars seen by the Hubble Space Telescope turned out to be dust on the lens,” he writes.
asserted
he → imagine → lens
“In astronomy, or any other science, this would have caused a massive scandal.
asserted
this → cause → scandal
While researchers would later argue that Newman misread the audit and that there were only 600 people missing across Japan, the author sees a much wider problem.
asserted
author → argue → problem
In Greece, he reports, at least 72% of centenarians disappeared from the count after the 2011 census amid investigations into pension fraud.
asserted
% → report → fraud
“Like Sogen Kato, the Greek centenarians were only alive on pension day,” he writes.
asserted
he → write → day
Some families went to considerable trouble to preserve that arrangement.
asserted
families → go → arrangement
Police checking on Irma Borgoglio, reportedly 103, found her propped up in her Italian kitchen, frozen solid.
uncertain
her → check → kitchen
Her son claimed she had just died, although the chest freezer where he’d kept her suggested a longer interval.
uncertain
he → claim → interval
Even living people sometimes disputed their records.
asserted
people → live → records
In 2016, Adele Dunlap, a former teacher living in a nursing home in Pittstown, NJ, was named America’s oldest person.
asserted
Dunlap → live → Pittstown
Asked what it felt like to be 113, she answered, “I’m 104,” according to a USA Today account quoted in the book.
uncertain
I → ask → book
The newspaper accepted the Gerontology Research Group’s finding that she was 113, an exchange Newman uses to question how researchers handle testimony that contradicts someone’s paperwork.
asserted
that → accept → paperwork
Getting someone’s age wrong can also affect the advice sold to everyone else.
asserted
age → get → everyone
Blue Zones cookbooks and lifestyle guides offer lessons from communities where people reportedly live to 100 or beyond.
uncertain
people → offer → 100
But if those ages are wrong, Newman argues, we’re copying somebody’s lifestyle choices without knowing whether it helped them live longer.
asserted
them → argue → choices
Citing Japanese government data, Newman reports that citizens of Okinawa — the Japanese island promoted as a place where people routinely live past 100 — rank first in the country for Kentucky Fried Chicken consumption.
asserted
people → cite → consumption
“The oldest Okinawans also have the worst BMI in Japan,” he writes.
asserted
he → have → Japan
Blue Zones guides recommend belonging to a religious community, but Newman notes that Okinawans are 93.4% atheist.
asserted
Okinawans → recommend → community
Their vegetable consumption also falls short of the advice.
asserted
consumption → fall → advice
“Again, these are not new or recent trends,” he writes, “and they really should eat some more greens.”
asserted
they → write → greens
Singapore became a Blue Zone despite having little in common with that guidance.
asserted
Singapore → become → guidance
Its health minister said residents “have the opposite attributes of the other five Blue Zones,” describing stressful lives and diets high in sugar and salt.
asserted
residents → say → sugar
If Singaporeans live longer while doing things differently, why should the habits promoted in Blue Zones guides get the credit?
asserted
habits → live → credit
Blue Zones guides recommend moderate drinking, including Sardinian red wine, as one habit associated with longer lives.
asserted
guides → recommend → lives
Harvard researcher David Sinclair called resveratrol, a compound found in red wine, “as close to a miraculous molecule as you can find.”
asserted
you → call → molecule
In 2008, GlaxoSmithKline paid approximately $720 million for Sirtris, the Cambridge, Mass.-based company he helped found.
asserted
he → pay → Sirtris
Three years later, the promise of turning resveratrol into medicine had run ahead of the evidence that it could help patients.
uncertain
it → turn → patients
“What is the actual use for humans still needs to be discovered,” one researcher said, according to Newman.
uncertain
researcher → need → Newman
In 2013, GSK closed Sirtris’ Cambridge operation and absorbed its research.
asserted
GSK → close → research
At Oxford, where he worked as a research fellow, Newman says colleagues shut him out and urged him to stop criticizing the age records used in longevity research.
asserted
colleagues → work → research
He eventually took a medical research job at University College London.
asserted
He → take → London
…and 4 more, not listed.
The Aporia
