Identification of a Blue Zone in a Typical Chinese Longevity Region

Abstract

Influenced by a special local environment, the proportion of centenarians is particularly high in some places, known as “blue zones”. Blue zones are mysterious regions that continue to attract research. This paper explores the spatial distribution of the longevity population in a typical Chinese longevity region. Longevity evaluation indexes are used to analyze the longevity phenomenon in 88 towns between 2011 and 2015. Our research findings show that longevity is more important than birth rate and migration in shaping the degree of deep aging in the research region. Fluctuations in the proportion of centenarians are much higher than for nonagenarians, both in relation to towns and to years. This is because there are so few centenarians that data collected over a short time period cannot accurately represent the overall degree of longevity in a small region; data and statistics must be collected over a longer time period to achieve this. GIS analysis revealed a stable longevity zone located in the center of the research region. This area seems to help people live more easily to 90–99 years old; however, its ability to help nonagenarians live to 100 is a weaker effect.

Vascular Stiffness in Aging and Disease

“…Populations with extended lifespan live in areas known as Blue Zones ( Vatner et al, 2020 ). They are geographically widespread, and include locations in the United States, Costa Rica, the Mediterranean, and East-Asia, Loma Linda, United States; the Nicoya peninsula in Costa Rica; Sardinia, Italy; Ikaria, Greece; Okinawa, Japan ( Buettner and Skemp, 2016 ; Huang and Mark Jacquez, 2017 ). In these areas the number of centenarians, i.e., those reaching the age of 100, is 10 times greater than the average in the United States.…”

Higher dietary diversity as a protective factor against depression among older adults in China: a cross-sectional study

“…The distribution of longevity population is geographically clustered. The United Nations standard for assessing the "Longevity region" is that there should be more than 75 centenarians per million people (21,22). The ratio of centenarians in Rugao reached 36.9 per 100,000 people.…”

“…The ratio of centenarians in Rugao reached 36.9 per 100,000 people. Our research region of Rugao was voted "China's longevity region" and "the world's longevity region" in 2008 and 2011 (21). We implemented a cross-sectional study of older adults in Rugao, Jiangsu province from May to August 2020.Through the government's help, we attempted to identify the centenarians living there and included them in the study.…”

Immunosenescence is both functional/adaptive and dysfunctional/maladaptive

“…It seems to be common knowledge that infections and diseases are increased in the elderly and may be considered associated with the aging process itself [6][7][8][9]. In the meantime, there is an unprecedented increase both in life expectancy and in the number of centenarians and semi-supercentenarians (several "blue zones" where these oldest old individuals are "enriched" compared with the general population exist on earth) [10,11]. Many changes have been described in the innate and adaptive immune systems with aging [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20].…”