Are Sardinia's famous pensioners really 100 - or is it all made up? As it's （人命などを）奪う，主張するd 'Blue Zones' that help you live into old age are a myth... some Mediterranean pensioners 収容する／認める they might have a 推論する／理由 to 誇張する
ANTONI BRUNDU is impossibly dapper in a check shirt and 海軍 cardie. His 肌 is smooth, his 支援する straight, his moustache neatly trimmed, and he doesn’t seem remotely jaded after his birthday ?祝賀s yesterday.
It was a pizza party, he tells me. And very nice, too. With all his family and a 抱擁する, fancy cake with his age on: 106. So he was born in 1918, when World War I was still 激怒（する）ing.
Not that he or anyone in his birth village of Perdasdefogu, a ridiculously hilly village perched on Sardinia’s rugged central spine, are making much of a fuss about it.
Why would they? Living long and 井戸／弁護士席 is the 地元の 超大国 here and centenarians are two-a-penny. Antoni’s sister Maria is 104. His father lived to 103. One of his best friends passed away last month 老年の 103.?
He now lives with his daughter in Cagliari, but 負かす／撃墜する the road from where he grew up, Gildo ?Mancosu (102), ?Efisia Furcas (103) and Spano Vittorio (103) are all still going strong.
Usunta Floreddu, an impossibly teeny 96-year-old 未亡人 with a high, （疑いを）晴らす 発言する／表明する, lives in Villagrande Strisaili commune. She has?two glasses of ワイン a day and lashings of minestrone soup
The Daily Mail's Jane Fryer with 106-year-old Antoni Brundu. His sister is 104 and his father lived to 103
Pinned to the 塀で囲む in the 地元の hairdresser is a large, glossy, 黒人／ボイコット and white calendar featuring some of the town’s most venerable 居住（者）s, 含むing Antoni
A fresh-直面するd Antoni pictured in his uniform during his 軍の service for Sardinia. He was born in 1918 at the end of World War I
A laminated copy of Antoni's baptism 記録，記録的な／記録する from the 地元の church is proof of his impressive age
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Everyone looks younger than their age... Antoni with his daughter Beatrice (79 but looking 60), granddaughter Patrizia (56 but looking 40) and his 広大な／多数の／重要な-granddaughter, Francesca (28 but looking 15)
In fact, there are so many cententenari ― as they call them ― that, pinned to the 塀で囲む in the 地元の hairdresser, is a large, glossy, 黒人／ボイコット and wh ite calendar featuring some of the town’s most venerable 居住（者）s.
Four women and three men (含むing Antoni, with his cap balanced high on his 長，率いる) all looking astonishingly perky, given many were born before the first ever Transatlantic flight. 特に Lai Pia, who with her 厚い thatch of ?yellow hair and 大規模な grin looks barely 80. In fact, she is 102.
支援する in 1990, 研究員s ?文書d a 不均衡な high incidence of centenarians in ?Sardinia’s rugged mountain villages?, who didn’t just live longer, but ?better. No 低迷ing in high-支援するd 議長，司会を務めるs ― living 独立して, socialising, shopping, cooking, gardening, ?yomping up hills, 井戸／弁護士席 into their 90s and 100s.
Even better, it turned out it wasn’t just Sardinia. Because, in 2005 and in 合同 with 国家の ?Geographic, longevity 専門家 Dan Buettner identified four more 地域s where 居住（者）s enjoyed exceptional health and longevity. They were Nicoya in Costa Rica, Okinawa in Japan, Icaria in Greece and Loma Linda in California.
Buettner called them Blue Zones ― 指名するd after the blue splodges 初めは used to 示す the ?Sardinian villages on a 地図／計画する ― and, 井戸／弁護士席, things rather took off.
Ever since, we have been obsessed with the Blue Zoners: their lifestyle, diet, sleep patterns, communities, way of life ― even their sex lives.
Villagrande Strisaili commune, another hilly hotspot of longevity in Sardinia. The 演習 walking up the 法外な hills could be one of the secrets to living a long life
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Usunta Floreddu hard at work 準備するing the ground for 刈るs behind younger members of the family
Usunta as a young woman on her wedding day in 1959 surrounded by her family and friends
Usunta is now a 未亡人 but she is pictured here as a young woman dressed smartly with her husband Mario?
Usunta has some 広大な／多数の／重要な advice for a long life: ‘If you live a life in 前線 of a computer, looking at 審査するs, watching the Netflix, you will die sooner. You need to move your 団体／死体. Get outside'
Because they give us all hope that, if we drink enough olive oil and boiled greens, walk up and 負かす／撃墜する a few hills and 溝へはまらせる／不時着する our 審査するs for a bit, we might live as long as they.
Today, the multi-million-dollar ‘Blue Zone 産業’ ?encompasses everything from 観光旅行，事業 to diets, cookbooks, cafes, podcasts, academic papers and, recently, a four-part Netflix series.
There have been endless academic papers, 熟考する／考慮するs and newspaper articles ― one of them 地雷, from Icaria in Greece ― bringing breathless tales of what these brilliantly bouncy oldies are up to, drinking, dancing, living 井戸／弁護士席, having impressively buoyant love lives 井戸／弁護士席 into their 90s.
So it was やめる a shock earlier this month to hear Dr Saul Newman, an academic at Oxford University’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, 主張する Blue Zones are a 負担 of old bunkum or ‘統計に基づく junk’.
And even worse, that many Blue Zone oldies may be １０年間s younger than is （人命などを）奪う，主張するd.
Some, he says, 特に in Japan, have been defrauding their 年金 system for years. Many either never had a birth 証明書 or lost it years ago and now are just guessing. ‘Why do you think so many seem to be born on the first day of the month?’ he s ays.
Which is why I am here in Sardinia, in the heart of Blue Zone 領土, limbering up to ask some ぎこちない questions.
明確に, Antoni’s family have been here before, because the second I even hint at ‘証拠’, his daughter Beatrice (79, but looks 60) whips out a gigantic, laminated copy of his baptism 記録，記録的な／記録する from the 地元の church and reminds me that he’s on the ?公式の／役人 Perdasdefogu calendar. And that seems to be that.
So we move 安全に on to his 最高の，を越す lifestyle tips for long life ― goat meat, cheese, ワイン, water, cards (‘I played for ワイン, I was very good!’), friends, family and hard work outdoors.
He also 株 a very 複雑にするd cheese recipe with me and tells me the 村人s call him ‘ピストル’, because he was always 追跡（する）ing.
The （期間が）わたる of his life is 驚くべき／特命の／臨時の. He and wife Gemma (who died 老年の 92) had five sons and daughters and struggled during the hardship of the Mussolini years.
‘So many 支配するs. It was hard. But 支援する then we knew what was good and what was bad. Today, people just do what they want.’
While I would bet my house that Antoni is the real 取引，協定, Newman’s attack is extreme. In fact, he ?rubbishes everything about the Blue Zone, starting with Buettner.
‘He’s not a scientist. He’s not a 医療の 専門家.’
In Japan, says Newman, there was a self-報告（する）／憶測ing system for birth and deaths. ‘An 調査 in Japan ?discovered 80 per cent of the people 恐らく over 100 were dead. They just do not 存在する,’ he says. ‘Many had died in the Second World War.’
And in Costa Rica, he says, the Blue Zone has moved. ‘It was ?初めは two zones. Then a couple of months ago, they decided one had shrunk by 90 per cent and the other one had moved to the opposite end of t he country, 300km away!’
Even Sardinia gets both バーレル／樽s. Not least because the 初めの 研究 paper, from which it all stemmed, credited the 村人s’ longevity to a combination of the 山地の 地形 and inbreeding!
The other thing that really gets Newman’s goat is the money. Because Blue Zones are big ?商売／仕事. He tells me 証明書s are sold for between $3 million and $40 million a pop by Adventist Health ― to whom Buettner sold the Blue Zones organisation, which 促進するs longevity and community wellbeing, in 2020 ― to, 井戸／弁護士席, all sorts of places.
Singapore is one of the 最新の 明言する／公表するs to 伸び（る） Blue Zone status.
‘Singapore!’ cries Newman. ‘They did not have birth ?証明書s until 1938, so how can they say they have a higher 率 of 100-year-olds then どこかよそで in the world?’
While someone is 明確に making a lot of money, it is not the ?calendar girls and boys in Perdasdefogu. Or in Villagrande Strisaili ?commune, another hilly hotspot of longevity, where Usunta Floreddu, an impossibly teeny
96-year-old 未亡人 with a high, （疑いを）晴らす 発言する／表明する, lives. When I ask what she thinks about living in a Blue Zone and having 奮起させるd millions around the world, Usunta rolls her 注目する，もくろむs and snorts.
‘Blue Zone! I have never heard of it. It sounds like a 汚い ウイルス! I don’t like the sound of it at all.’
She also isn’t very impressed when I ask if she really is 96. Though, to be fair, she is so spry and perky that she could pass for 20 years younger.
‘I think I know my own age!’ she says 堅固に. ‘I was born on May 6, 1927.’
And with that, we skip quickly 支援する to her life tips, which 含む two glasses of ワイン a day (one with lunch, one with dinner), ?lashings of minestrone soup, and always to walk ― up and 負かす／撃墜する the hills. ‘If you live a life in 前線 of a computer, looking at 審査するs, watching the Netflix, you will die sooner. You need to move your 団体／死体. Get outside,’ she says.
It goes without 説 Buettner and the Blue Zoners have no トラックで運ぶ with Newman’s 批評s, ?（人命などを）奪う，主張するing they are so ridiculous they are not 価値（がある） engaging with.
He’s never 始める，決める foot in a Blue Zone, they （人命などを）奪う，主張する, though Newman tells me he went to Italy twice last year. And it does seem 半端物 that, after all this time, Newman has been pretty much the 単独の dissenti ng 発言する／表明する, or a ‘one-発言する／表明する echo 議会’, as Buettner puts it.
‘国家の Geographic, which is very careful and 徹底的な with their fact-checking, exhaustively fact checked all of my articles,’ he 追加するs. Here in Sardinia, 公式の／役人s aren’t happy, either. Not just because Blue Zone status is ?brilliant for 観光旅行，事業, the economy and general self-esteem, but because Sardinians are ?
熱烈な about 文書ing births and deaths.
Dr Paolo Filigheddu PhD is the 広報担当者 of the Archivist of the diocese of Tempio-Ampurias and 主張するs he’ll 証明する all the ages here, should Dr Newman fancy a trip.
‘Regarding his perplexity, we are willing to 招待する him here in Sardinia to see with his own 注目する，もくろむs our 研究 from the ecclesiastic 古記録s since 1559 and from the civil 古記録s since 1861,’ he says.
While everyone looks younger than their age ― even Antoni’s 広大な／多数の／重要な-granddaughter, Francesca Atzeni, looks 15, when she’s 28 ― I don’t sense any 詐欺 here.
But even if there was a teeny bit of fudging around the dates, there’s a lot we can learn from these oldies.
Not just about the 利益s of eating a mostly 工場／植物-based diet of 非，不，無-過程d foods and getting plenty of aerobic 演習.
But about backbone and endurance and resilience in the times of extreme poverty and heartache.
Because while living to 110 is probably brilliant if you’re ?dancing and drinking and playing cards until midnight with all your ?centenarian pals, it isn’t the same for everyone. Many of these ?Sardinian 村人s have had impossibly hard, long lives.
Antoni’s life was 支配するd by rugged work ― from goat-herding and tree-felling to laying some of Sardinia’s very first real roads.
‘I worked very hard to 料金d my family. All those years outside in the rain ― now I feel it in my bones,’ he says.
‘The torment of life is hard. You have to be strong. I have seen too many wars. If I could I’d get all the 大統領，／社長s of the world together and decide to stop all the wars.’ He had just two years’ schooling, has never travelled and worked solidly on the land until he was 96, when his eyesight started failing.
‘I’d rather still be working, but my children won’t let me,’ he says. ‘So now I’m waiting for God to 選ぶ me up and bring me to 楽園.’
Usunta, also, did not have it 平易な, にもかかわらず her perky glint. The daughter of goatherds, she married Mario, a handsome 消防士.
‘Everyone loved him, she says. We were very happy,’ she says.
But after just ten years, he was killed in a 解雇する／砲火／射撃, and she was left with four young children and no money. ‘I had to leave them at home with God when I went out to work,’ she says.
同様に as Mario, she lost her two sons, 老年の 44 and 50.
にもかかわらず all that, her ?eyesight is the only thing about her that is failing.
‘I cried too much in my life and so now I cannot see so 井戸／弁護士席,’ she says. ‘I lived the two seasons. I had the good times and the very bad times. You have to be strong to live this long ― in the heart and the spirit.’
Again, if Usunta is not 96, I’ll eat my hat. But before we go, I 勇敢に立ち向かう her very beady 星／主役にする one last time, and ask if she knows anyone who does fib about their age.
‘Of course!’ she says.
‘Some people will always say they are younger than they are. But there are also some that say they are older,’ she 追加するs with a naughty grin.
‘I will not say the 指名するs, but there will always be a bit of ?競争 to be the oldest, but to look much younger. But no one will never 収容する／認める it.’
And, 井戸／弁護士席, maybe that helps to explain a teeny bit of it.
