As I approach seventy something, most people are surprised when they learn my age. They often assume I’m much younger, and while I don’t typically share my age, when I do, it changes how people perceive me. Expectations shift, often leading me to push against age-related stereotypes. Despite my age, I run two businesses, attend classes, do yoga, practice massage and bodywork, garden and paddle my SUPYAK (Stand-Up Paddleboard and Kayak combo). My brother, now 86, maintains his yard, works full-time, and exercises regularly—also defying conventional age norms. It’s not all genetics; —we have younger relatives in worse shape. I believe our youthful energy is primarily due to attitude, diet, and lifestyle choices. Understanding what supports longevity, such as an active physical life style, meditation, prayer, belonging to a community and stress-reducing activities, also play important role in longevity with health and there are those reported in the “blue zones” and we’ll get to those.
It’s often said that cognitive abilities and physical health decline with age, a perspective reinforced by studies, media, and popular opinion. I’ve encountered these assumptions firsthand at conferences and continuing education classes. But is the science behind these claims as solid as it seems? Having taught Scientific Theory at the university level, I understand how data can be skewed, and I’ve observed professors tailoring their research outcomes for tenure or promotions. This highlights the importance of critical thinking when interpreting scientific data, especially when key variables are overlooked or misinterpreted and the importance of looking behind the data.
Take, for example, a well-known study from the 1960s and 70s that concluded women over 35 were at significantly higher risk for pregnancy complications. The prevailing belief led many to avoid pregnancy after that age. Years later, when researchers revisited the data, they found that socioeconomic status and nutrition were more predictive of pregnancy complications than age itself (Kleinhaus et al., 2006). Age, in this case, became an overemphasized factor, and turned out to be an irrelevant variable. The study’s conclusions were flawed due to the omission of consideration of critical variables.
A personal experience with a biology textbook project from the 1970s further illustrates how misinterpreting irrelevant attributes can be essentially misleading. Illustrations in textbooks typically showed animal cells as round and plant cells as rectangular, training students to associate shape with cell type rather than focusing on the critical attributes—like the presence of a cell wall. My boss did not want to vary the shapes because of the costs involved (these were the days before AI images and all our drawings were done by hand by artists). He suggested I conduct a study to prove my point before he would invest in the added expense. I did. We tested students who had just completed high school or introductory college cellular biology and across the board they wrongly identified cells based on shape alone. The illustrations were revised and as far as I knew at the time it was the first cellular biology book which taught the real factors of cell wall and presence of vacuoles as the critical factors identifying plant vs animal cells. Thank you Dr. Markle for teaching concept analysis which provides a way to identify critical and irrelevant variables. This experience taught me that irrelevant factors, if unvarried to show their irrelevance, can mislead even the most diligent learners.
Another historical example is the public health response to President Eisenhower’s heart attack in the 1950s. Early studies pointed to sugar as the main cause of heart disease, but the sugar industry deflected the blame onto dietary fats, leading to decades of misguided dietary guidelines (Kearns, et al., 2016). These conclusions were accepted as fact for years until later studies corrected the oversight, revealing that refined carbohydrates, not fat, played a more significant role in heart disease (Mozaffarian, 2016). This teaches us to critically analyze studies and consider who funds them, what political interests are involved and what variables might be over looked.
An example from the 1970s NIH study on osteoporosis found that calcium supplementation did not help prevent the disease (Heaney, 2002). What went unnoticed, however, was that the form of calcium used in the study was not bioavailable. To be usable in your body calcium must be angstrom sized and chelated. Calcium derived from chalk or other non-chelated sources is not absorbed by the body, leading to kidney stones and calcification issues in 20% of the population. 80% are able to metabolize it off through urine. More recent studies have shown that calcium from food sources is more beneficial for bone health than supplements (National Institutes of Health, 2020) where the calcium is chelated and likely angstrom sized. Chalk sourced calcium is like trying to get a 20’ basketball in the front door.
These examples demonstrate how critical it is to analyze the variables in a study carefully and consider wider information. We must ask whose study it is, what factors were considered, and how the data were interpreted. The scientific method doesn’t provide absolute truths; instead, it offers conclusions based on statistical significance. Science does not “prove” things, it puts up hypotheses (ideas) and they stand until someone finds some other data that disputes it. We often as a population accept things as fact when they are just hypotheses. For example, gravity wasn’t considered until Newton pointed it out. The earth was believed to be flat at one time. To prove something you have to have control of all the variables and know what you don’t know! Often, outliers and unaccounted-for variables remain overlooked, skewing our understanding of reality.
Consider the dietary cholesterol studies from the 1950s. Researchers claimed that foods like eggs and red meat were the primary contributors to high cholesterol and heart disease. However, these studies neglected important factors, such as the difference between saturated fats in processed versus whole foods and the type of fat replacing saturated fats (Siri-Tarino et al., 2010). Later research showed that polyunsaturated fats improved heart health, while carbohydrates had a less favorable impact (Mozaffarian et al., 2010).
Dr. Jeffrey Rediger’s book Cured explores how outliers—patients who defy medical odds—are often ignored in mainstream medical research. These cases provide insights into what's possible, but because they fall outside the statistical norm, they are often dismissed. Medical research focuses on normal. Have you ever aspired to the normal? What we believe as a society effects us. It may not stop us, but it is an energy we have to fight against to break glass ceilings. Many women ignored the research about pregnancy complications over 35. It had become popular for women to have their careers first and family later and they bravely forged a new belief breaking down old barriers and that led to a reanalysis of the previous data. Same data, just a different way to analyze it. Decades later women are no longer afraid to wait to have their children even into their forties.
Dan Buettner’s Blue Zones research, conducted in partnership with National Geographic, sheds light on longevity. These communities defy common beliefs about aging, showcasing how lifestyle factors—such as diet, physical activity, and social connections—affect health more than age alone (Buettner, 2009). Could such factors influence studies on collagen production and other aging-related processes? We don’t know because such “exceptional” populations are not included in the mainstream research. Watch programs on the blue zone people and you’ll see a very different centenarian.
As we engage with research, it’s essential to maintain a critical perspective. Scientific conclusions are only as reliable as the scope of the study. Remember, we often don't know what we don’t know. So, the next time someone cites research on aging, I’ll be asking many questions. Scientific conclusions are only as reliable as the scope of the study, and often, that scope is too narrow.
As one of my mentors wisely told me:
"I don't know if this is true or not—I just read it in a book."
Wade Poling,
Herbalist and wise man
This mindset encourages us to remain open-minded, to question, and to seek the broader truth that might lie beyond the data presented. It also reminds us to pay attention to the reality around us and believe our own eyes. This requires us to observe and think not just take in and regurgitate which much of our schooling teaches us. When I taught experimentally based Physical Science at WVU our approach was to ask questions when students confronted us with questions rather than giving answers. Sometimes the students actually yelled, “You want me to think!!!” and I would respond, “You are catching on.”
By the end of the semester, I heard things like this, “NO ONE’S EVER ASKED ME TO THINK BEFORE !!! !!!! WHY?????”
If you are a thinking person, it is likely not because of your schooling unless you had exceptional schooling experiences. That, however, is a related but completely different conversation for another article.
So please be careful when you are citing any research, especially that on aging. I will have many questions and I will point out that I have never sought to be average.
“If I had wings no one would ask me should I fly
The bird sings, no one asks why.
I can see in myself wings as I feel them
if you see something else, keep your thoughts to yourself,
I'll fly free then.
Yesterday's eyes see their colors fading away
They see their sun turning to gray
You can't share in a dream, that you don't believe in
If you say that you see and pretend to be me
You won't be then.
How can you ask if I'm happy going my way?
You might as well ask a child at play!
There's no need to discuss or understand me
I won't ask of myself to become something else
I'll just be me!
If I had wings no one would ask me should I fly
The bird sings, and no one asks her why.
I can see in myself wings as I feel them
If you see something else, keep your thoughts to yourself,
I'll fly free then.
Written by: PETER YARROW, SUSAN YARDLEY
Performed by: PETER, PAUL & MARY
References:
Buettner, D. (2009). The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest. National Geographic Books.
Heaney, R. P. (2002). Long-latency deficiency disease: insights from calcium and vitamin D. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 76(5), 907-910.
Kearns, C. E., Schmidt, L. A., & Glantz, S. A. (2016). Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research: A Historical Analysis of Internal Industry Documents. JAMA Internal Medicine, 176(11), 1680–1685.
Kleinhaus, K., Perrin, M., Friedlander, Y., Paltiel, O., Malaspina, D., & Harlap, S. (2006). Paternal Age and Spontaneous Abortion. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 108(2), 369-377.
Mozaffarian, D. (2016). Dietary and Policy Priorities for Cardiovascular Disease, Diabetes, and Obesity: A Comprehensive Review. Circulation, 133(2), 187–225.
Mozaffarian, D., Micha, R., & Wallace, S. (2010). Effects on coronary heart disease of increasing polyunsaturated fat in place of saturated fat: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. PLoS Medicine, 7(3), e1000252.
National Institutes of Health. (2020). Calcium and Vitamin D: Important at Every Age. Retrieved from https://www.bones.nih.gov