[Rocka24]

Absolutely incredible.

I've seen a number of byproducts of the "Blue Zone trend" namely in youtube videos and dinner party conversations from so called health experts. The creator of Blue Zones (Dan Buettner) does seem to profit off of this as well, one quick look at the website shows a Blue Zone cooking course sale and other marketing schemes that could trap the unwary. https://www.bluezones.com/about/history/

I'm not questioning whether or not the intent was malicious but he does stand to gain quite a lot. Happy to see this being exposed. In a semi related sense I highly recommend checking out Bryan Johnson's (founder of Braintree Venmo) Blueprint protocol, I've been following his work for a number of years now and it is scientifically backed although the for profit arm of his initiative just reared its (ugly?) head recently with him selling supplements and dietary goods that are vetted by his agency.

https://protocol.bryanjohnson.com/

[jf22]

What's the difference between Johnson and the other 40,000 wellness hackers who make the same claims?

[Rocka24]

The difference that I'm seeing personally and the initial appeal was that he was more open about the science and the results of it. If you go through the site you can see pretty good documentation about different supplements and what their intended purpose was. However, I do think some of the luster of the open-source model he had kind of disappeared when he started selling products which is a double edged sword in the sense that it does somewhat certify the quality of the product but also chips at his ethos.

[BobbyJo]

The extreme to which he is taking things and the level of rigor he is (seemingly) applying, are the differences I see. He has a lot more time and resources at his disposal than most wellness hackers.

[jf22]

Isn't this just marketing, though?

[BobbyJo]

Doesn't seem like it. He was doing most of what he claims years before he marketed anything. I remember him on Lex Friedman years ago talking about only eating one meal per day, eating as healthy as possible, optimizing his sleep, etc.