Arguing anything other than differences in levels of exercise/activity and calorie intake has a large mountain of evidence to overcome. The effects of those two are very large, the effects of everything else comparatively small per decades of animal and longitudinal human studies.
Nonsense about antioxidants in the diet is exactly that: nonsense. The weight of evidence suggests that, if anything, ingested antioxidants have a net negative effect on long term health. But there's money to be made keeping up the lie:
Lastly, beware of pseudo-pop-science that opens with one person's story. People manage to survive cancer without treatment all over the world; one story is not remarkable and tells us nothing. In general the whole blue zones thing has little to no value in any serious consideration of health and longevity: it's about on the same level of credibility as diet fads.
Nonsense about antioxidants in the diet is exactly that: nonsense. The weight of evidence suggests that, if anything, ingested antioxidants have a net negative effect on long term health. But there's money to be made keeping up the lie:
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/03/attempting-to-add...
Lastly, beware of pseudo-pop-science that opens with one person's story. People manage to survive cancer without treatment all over the world; one story is not remarkable and tells us nothing. In general the whole blue zones thing has little to no value in any serious consideration of health and longevity: it's about on the same level of credibility as diet fads.