Are blue zones legit? Blue zones including Okinawa, Japan and Sardinia, Italy are known for being regions where people are exceptionally healthy and live especially long lives. But researcher Saul Justin Newman says these claims are fraudulent and based on bad data. Some of the primary criticisms include pension fraud, in which people fail to report deaths in order to continue cashing in on pension payments, and age misreporting. In any case, the basic health recommendations still apply: exercis