“There was a Japanese government review in 2010, which found that 82% of the people aged over 100 in Japan turned out to be dead. The secret to living to 110 was, don’t register your death.”
Newman says that the so-called Japanese centenarians are mostly found in places where American bombers destroyed records in World War II. The problem in Greece and Italy, on the other hand, is that there are thousands of people fraudulently collecting pensions on behalf of dead relatives.
Newman adds that at least 72% of the Greek centenarians he tracked were dead or missing, or were pension fraud cases. Sardinia is another place where the data is “questionable”.
As for the living, they turned out to be anything but healthy. According to that Conversation article, the “Japanese government has run one of the largest nutritional surveys in the world, dating back to 1975. From then until now, Okinawa has had the worst health in Japan. They’ve eaten the least vegetables; they’ve been extremely heavy drinkers.”
Overall, says Newman, longevity data is just “rotten from the inside out”.
Alec's blog on health 
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