High Hoax

Those not-so-old Ecuadorians

For years scientists have flocked to the Ecuadorian village of Vilcabamba, deep in the Andes, to study its amazingly vigorous people. Along with two similar mountain regions in the Soviet Caucasus and Pakistani Kashmir, Vilcabamba was believed to be populated by a large number of remarkably old inhabitants. A 1971 census listed 11.4% of the villagers in the over-60 category (compared with 4.5% elsewhere in rural Ecuador) and reported that nine of the 819 residents were 100 or older.

Not so, it turns out. At a National Institutes of Health workshop in Bethesda,

Md., Alexander Leaf, Harvard professor of clinical medicine, whose 1973 National Geographic article and 1975 book Youth in Old Age did much to advance the legend of Vilcabamba's oldsters, ruefully said that it was apparently all a hoax. Vilcabamba ("Sacred Valley" in the Inca tongue), it now appears, has no more senior citizens per capita than other Andean towns. In fact, the revelations of such gerontological high jinks are remarkably similar to earlier reports from Soviet scientists that some of their old folks may not be as ancient as they claim.

Leaf explained that his suspicions were aroused when a man who had given his age as 121 when he interviewed him in 1970 claimed to be 132 only four years later. Leafs doubts were subsequently confirmed by two more scientists. Studying baptismal and other records, University of Wisconsin Medical Physicist Richard Mazess and University of Massachusetts Anthropologist Sylvia Forman concluded that some of the local Methuselahs had lied about their ages and that previous researchers were all too eager to accept their claims. In fact, say Mazess and Forman, there is not a centenarian in the lot--the oldest villager is 96.

The Vilcabambans exaggerated their ages, Leaf believes, in hopes that the fountain-of-youth publicity would bring a flood of tourist dollars. Indeed, the Ecuadorian government was influenced by the influx of scientists and tourists to step up development of the area, and a Japanese group has announced plans to build a health spa and longevity research center there. But it will take more than a sampling of the Vilcabambans' vaunted regimen of hard work, low-calorie and low-animal-fat diet and high-altitude living to extend the normal life span. Concedes Leaf: "This lifestyle, although it kept them healthy and vigorous, didn't contribute to longevity."

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