Proven long life strategies...

Today's post: Friday, 5-23-2008

A few days ago, I read that there is a new book out in which the author lists the factors he found in common in four parts of the world where a large number of the people live into their 90’s & to be over 100 AND where they tend to stay in good health in their later years.

So, when Early to Rise did a review yesterday including some of the strategies he found, I decided to post it here & add some of my own comments.

(As some of you know, we did a post on Friday, 3-14-2008 called 21 ways to live to be 100. And, as you’ll see many of those overlap this article & suggest similar strategies.)

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

“Anti-Aging Strategies From the Longest-Lived People in the World

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS

Recently, I interviewed Dan Buettner, whose latest book, The Blue Zones, is a veritable treasure trove of tips for living longer. Buettner is an explorer whose work for National Geographic led to the book. He investigated four parts of the world where there are more healthy centenarians than anywhere else - Sardinia, Italy; Loma Linda, CA; Okinawa, Japan; and Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula. Here's what we can learn from the folks who've done "anti-aging" better than anyone else on the planet.

1. Move. Longevity all-stars engage in regular, low-intensity physical activity, whether it be hiking, shepherding, gardening, walking, yoga, or something else. The data suggest that moderate, even easy, activity done on a daily basis will extend your life.

2. "Hara hachi bu." This Okinawan saying means "Stop eating when your stomach is 80 percent full." Clear enough? Cutting calories by a mere 20 percent will extend your life.

3. Go heavy on the plants. While readers of ETR know that higher-protein diets can be really healthy, that doesn't rule out a diet that's also loaded with vegetables. All of the long-lived peoples investigated by Buettner ate a plant-based diet with almost no processed foods.
4. Drink some alcohol. In Sardinia, it's wine. In Okinawa, it's sake. Whatever you prefer, alcohol in moderation seems to reduce both stress and inflammation. But remember that women who drink need to be getting plenty of folic acid in their diets. (Even moderate drinking raises the risk of breast cancer - but only for women who are folic acid deficient.)

5. See the big picture. Okinawans call it ikigai. Nicoyans call it plan de vida. In both cultures, the phrase translates to "why I wake up in the morning." Develop a strong sense of purpose, connection to others, and community. It's the best anti-aging "medicine" you can find.

[Ed. Note: Dr. Jonny Bowden, a nationally known expert on weight loss, nutrition, and health, is the author of the new book The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth. For more information, go to www.jonnybowden.com.....]”

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1. We’ve done many posts on how regular exercise improves your health & slows aging. It seems it is even more critical to slow the aging of your brain than even our posts on the subject suggested. Our next post will be about that.

2. I haven’t read the book for the complete story on the other 3 cultures on purposely stopping eating a bit before you are completely full. Significant calorie restriction does seem to prolong life but can take some of the fun out it.
Fortunately, getting a lot of exercise, eating a lot of vegetables, & NOT eating processed or junk foods also help prevent you from being too fat. And, it looks like you can get the anti-aging effect of significant calorie restriction by taking Resveratrol.

And, it can be a LOT easier to eat moderately like this when you both are not under heavy stress & you have a good social support system. And, these four groups tended to have that going for them.

3. There are quite a good number of ways to eat that support & protect good health. The one thing they ALL have in common is stressing to eat a lot of vegetables both in amount & in variety. These groups seem to have that in common also.

In his recent book, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan summarized his research in a way that summarizes the #2 & the #3 strategies this way: “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.”

(Most packaged food & snacks and some ice creams, bread & other foods that contain harmful or nonfood additions, do NOT make his list as food. He calls those food-like nonfoods.)

Another related point is that for people who are not allergic, eating nuts regularly boosts longevity by almost as much as NOT smoking – 5 to 10 years or more. And, while many of the Seventh Day Adventists do NOT drink alcohol, they do often eat nuts regularly as they are vegetarians. And they were one of the four groups he studied.

4. Drinking moderately, particularly if it’s combined with meals & socializing does seem to be protective.

The good social support & regular exercise the people he studied had does help avoid the excessive stress that drives drinking enough to overshoot moderate level of alcohol consumption.

5. Having religious faith or a personal guiding philosophy that live is worth living combined with strong family & community ties and social support not only sharply increases longevity, it makes it worth doing.

From the reviews I’ve read, this seems to be the most important take away from Dan Buettner’s book, The Blue Zones.

There are other sources for information the value of eating right and getting regular exercise. And, many people like the idea that moderate drinking has some health value. But this fifth point is significant & not stressed as often by so many different sources.