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.....]”

X * X* X* X* X* X* X*

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.

21 ways to live to be 100....

Today's post: Friday, 3-14-2008

(The first 8 were in the Sunday, 3-9-2008 Parade Magazine supplement in my Sunday newspaper. The first 8 things to do are theirs. The commentary on each is mine.)

1. Eat a heart healthy diet. They say that the Mediterranean diet is the best according to research. That contains a wide variety of vegetables, raw & cooked garlic, tomato sauces, extra virgin olive oil, wild caught fish, & some nuts, fresh & whole fruit, whole grains, & wine – mostly moderate intake of red wine.

Note that it does NOT contain ANY soft drinks or packaged snack foods. And the amounts of sugar & refined grains are very low if any. It has virtually no hamburger from grain fed cattle. And, although it has some poultry in some regions, it tends to be quite low in fatty cuts of meat & dairy fat.

2. Read the newspaper. Be actively interested in current events & read about them in print – in newspapers; online; & in books & magazines. Staying connected & mentally active ( & educated ) tends to predict longevity.

3. “Go forth & multiply.” Women who have children outlive those who do not (with the proviso that they survive childbirth.)

And, studies show that men who have children in their twenties are unusually long lived. (That could be because saner & richer men are more likely to do this than men who are poor & mentally unstable. Or it could be that enduring the extra work of little kids is better for you when you are young enough to have extra energy reserves than it is when you are older.)

4. Drink up! People who drink things that tend to promote good health live longer.

Tea, green tea, moderate consumption of coffee, & moderate alcohol intake “(up to 5 ounces a day for women, up to 10 ounces a day for men)” -- of wine. Beer can be a bit more & stronger drinks less. It works out to a bit less than one drink a day for women & two for men—with a few days with one or none each week.

Tea, green tea, & red wine drinkers get less cardiovascular disease, particularly heart disease. And that level of alcohol intake increases your HDL.

Coffee may help prevent Parkinson’s disease & liver cirrhosis.

And, the people who get 100 to 400 mg a day from tea or coffee tend to be more alert & think better than people who don’t.

5. Watch Your Waist. Being fat in the waist area is more health dangerous & more indicative of health risks than fat elsewhere. And, people who have fat tummies are much less sexually desirable than people who don’t – for BOTH men & women,

And, having a fat waist is indicative of eating fattening, unhealthy foods, not exercising, & excessive stress.

6. Get married. “Singles don’t live as long as married people.” It’s pretty simple, failure & loneliness harm your health. And, teams that work even marginally well together can succeed better than individuals. They’ve even found that married couples who don’t get along well are happier than single people. You can improve your own ability in ways that improve your marriage. And, happy married people tend to live a long time.

7. Have Faith. Clergymen & nuns & people who regularly attend religious meetings & have some kind, any kind, of religious belief do tend to live longer than people who don’t have any religion at all.

(Some of this is a positive outlook on life, a giving orientation, & regular social interaction. And, studies show that “open-minded” believers AND nonbelievers are mentally & often physically healthier than more closed minded people. As a result, people who are Unitarian-Universalists, Quakers, Reform Jews, & open-minded members other beliefs -- & who get regular social contact tend to live longest.)

8. Buy the farm. “Studies show living out in the country extends life compared with city dwelling.”

Some of the research this reflects is because people who are 100 & up in recent years were more likely to live on farms as young people than young people are today. But it may also reflect getting more exercise, & in those days being less exposed to pollution, & being less exposed to dangerous communicable disease – or to being outdoors more often than city dwellers & thus getting more sunshine & vitamin D.

Here are the rest of the 21 # 9 to 21.:

9. Eat raw cruciferous vegetables – every day-- such as broccoli, cabbage, horseradish, kale, & watercress. This has been found to prevent cancer, prevent the more dangerous forms of cancer, & prevent damage to your DNA, thereby SLOWING aging. It also has been proven to help you keep off excess body fat—including fat on your waist.

10. Eliminate or come very close to eliminating ANY amount of ingesting by eating or drinking any refined grains, high fructose corn syrup, transfats, fully hydrogenated vegetable oils, & both regular or diet soft drinks. And eliminate eating any foods or snack foods that contain them. This junk makes you fat & sick. Why spend money on it or harm yourself with it. You will live longer & there ARE other enjoyable foods, drinks, & good things in life without these horrible side-effects.

11. Develop personal interests. And keep learning new things that relate to them or are of interest to you or are useful. This is related to point #2 & others. People who enjoy life & are active mentally think better, keep their brains younger & their memories working much better than people who don’t. As a result they also live longer.

12 Spend time with your family. And do your best to be good to them, particularly in ways they like. Support them when they need it. People who manage to do this with all or part of their families are happier, have more social contact, & get more personal support than people who don’t. And they live longer usually.

13. Drink hot cocoa made from only from unsweetened cocoa -- & with no sugar or milk. This will help keep your blood vessels flexible, prevent or lower high blood pressure, increase blood flow & give you abundant antioxidants.
Eating dark chocolate with some sugar is almost as good if you only do it once or twice a week. But unsweetened cocoa works better & is far less likely to make you fat.

Adding milk tends to prevent most of these health effects.

14. Get regular exercise each week, including strength training. And be somewhat physically active at times each week also. This has been shown to both give you massive health benefits & help prevent many illnesses nonexercisers tend to reliably get. Doing this slows aging & even has been shown to grow new brain cells. And, if you do it safely, you WILL live longer AND be healthier each year you live.

15. Eat lots of vegetables each day – NOT including potatoes or French fries. Eating a variety of nonstarchy, cooked & raw vegetables from safe sources has multiple health benefits & is a secret to keeping off excess body fat. Eating vegetables such as sweet potatoes, squash, pumpkin, tomatoes, tomato sauces, broccoli, carrots, & many kinds of greens give you mixed carotenoids that tend to prevent cancer & have many other health benefits.

16. Get key health biomarkers, particularly those testable by blood tests, checked regularly. And, learn & use foods, supplements, & other lifestyle upgrades such as exercise that optimize any that are even somewhat too high or too low. Many of these other 20 methods have worked for thousand of years. This one is relatively new. But it’s extremely powerful. We’ve done many posts on it. Blood glucose, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, & homocysteine levels that are too high will age you rapidly; cause cardiovascular disease, tend to make you senile, & /or kill you. So will having too low a level of HDL. If you know these measures, know what levels you should shoot for, & optimize them, you WILL live longer & be healthier every year you live.

17. Socialize. Phone friends & spend time with your friends & family. Meet new people. Network in your work & areas of interest. Research shows this will make you happier & more long lived. In fact, recent research shows it also is a remarkably effective way to exercise your brain.

18. Find some kind of mental puzzles you like & spend some time on them most weeks.

Some people combine this with socializing by playing cards. Some like crossword puzzles. I happen to like solving the chess problems in the newspaper. Regardless of which one you like, doing it has been shown to extend longevity & help prevent senility and memory loss.

19. Avoid poisons. This one sounds like a no-brainer. And, to some extent it is. But some things many people think are safe expose them to poisons. And, doing this can be a good bit harder to do than it should be. (See yesterday’s post on safe water to drink for example.)

This specifically includes NOT smoking or staying around second hand smoke.

And, it also means eating mostly organic produce & avoiding excess animal fat from grain fed meat animals, poultry, & from farmed fish. (Most of the pesticide & herbicide exposure for most people comes from such fat where it is bioconcentrated – NOT from produce.)

It also means keeping away from pesticides, herbicides, & “household products” like air fresheners.

20. Take key supplements. Virtually everyone should take a good multivitamin/mineral supplement, a good B complex supplement, some extra vitamin C, & 200 iu of natural vitamin E each day. Many people need the supplements that optimize their health biomarkers. And, supplements such as CoQ10, Ubiquinol, Resveratrol, & DHEA slow aging -- &/or partially reverse it in older people.

21. Be prudent, proactive, & optimistic and build a worthwhile life. This set of things has been proven to help you be happier, less depressed, have more friends, think better, have more money, achieve more – AND be healthier & live a longer life.