several billionaires bent on reversing their age. But we ordinary folks don’t
have to have big money to do it. This first part will try
to establish the case for adopting the longevity diet so that we
can approximae our body’s potential of 120 years. Part 2 will describe its ten
principles and how we implemented them at home.
It isn’t a
diet per se. It’s a paradigm of nourishment so that we can stay young as
long as possible. In other words, we should not only seek to increase our life
span but also our health span. Studies have shown that, on average, in the last
nine or so years of our lives we get an increasing host of health issues. We
shouldn’t suffer in those years.
Why am I so into this? I retired at 55 when I was diagnosed with GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease). At 60 came mild hypertension and at 65 came mild hypothyroidism. Last year, when I was about to turn 75, my a1c registered 6.6. Whoa, I had crossed the diabetes Rubicon of 6.5! I had to do something.
Dan
Buettner’s “Live to 100,” the hit Netflix documentary, has shown us what people
do in Blue Zones, where centenarians make up a big percent of the population. It urges us to follow four principles:
1 Living with purpose.
2. Connecting with others.
3. Moving naturally.
4. Eating a modified plant-based diet.
So I
wanted to understand the aging process. The book Harnessing the Nine Hallmarks of Aging by
Greg Macpherson helped me do that. A discussion of the nine hallmarks
may be too densely scientific but let me share what I took away from the book.
There are two views of aging. The first is that aging is built into our DNA: evolutionary
or programmed aging. The evolutionary view says that our bodies are built to
procreate and when we are done with our basic function, we die to give way to the
next generation.
Programmed
aging refers to the fact that certain things in our bodies are limited in
quantity. Telomeres, which protect the ends of our chromosomes become shorter
and shorter, as cells divide. They become senescent when they reach the Hay
Flick Limit of 40-60. In addition, stem cells are already drastically reduced
by the time we are toddlers. They are just meant to bolster our growth as babies.
There is also
the theory that aging occurs due to damage to our cells, as in the case of
misfolded proteins and mitochondrial decline. Proteins are our body’s building
blocks. There are 20,000 types in the body, and each type is built from 20
different amino acids. There can be many random errors in this highly complex
process.
The
mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell, producing energy for cell health
and survival. However, as they do this, they also produce free radicals that damage
cells. As we age, the rate at which they produce free radicals increases. We must remember that these free radicals are
also introduced to our bodies by chemicals in the environment.
With these
complex processes, damaged and dead cells accumulate in our bodies; even DNA
can be damaged. And when there are enough cells damaged, the immune system is
weakened which can lead to more damage. The processes meant for the repair
(cell repair pathways) and recycling (autophagy) of such cells must be
supported.
Why Diet
Matters
Healthy fats
and proteins bolster our cellular walls and membranes. Vitamins and minerals
help protect our cells from, and repair, damage. Carbohydrates give us energy. The food we eat
matters in nurturing, protecting, and repairing cells. And how and when we eat also influences how
our damaged and dead cells are repaired and/or recycled.
The
Longevity Diet
It was the book Harnessing the Nine Hallmarks of Aging that led me to the ground-breaking book, The
Longevity Diet by Dr. Volter Longo, Director of the Longevity Institute
of the University of Southern California. He studied the centenarians of his roots in Italy and together with the five pillars
of juventology (youth and longevity) research, epidemiological, clinical,
centenarian, and complex systems studies, he developed the ten principles of the Longevity Diet.
Next Week: The Longevity Diet Part 2