I always think of these two monkeys[i] when I consider slowing down my age.
[i] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...
[i] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...
They try to reconcile the studies: maybe it's the natural-ingredient foods vs the refined foods, maybe it's the generous diet vs the more-than-generous free-feeding, or conceding that the monkey's don't live longer, but they live healthier.
IMO, the best paragraph from the article was this: "Many of us simply roll our eyes and click away when yet another medical study contradicts the last study—so what else is new? Coffee’s bad for you, until it’s good for you—and so is red wine. Antioxidants are essential, or they’re useless. And so on."
Other than some very basic common sense things -- like don't eat rat poison -- I never find that these kinds of studies lead to correct and actionable information about how to slow down aging or how to lead your life. And it's extremely frustrating to even try.
Massive individual genetic testing and constant cellphone behavior monitoring might be able to produce decent studies in the future for your specific attributes, but for now advice from parents and grandparents may be the best you can do.
If you want to take a deep dive into a subject, search for a recent paper on the subject and as you read it the paper will reference other papers, especially in the introduction. Here is where you can find possibly a more relevant paper on the subject. Read that paper and repeat. Soon you will have a decent idea of what is going on in the field. Hard to do if you don't know the jargon and the mathematical methods though.
I think the modern life has maxed out as much life extension as we are going to get from our nutrition and lifestyle. We need to do interventional genetic modification to see any further improvements.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I meant, to even try to keep up with the contradictory medical studies.
Yes, you should exercise; that's a common sense thing I'm referring to. But trying to decide if things like calorie restriction really work in the face of conflicting studies is frustrating.
spoiler alert - the comprehensive review lead them to the conclusion to eat plants, unprocessed.
But anyway, it is a nice resource to get a round up of studies on a similar topic.
If you cherry-pick different studies you might actually find that consuming large amount of plants stresses our digestive system way more than a fatty steak with potatoes.
You really, REALLY, believe with all information being out there nowadays that a diet of only "fatty steak with potatoes" will be healthier for humans that the "balanced WFPB diet" that is nutritionfacts.org claims is scientifically proven to be the healthiest?
I think you have nothing to back that up. Please cherry pick how you please and present your evidence.
Dr Greger, who started the non-profit nutritionfacts.org, is often attacked for being an ethical vegan. Since people reason that would impair his ability to present unbiased evidence. Though no-one has ever gotten beyond claiming he's cherry picking. I wish someone would describe a different diet that is as well supported by scientific evidence, as what nutritionfacts is doing for WFPB.
There is some scientific evidence building up in for the Keto diet. But that is --as far as I know-- not a diet for life.
On the other hand there is the raw diet movement (basically an uncooked WFPB diet), but that has little scientific and mostly anecdotal evidence.
The raw diet is mostly a trendy thing people write about. The bioavailability of nutrients in many raw foods is just too meh.
We know what the best diet is. A plant and fish based diet with small amounts of other meat. Meat that doesn't subsist on a diet primarily of corn or other, less edible things. This diet is completely unsustainable on a global scale and would result in even more ecological havoc.
The discussion between plants or plants + meat is complicated, but for now I'm going to ignore it because there's more important considerations:
- Companies are making our produce harder to digest as they try and make products with a longer shelf life.
- Eating industrially produced meat (of any sort) is very unhealthy and in many ways unsafe.
- This entire discussion removes dairy from the equation, which is a large part of the puzzle for most people.
- The low-carb vegan and the low-carb omnivore are far better off than anyone consuming 200g+ of carbohydrates a day.
- Hydroponically grown carrots taste gross.
Nope. Fish (most fish) as a central part of diet, will contribute a lot to build up of heavy metals in humans. And what is "small amounts of other meat"? 3x per week? This is basically an omnivorous diet. Compared to the SAD is probably just the junk cut out.
This, SAD-processed, is a very unhealthy diet, compared to a balanced WFPB diet. There are lots of studies to back this up.
> - Companies are making our produce harder to digest as they try and make products with a longer shelf life.
Yups.
> - Eating industrially produced meat (of any sort) is very unhealthy and in many ways unsafe.
Not a problem for those eating WFPB.
> - This entire discussion removes dairy from the equation, which is a large part of the puzzle for most people.
Dairy is a killer. Prolly more so than meat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3c_D0s391Q
> - The low-carb vegan and the low-carb omnivore are far better off than anyone consuming 200g+ of carbohydrates a day.
Any study on this?
There is a lot of studies (long running, with large size populations) claiming the opposite. Here some arguments: http://www.masteringdiabetes.org/ketosis-ketogenic-diets-mis...
> - Hydroponically grown carrots taste gross.
Personal taste. It prolly has less phytonutrients. Not sure how this is an important consideration.
I'm not at all saying there's no use for keto, I just think it should never be a mainstream diet (but something applied in specific cases, under medical supervision). As far as sci evidence goes, WFPB seems to be the "best" diet for the human species as a whole.
This diet recommends a pound of fatty meat per day: http://perfecthealthdiet.com/the-diet/
The book that describes the diet cites over 1000 studies and empirical evidence to prove that the diet is healthy. Now who am I to believe?
https://nutritionfacts.org/2011/09/12/dr-gregers-2011-optimu...
Common sense is often mistaken. Here are two rat poisons which are also medicines:
Ergocalciferol -- a.k.a. Vitamin D2 (used as a supplement for many years; now D3 is preferred)
Warfarin -- oral anticoagulant widely in use today
Don't salt your food _at all_ to maintain a healthy blood pressure.
>Furthermore, it also found that populations with low average daily salt intakes had low BP (blood pressure) and very little or no increase in BP with age. INTERSALT study indicates that BP increases with age only if accompanied by increased salt intake.
But I believe intermittent fasting where you eat the same 2,000 calories but just shorten the window of eating to allow your body to crank-up the growth hormone and start autophagy does have long-term benefits, that should lead to prolonged life.
And of course, a calorie isn't a calorie. If you eat 200g of net carbs a day, intermittent fasting probably won't prolong your life too much, but it's also going to be more difficult to do IF when you're body is used to having high-levels of blood sugar and insulin in it.
I just turned 50 but am regularly assumed to be 36, the age everyone always guess... including by my gf's parents who are just a few years older than me. I am a rather crazy outlier though, I actually enjoy working out and do a hundred+ pull-ups a week, and even on my light workout days tend to do at least 20 or so just to loosen up a bit.
The problem with having a healthy lifestyle is that our lives aren't statistics. Big number theory does not apply, we only have one draw, one life and if it happens that we are one of those unlucky ones to get lung cancer while never having smoked or generally lead a healthy life then we still die within a year and there's nothing we can do about it.
Any drastic lifestyle change has costs: serious time, commitment, money and we sacrifice opportunities, things that we could be doing/enjoying instead. So my advice is: for anyone deciding to drastically change their lifestyle to a "healthier" one, do so for all the _other_ reasons (feeling fit and good, looking younger, improved relationships, having more energy, etc) but not expecting for that to increase your life span. Because then you may be up for a one nasty disappointment when cancer strikes and you are left wondering why did you do all that, why did you sacrifice so much. You better have a good answer when that happens is what I'm saying. :) (and that is true no matter what lifestyle you lead)
The first is to sincerely imagine that I will die in 10 years. That's far enough away not to require drastic changes in my life — I still want to work hard on something that I'm passionate about — but close enough to remind me not to fuck around and take these years for granted. There's also a bonus that, if I do happen to run into some bad luck and have my life expectancy cut short, then it won't come as such a shock, because I've been living like it's my last decade anyway. And if that doesn't come to pass and I live a normal life, I'll feel more gratitude for it.
The second trick I use is to imagine that reincarnation is true, but that instead of "coming back" as plankton or a bug or another person, I come back as me and relive my life, over and over again, forever. In that situation, I'd want to optimize to have a great quality of life, and spend as little of it as possible worrying about my inevitable death, or agonizing over things that have gone wrong in my past. Since my rebirth is inevitable, I'd just be dooming myself to future agonizing. It sounds morbid, but I've found that this helps me to recover a bit when I feel down about something.
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
Don't you have problems keeping warm, sleeping, and maintaining muscle mass at that level of calorie deficit?
Also wondering what your supplementations are. I take Vit D, Zinc, pre/probiotics but having an aggressive vitamin routine isn't considered ideal these days.
Next time we met they were both taking their metformin, although intermittently and apparently somewhat reluctantly. One of them was late for our meeting. In way of explanation he said that he had taken a metformin tablet just before driving off but, on the way, a fart proved to be untrustworthy: he had to drive back home and changed his pants.
I've heard the drug termed "metfartmin" b/c of its effects on the GI tract.
I'm kind of taking the 80 / 20 approach to living healthy. Don't smoke. Don't eat too too much. Sleep well. See the doctor each year. I'll let you know how it goes.
An even stronger data point to me would be the actual people of Okinawa who are (were?) among the healthiest and oldest in the world.
In addition to having a high quality diet and a rich social life in general, they are practicing “hara hachi bu” – the confucian tradition of always eating only until “about 80% full”.