I recently met a man whose grandmother is from Loma Linda, California, the only blue zone in the US, an area where people live much longer than the average.
As a health enthusiast and research scientist, I was familiar with the book “The Blue Zones” by the author Dan Buettner, a longevity expert, who studied the areas of the world where people live exceptionally long lives.
I became quite interested to know about his grandmother and her place of living, and, in our conversation, the man said, his grandmother, a centenarian living at age 102, is religious and a strict vegetarian but eats fish, and drinks red wine occasionally.
At least, his observation over the years of his grandma’s life taught him that diet and lifestyle played a huge role in determining his grandma’s long lifespan.
Lifespan extends by long-term bad food restriction and natural circadian rhythms
He said, “My grandma doesn’t eat a lot and mostly eats only one meal in a day, normally eats fruits and vegetables, more often cultivating their own gardens full of green foods.”
She occasionally drinks a glass of red wine, which is kind of revolutionary as a Loma Linda resident.
He further said, “My grandma eats at least a half cup of strawberries every day, I believe that they are the highest known source of fisetin, a polyphenol, and it helps prevent DNA damage beyond repair.”
He recommended to me a book as a must read by Michael Greger, MD, “How Not to Age” and told me that this book makes us feel like we are what we eat.
What he said is that most of the concepts provided by Dr. Greger align with his grandmother’s lifestyle.
In his experience, a long and healthy life means not to damage the DNA and one way to do this is by bad food restriction.
He borrowed the words from Dr. Greger, “Up and down the evolutionary tree of life, the most reliable way to extend lifespan is long-term bad food restriction.”
He emphasized a lot on natural healthy habits and especially good natural foods without process and contamination.
Genetics, primarily, determines our life span and susceptibility to many chronic diseases but our lifestyle including quality sleep, and natural foods probably has the second greatest impact.
One of the natural lifestyles is adopting the science behind circadian rhythm and its impact in our body physiology.
It is crucial and essential to follow a natural lifestyle from the very beginning in our lives.
When we become old we lose contact with our circadian rhythm due to poor sleep quality that disrupts the production of hormones.
Hypothalamus controls our biological clock, circadian rhythm, and body temperature.
The function of the hypothalamus gets disrupted during old age.
Satchin Panda, PhD, one of the leading researchers on circadian rhythms and author of “The Circadian Code” says “We must plan accordingly to enhance weight loss, improve sleep, optimize exercise, and manage technology so that it doesn’t interfere with our body’s natural rhythm. If we follow proper circadian rhythms we can prevent and reverse ailments like diabetes, cancer, and dementia, as well as microbiome dysfunction.”
Chemicals in processed foods and everyday household stuff are hormone disruptors
Hypothalamus, a circadian rhythm controller, is a type of traffic controller to ensure good hormonal flow in our body.
It produces GnRH, gonadotropin releasing hormones.
It also ensures that we have enough energy for “fight or flight” response in the event of danger.
Research shows that hypothalamus also contains stem cells like bone marrow that are lost when we reach 70 to 80 years old.
When we get old we produce less sex hormone, testosterone, that has a huge effect on muscle strength.
Decreasing the amount of testosterone means a dramatic decline in muscle quality.
Decreasing sex hormones mean less effective optic nerve and ear, causing our sight and hearing to deteriorate.
This is one of the reasons that aging people suffer from vision and hearing loss.
Old body also produces less vitamin D and the gut absorbs less calcium which means the production of parathyroid hormone (PTH) has to increase for sufficient calcium to be released from the bones for adequate blood level maintenance.
This is one of the reasons that many old people suffer from osteoporosis.
Vitamin D is related to our longevity.
Vitamin D is essential for the stem cells living under the crypts of microvilli to replace dead cells along the gut wall.
Higher vitamin D means a more balanced and happy microbiome.
One fact is sheep milk has more than four times vitamin D than cow milk.
Vitamin D3, cholecalciferol, is generally considered the best form of vitamin D supplement for people who really need it.
Dan Buettner, a longevity expert and author of “The Blue Zones” says “Most vitamin requirements are best achieved by eating six to nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day. ”
Among many factors, maintaining a good hormonal system is a key to not getting old faster.
Pineal gland is a key gland in our hormonal system that gives melatonin hormone which has roles for
– Quality sleep
– Circadian rhythm
– Suppress the production of sex hormones until puberty
– Antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects
– Anti aging effect
The most melatonin rich natural foods are red wine, olive oil, mushrooms, nuts, and spices.
We are catching diseases earlier in our lives because we are bombarded by a lot of chemically contaminated foods and other household stuff in our everyday life.
We must know that there are chemicals everywhere, we must be proactive and careful about what we are using and how we are using them to limit their exposure in our lives.
We have to be aware that these chemicals in plastics, cosmetics, paints, and pesticides which are our everyday household stuff are hormone disruptors.
Emulsifiers, sweeteners, thickeners, flavours, colors, additives, and preservatives are inflammatory
All mothers, especially prospective mothers should be aware that plasticizers are used to make supple and flexible rubbers and plastics.
Nipple on a baby’s bottle is one example.
The chemicals phthalates are used and they are plasticizers.
Do you check phthalates when you buy baby’s bottle?
Dibutyl phthalate is common in nail polish and diethyl phthalate is common in personal care products.
Are you aware of them and check things that have no such chemicals?
Phthalates are also found in plastic wraps, bags, chicken meat, flooring materials.
Phthalates can cause miscarriage, premature birth, and birth defects. They are also associated with the risk of breast cancer and testicular cancer, and other types of cancer.
Nonyl phenols, NPs, are in laundry detergents, personal hygiene products, automotive products, latex paints, and lawn care products.
Bisphenol A, BPA, is found in plastics, water bottles, and protective coatings.
DDT, dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane, is a pesticide.
Chlormequat is also used to regulate plant growth to prevent them from bending over during harvest
Quaternary ammonium, chlormequat, are also used as herbicide and pesticide, and there is a high chance they are found in oat products, barley, and wheat.
Plastic particles called microplastics which are a mere micrometer in size, are now omnipresent in the environment.
They are in our air and our food chain, inhaled and consumed by humans everyday.
Microplastics alter microbiome diversity, create dysbiosis, and impact gut barrier function.
Anything containing ‘paraben’ is used mainly as preservatives in beers, sodas, and cosmetics.
Parabens can harm our body by disrupting hormones, affecting fertility, and increasing the risk of cancer.
Remember, our processed foods mean we have emulsifiers, sweeteners, thickeners, flavours, and colors including additives and preservatives.
They all are chemicals and they are inflammatory, and harmful for our body.
Our body can clean up only a limited amount of toxins and chemicals but today’s processed and ultra processed foods contain tons of these toxins and chemicals.
A poverty of attention on product labels means shortening of lifespan
Michael Greger, MD, nutrition expert, physician, and author of “How Not to Die”, said “Most deaths in the United States are preventable, and they are related to what we eat. Our diet is the number one cause of premature death and the number one cause of disability. Surely, diet must also be the number one thing taught in medical schools, right? Sadly, it’s not.”
Dr. Greger is also the founder of the extremely useful website: NutritionFacts.org.
Michael Greger’s TedTalk “Food as Medicine” is very informative and useful to prevent and reverse chronic diseases by adopting food and lifestyle change.
We eat a lot of processed foods but we don’t have time to read the labels even though we have smartphones in our pocket.
We all have become attention deficient creatures, we don’t have patience even for checking chemicals in food labels that are killing us everyday.
Gloria Mark, PhD, author of “Attention Span” said “In 2004, we measured the average attention on a screen to be two and half minutes. It went down to 75 seconds and now people pay attention to one screen for about 47 seconds.”
Dr. Mark’s book “Attention Span” discusses how social media and modern entertainment are amplifying our short attention span and draining our mental resources.
Herbert Alexander Simon, an American economist, is a pioneer of the attention economy. His words, “In an information rich world, the wealth of information means a poverty of attention.”
In terms of processed and contaminated food consumption, we are in a boat of “a poverty of attention.”
Conclusion
After reading many books on diet, longevity, lifestyle from different experts, I realized that one of the best ways to not get old faster, and live without chronic diseases is to have harmony with nature, eat natural and pure foods as much as possible, have strong family and community bonds, but above all, we have to be free from high levels of chemical exposure and processed foods.
All of these people who are centenarians, 100 years old or more, with no chronic diseases means they are life simplifiers.
They took our so-called complex life and simplified it for a very long period of time.
They understood that the essence of a long healthy life is simplicity in terms of eating and habit formation according to natural rhythms.
What could be simpler than the adoption of natural circadian rhythms with 8 hours sleep?
What could be more elegant than eating natural home grown fruits and vegetables?
What could be more simple than the avoidance of chemically harmful household stuff and processed foods?
Yam Timsina, PhD, writes primarily on health basics, scientific progress, social upliftment, and value creation.
Disclaimer: “Please note that some links in this post are affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission if you make a purchase through them, at no extra cost to you.”