Author: yamtimsina

When my mind seeks novelty I generally read to satisfy and experience how my mind is enjoying the content.
Over the last many days, I read a book ‘Lifespan’ authored by a Harvard Medical School scientist Dr. David Sinclair, PhD.
Truth to be told, over the last many years, I’ve become a clear and conscious reader on many things that interest me.
I read deep and well rounded books and research papers especially to understand how our body works, why disease appears, and how to become healthy in the long run.
And I especially enjoy books on health and lifestyle, food and nutrition, scientific progress, social upliftment, value creation, and financial freedom.

“We must celebrate the success of our life by its joy, happiness and fulfillment, not just by how long we live.”

Reading and writing has become my recreational activity beside my professional work and family.
One thing I’m very confident about is that you will not regret your time if you read ‘Lifespan’ by Dr. David Sinclair.
You will understand why we age and how aging is going to be just a disease in the near future and what can be done to stop faster aging.
As we all know, faster aging is the invitation for chronic diseases like cancer and heart diseases way earlier in our front and backyard of our lives.

‘Lifespan’ looks like a hardcore science book in the beginning but I found a lot of foundational background of human cells and human aging with lots of tips and tricks for a long healthy life.
After reading this, I’m convinced that we can live to be 130, maybe even 150 in excellent health.
The truth is we all want to absorb the amazing flavor and beauty of this life every single day.
We want to be active mentally, physically, and spiritually every single day.
We want to be sharp, strong, energetic, and engaged all the time until we remain on this earth.
With emerging technology on longevity combined with a positive mindset, good lifestyle, excellent diet, and quality sleep I strongly believe it’s possible for all of us.

We all can start turning back our age clock today by simple daily habits that influence how we age over time.
There are certain ways which help us to prevent chronic illness, reverse our biological age, and live long and healthy lives.
I don’t support only the long life, I support the joyful, fulfilled, and happy long life.
We must celebrate the success of our life by its joy, happiness and fulfillment, not just by how long we live.
A crumbled, diseased, and disabled old body is painful even for a short period of time.

“Yoga, breathing exercise, and meditation is linked with positive changes in the level of biomarkers of cellular aging like 8-OH2dG, a product of DNA damage.”

The world needs to recover from disease, uncertain death, and the most acute test of early aging in living memory.
We all need to learn from what happened in the past when there was little to no knowledge and what is happening now in our life and must benefit when there is abundant knowledge regarding aging, biology, technology, and longevity research.

So the main question is how do we stop early aging and avoid chronic disease?
The key takeaways from ‘Lifespan’ are here.

1. Slowdown telomere deterioration, the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes.
2. Maintain proteostasis for a healthy and stable balance of cells.
3. Prevent deregulation of nutrient sensing for detection and response of nutrients levels.
4. Thwart mitochondrial dysfunction because mitochondria are energy producers.
5. Stop senescence because senescent cells stop dividing permanently but remain alive.
6. Rejuvenate stem cells which can self-renew and differentiate.
7. Decrease chronic inflammation because it invites deep problems.
8. Balance the microbiome.

We can not do all of these at one time but we have to take our life one step at a time by building a small but consistent habit to take care of our body.

One key habit to curb faster and early aging is regular aerobic exercise which becomes more important once we pass age 40.
Aerobic conditioning is required to optimize our VO2 max, maximal oxygen consumption.
Aerobic activities are required to get our lymphatic system moving all the time.
Yoga, breathing exercise, and meditation is linked with positive changes in the level of biomarkers of cellular aging, oxidative stress markers, and telomeres.
It is an oxidized derivative of deoxyguanosine, it is one of the major products of DNA oxidation.
The accumulation of it invites early aging and eventually may result in various diseases including neurodegenerative disease and cancer.
To lower our levels of 8-OH2dG, we have to focus on a healthy lifestyle by improving our diet, reducing stress, avoiding toxins, and exercising regularly.

To curb faster aging and bring happiness and longevity, lower the level of 8-OH2dG, develop habits eating specific phytonutrients regularly.
Phytonutrients are plant compounds that can mimic caloric restriction and lead to xenohormesis, activating autophagy.
Remember, caloric restriction is a key to longevity and these phytochemicals also activate longevity pathways.

1. Eat red grapes for resveratrol
2. Eat garlic for allicin
3. Eat peppers for capsaicin
4. Eat broccoli for sulforaphane
5. Eat turmeric for curcumin
6. Eat berries for anthocyanins
7. Eat onion and apples for quercetin
8. Drink green tea for epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG)
9. Eat extra virgin olive oil for oleuropein
10. Eat mushrooms for phenolic acids

“Cigarette smoke contains a chemical called benzo(a)pyrene, a known human carcinogen, that binds to guanine in our DNA and helps to break the double strand of DNA to cause mutations.”

To stop faster and early aging, we must need certain key fundamental supplements like vitamin, NMN, fisetin, and quercetin in our body.
Many trillions of chemical reactions happen in our body every second.
Each one of these reactions needs another chemical or enzyme to complete the reaction.
And again, each one of these enzymes needs another chemical like catalyst or coenzyme to complete the reaction cycle.
Vitamins and many minerals that we need in our body are in the same category.
This is the reality of our complex metabolic system running in our body.
Among many, one of the key chemicals that our body needs to run our metabolic engine is vitamin D.
Make a habit of taking core supplements like vitamin D3, 2000 to 5000 IU a day.

Elmer McCollum, a biochemist at Johns Hopkins University, discovered vitamin D while conducting experiments on rats.
Rats were fed a diet lacking in certain nutrients and he found that these rats developed rickets, a bone disease.
He identified a factor in cod liver oil that stopped rickets and named it vitamin D.

Remember, if there is severe deficiency of vitamin D, we suffer from rickets, osteoporosis, cancer, depression, muscle weakness, heart disease, and dementia.
Vitamin D is a core supplement for our long healthy life.

Another habit to invite early aging is smoking.
Stop smoking immediately, if you want to prevent aging faster.
Smoking is notoriously bad for all ages.
And, of course, smokers age way faster than non-smokers.

Do you know the relationship between cancer and cigarette smoking?
Cigarette smoke contains a chemical called benzo(a)pyrene, a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, a known human carcinogen.
This chemical binds to guanine in our DNA and helps to break the double strand of DNA and causes mutations.

“One normal human cell can divide 40 to 60 times until its telomere becomes really short and even after stopping division, they continue releasing tiny proteins called cytokines that cause inflammation.”

Once DNA is damaged, the DNA repair workers work overtime.

Even though our body repair cells try to improve the damage process, the epigenetic and metabolic changes that follow will invite cancer cells to flourish.
This is called geroncogenesis which is nothing but decline in cellular health with aging which drives the development of cancer.
The change in genetic and epigenetic condition by regular exposure of cigarette smoke exponentially increases the chance of developing cancer, especially lung cancer.

If you smoke, quitting is the best option to attain a healthy longer life.
Normally, smoking increases the risk of getting cancer five times more if you are younger than 50 years old.
But, if you are more than 50 years old and smoke then your chance of getting cancer is one hundred times more.
If you are more than 70 years old and smoke then your chance of getting cancer is one thousand times more.
This is the effect of toxic chemicals in the aged body.

To prevent faster aging we have to stop senescence in our body.
Once we accumulate a lot of senescent cells, it indicates we are aged with gray hair, flabby muscles, and a lot of wrinkles in our face.
Senescent cells mean they permanently stopped reproduction.
Remember, one human cell can divide 40 to 60 times until its telomere becomes really short.
Even though they stop dividing, they continue releasing tiny proteins called cytokines that cause
inflammation.
Cytokines also cause surrounding cells to become zombie cells that create tumors and spread around.
The problem is, as we age, zombie cells become a part of chronic inflammation.
The fact is that zombie cells are produced by telomere shortening, DNA damage, and epigenetic changes.

Remember, quercetin, a phytochemical found in capes, kale, and red onion, acts as senolytics, a zombie cell killer.

If you lay end to end all the DNA from your body, it would stretch twice the diameter of the solar system.
Even if some DNAs are damaged or dead, we still live but we invite a lot of health problems.
Actually a lot.

“Exercise is one of the most powerful hormetic processes for health creation and life extension because it lowers energy in our muscles and organs, AMPK is activated which improves insulin sensitivity.”

Dr. David Sinclair, author of ‘Lifespan’ and a scientist in Harvard Medical School says “DNA stores information digitally but epigenomes store it in analog format.
Our information is digital but the reader that moves around is analog.”

Dr. Sinclair further adds “Aging is nothing but the accumulation of scratches on the disc so the information can no longer be read. With successive cell divisions and overreaction to DNA damage, the signal becomes increasingly noisy, and when we become old, a lot of original information, epigenetic information is lost.”

There are some drugs and supplements that help us to stop early aging or help to reset our cellular programming.

My mother is diabetic, so I’m very familiar with metformin, and she takes metformin regularly.
After reading ‘Lifespan’ I realized that metformin activates AMPK and makes more NAD and turns on sirtuins and other defenses against aging.
Metformin slows down the loss of epigenetic information and keeps metabolism in balance.
It helps to keep all our vital organs younger and healthier.

There are some main longevity pathways in our body: insulin-signaling, mTOR, AMPK, and sirtuins.
If you want to live longer then these pathways should be activated in some ways.
This can be done in many ways like by adopting low sugar and starch, low calorie or low amino acid diets, exercise, fasting, and many phytochemicals therapy such as resveratrol, fisetin or quercetin.

One more book that I’ve read which is very helpful about longevity and healthy life is Dr. Mark Hyman’s ‘Young Forever’.
You will not regret it but thank me after reading it.
Dr. Hyman says “Calorie restriction activates autophagy and DNA repair.
It reverses insulin resistance, lowers inflammation, optimizes mitochondrial energy production, activates antioxidant systems, and boosts stem cell production.”

The key to being healthy and living longer is by getting moving and lifting.
Exercise is one of the most powerful hormetic processes for health creation and life extension.
When exercise lowers energy in our muscles and organs, AMPK is activated which improves insulin sensitivity.
Dr. Jorge Plutzky, MD, a cardiologist at Harvard said, “if you could find a group of centenarians with perfectly clean arteries, they would have one thing in common – they would be insulin sensitive.”
In 1800, one person would eat 10 pounds of sugar in a year.
Today, we eat 152 pounds in a year.
Excess sugar is the single most reason for aging, disease, and death.

AMPK activation and insulin sensitivity is key to inhibit mTOR, resulting in autophagy and cellular clean up.
Exercise also activates sirtuin pathway, a longevity pathway, to induce DNA repair and inflammation reduction.
The overall result of exercise is, we become healthier, happier, disease resistant, and longer lived.

For the insulin-signaling pathway for longevity, we must balance our blood sugar and keep our insulin levels low to make our cells insulin sensitive by lowering sugar and starch foods.
Rapamycin is one supplement molecule that activates mTOR, another longevity pathway.
Metformin, a common diabetic drug molecule, activates AMPK, another longevity pathway.
Resveratrol and NAD activate sirtuins, the other longevity pathway.
These molecules can mimic the benefits of low calorie diets and exercise and help to extend our lifespan.

Excellent diets and lifestyle are essential for a long healthy life.
Heat therapy like saunas, hot baths improves our health span and addresses the root causes of aging.
A one to four minute cold plunge every day can be a powerful hack to your health, well being and longevity.

NMN, nicotinamide mononucleotide, a longevity booster chemical, is found in foods like avocado, broccoli, and cabbage.
NMN can also protect against kidney damage, neurodegeneration, mitochondrial disease, and Friedreich’s ataxia.

A form of vitamin B3, nicotinamide riboside, NR, is the precursor of NAD, another longevity booster molecule.
NAD is used in more than 500 chemical reactions in our body.
It is essential for energy production and sirtuin activity.
A small amount of NR is found in milk.
In our body, NR is converted into NMN which is further converted into NAD, a major longevity boosting supplement.

Many top tier scientists, including David Sinclair, Eric Verdin, and Coleen Murphy, clearly and openly discuss and take longevity focused supplements like metformin, NAD precursors, rapamycin and resveratrol.
This clearly indicates there is hope and optimism in what science is telling and showing us.

Conclusion

Hopefully, new advancements like Galleri liquid biopsy for cancer screening, DNA methylation biological age testing, and iAge testing, stem cells, exosomes, peptides, natural killer cell therapy, plasmapheresis, and regenerative medicine will be available soon everywhere for ordinary people for long healthy life.
Newer therapies to reverse aging like photobiomodulation, ozone therapy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy HBOT, and hypoxia will be common very soon.
Remember, a lot of body dysfunctions can be reversed through diet, lifestyle, supplements, and medications, and can be tracked over time.
We must be proactive for our body, health, and aging process.

Advancements in medical science, systems medicine, and longevity science will allow us to treat, reverse, and and often cure what we may find in our body.
It’s always better to know than to pretend all is well.
Be conscious and always observe and experience your body, the only engine in this life that runs you.
We cannot live a healthy, happy, fulfilled, and long life if we neglect to nourish our mind, body, and spirit.

Mark Hyman, MD, the author of ‘Young Forever’ says beautifully “The most powerful medicine is at the end of your fork, not at the bottom of your pill bottle. Food is more powerful than anything you will find in your medicine cabinet.”

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.”

Milan Kundera, the author of ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ said, “Human time is not circular, it races in a straight line. That is why humans are not happy. Happiness is the longing for repetition.”
These lines touched my heart when I was really unhappy and at a very low point in my life in the past.
I’d think, why do I want the same food which I ate yesterday again next time?
Why do you want to hang out with the same friend to whom you already spent 5 hours yesterday?
This year I finished a marathon in 3.5 hours.
I’m really happy but I want to run it again next year and would like to touch the finish line in around 3 hours.
Why?
Why do I want these repetitions again and again in my life?
I guess I want to be happy as said by Milan Kundera, happiness is the longing for doing the same thing over and over again.

So what I learned over the years is that the only way I can remain happy is by executing my most important tasks over and over again.
Execution is many hundred times more powerful than just pure ideas in our mind.
These ideas vanish very quickly.
Execution moves the needle in our life.

Running, walking, biking, calling, swimming, mailing, delegation, selling, logistics, persuasion, presentation, writing, communication are key executions.
The tiring stuff, the everyday stuff, the mundane stuff, the boring stuff but that’s what many winners of our time get right and remain happy.
The completion of our important task, which by the way is the result of execution, makes us really happy.

“Make a habit to empty tasks, which are not urgent and not important, from your life so that you can buy back the time for important but not urgent tasks.”

One of my friends who runs the lawn mowing company in Richmond, Virginia told me, “The first thing in life we must execute is urgent and important activities and then the next thing we have to immediately start is important but not urgent activities.”

“The habit of executing these two kinds of activities in a methodical way consistently is the hallmark of success and happiness,” he added.

Nick Huber, entrepreneur and author of ‘The Sweaty Startup’ says “Important but not urgent tasks are the proactive, high-leverage activities that build long-term value, rather than reactive, everyday firefighting.”
Mostly, our reactive and everyday firefighting activities are just urgent but not important tasks.

Many successful people are masters at delegating urgent but not important tasks.
These activities have no long term consequences but we have to do them immediately to run our lives smoothly.
What we, generally, don’t do is we never make a habit to say ‘no’ for some tasks, not urgent and not important tasks from our lives.
Smart people completely eliminate these tasks and buy back the time for important but not urgent tasks.
Dwight Eisenhower, 34th US president said, “I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent”.

“Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ is teaching me to realize my physical and mental enemies for my personal health and happiness so that I can achieve victory without direct confrontation with my own body.”

As we know, we all have 24 hours in a day, these 24 hours are our assets whether we realize it or not.
I, my friend Josh, my boss Scott, Donald Trump, and Elon Musk, we all have the same amount, 24 hours in a day.
So the breakthrough in our life happens only if we start tracking how much time we are spending for important but not urgent activities.

Humanity is on the plate now and it is taking a giant technological leap.
This leap is returning and will return to each one of us with more of this precious asset, our own time.
Manual agriculture labor to Henry Ford’s self assembly to internet revolution to FAANG time to AI’s chatGPT, you can imagine the picture.
You can see the patterns here, what is happening is each one of these advancements is giving us more time.

It’s not the technology that we have to fear, it’s the application of technology, and how it is shaping humanity.
For sure, groundbreaking innovation and human desire will continuously make our time more free and abundant in the near future.
We will use this time to tackle more of the most important issues rather than just urgent issues.

Sometimes, I think, the essence of being me, a unique human being incomparable to the other 8 billion on the planet, is to make something, to solve something, and after all to survive.
Then what?
Then I create urgency in my mind for some important tasks to do.
And then just live a happy, healthy, and fulfilling life for the long run.

Brian Tracy, the author of ‘Eat That Frog!’ says, “Eating a frog is a metaphor for tackling your most challenging task but also the one that can have the greatest positive impact on your life.”
Most of the time, ‘that frog’ is also an important but not urgent task, just looming somewhere on the horizon in our mind.

In my experience, once we finish one important but not urgent task, we become more self-renewed for the next important target.
For example, every day in the morning I do 20 minutes, yoga, meditation or breathing exercise.
I generally do any one activity or more than one depending on my mood.
This task is not my urgent task at the moment, at least, nothing will happen if I don’t do or skip it some days or for a short period of time.
I’m making it important only for my long term health and happiness, I know how it compounds everyday in my life for longevity.
Once I finish them, it feels amazing and fulfilling in my body and mind, I feel self-energized for the whole day.

Stephen R. Covey in classic book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ says, “Our self renewal is very important for progress and prosperity.”
The spiritual, mental, physical, and social-emotional part of our personality completes our self-renewal.
Self-renewal is nothing but the gradual growth in personality in a holistic way.

One of my evergreen books to read is ‘The Art of War’ by Sun Tzu.
Sun Tzu wrote ‘The Art of War’ around 2500 years ago but why its relevance is still so powerful, I’m now understanding little by little.
Everytime, when I read and reread this book, I find more nuggets in it which are making more relevance to my past, present, and future life.
I’m sure it does the same to your life too if you read Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’.
For me, it is teaching how to be proactive and penetrate through difficult situations which we encounter all the time in life.

I want to apply Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ framework for my strategic thinking regarding my personal health and happiness.
What are my physical and mental enemies for my personal health and happiness?
Is it a disease, poor habits, or my fixed mindset?
I want to be clear, I want to know my strengths and weaknesses so that I can plan for my health as well as other challenges.
We all want to achieve victory without direct confrontation or unnecessary battle with our own body.

“Dr. Valter Longo and Dr. Luigi Fontana: ‘Eating more protein than what is needed will not increase muscle mass but will accelerate aging and increase the risk of developing chronic disease’.”

Nowadays, I use a phone app to tackle my daily life challenges.
Sometimes it’s helping, but mostly, it is not helping, it’s hampering me.
I become easily distracted and waste a lot of time, especially if the task is important but not urgent.
Maybe I’m more influenced by the instant gratification of scrolling, or checking, or watching.

In ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’, authors W. Chan Kim and Renee A. Mauborgne say, “Technology is an enabler, not a panacea.”
Though, ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ is for a business concept which is to find new markets rather than compete in existing markets.
But the relevance of technology is very similar in many parts of our life.
In my opinion, our whole life is also a market, sometimes we have to keep looking inside the body to find new areas to expand, this is basically how our body as a consumer whispers to our ear.

One of my new areas of life I found by this whispering is understanding our body physiology and biochemistry for happiness and longevity.
I started regular fasting a few years ago, I started eating maximum plant based foods for my health and longevity.
I started these habits after reading many books and research papers for two reasons: first is to be healthy and happy and second is for longevity.

What I found is quite amazing, during fasting, our body cells switch over to a protective mode.
This leads to reduction of free radical damage and inflammation in our body.
Both free radicals and inflammation in our body are key causes of most chronic diseases especially heart diseases and cancers.

Long time longevity researcher and author of ‘The Longevity Diet’ Dr. Valter Longo, PhD, designed a five day meal plan to try to simulate the metabolic effects of fasting by being low in proteins, sugars, and calories with zero animal protein and animal fat.

By making it plant based, he lowered the level of the cancer promoting growth hormone IGF-1, which is by the way directly related to animal protein consumption.
Dr. Longo accomplished the desired results along with drop in markers of inflammation, after 3 cycles of his five days a month program.

Dr. Valter Longo and Dr. Luigi Fontana, both longevity experts of our time, always advise us to cut down on proteins to live longer.
They say, “Eating more protein than what is needed will not increase muscle mass but will accelerate aging and increase the risk of developing chronic disease.”
Dr. Longo’s TedTalk ‘Fasting: Awakening the Rejuvenation from Within’ is worth watching.

“Reduce methionine, the hallmark of cancer cells, in our foods either by caloric restriction or protein restriction or switching from animal protein to plant protein.”

Fasting is one way to drop IGF-1, cancer promoting hormone, but it isn’t the only way to drop IGF-1.
The type and the amount of protein intake is considered a key determinant of circulating IGF-1 levels in our body.

Dr. Valter Longo, PhD, a biogerontologist, professor at the University of Southern California, and expert on nutrition, fasting, and longevity research says, “Some of the anticancer and antiaging benefits of eating less food could be captured by just eating less protein.”

In 2000, a new hormone FGF-21 was discovered and it has emerged as a key agent for promotion of metabolic and artery health, leanness, and longevity.

This hormone appears to act through multiple aging pathways like boosting AMPK and sirtuin activity while inhibiting IGF-1 and mTOR signaling at the same time.

mTOR, mammalian Target of Rapamycin, is a complex of proteins that regulates growth and metabolism.
It is regulated by nutrients that we eat everyday.
If everything is normal, mTOR is the master driver of cell growth.

Regular exercise also boosts FGF-21 levels in our body.
Fasting does boost FGF-21 levels but for a notable surge in FGF-21, we need multiple days fasting which is unsustainable.

The best way to boost FGF-21 up is by eating starchy foods like legumes and whole grains.
FGF-21 is bumped by butyrate, the short chain fatty acids, which are made continuously by our good and happy microbiome in our gut by fiber eating habits.

Protein restriction also helps to boost FGF-21, however, not all proteins are the same in this regard.
Remember, diets with excess proteins might increase oxidative stress, inflammation, and lower the NAD+ which is critical for sirtuin function.
Reducing protein intake also reduces IGF-1 in blood in our body.

Among many, methionine is one amino acid found in proteins, a key food for cancer cells.
It is mostly found in meats.
Avoiding only this could potentially boost FGF-21.
Remember, legumes like beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils provide five to ten times less methionine than meat.

Dr. Robert M. Hoffman, PhD, discoverer of the ‘Methionine Addiction of Cancer’ says, “One of the hallmarks of cancer is methionine addiction, this means cancer cells, unlike normal cells, are unable to proliferate efficiently if methionine is removed.”
The most practical three options to reduce methionine in our foods are:
Caloric restriction, for example, fasting.
Protein restriction, for example, eating less protein in comparison to carbohydrate, ideal is 1:9 ratio.
Switching from animal protein to plant protein, a high percentage of methionine is in animal proteins.

The traditional Okinawan diet was 9 percent protein and 85 percent carbohydrate, mostly sweet potatoes.
The Okinawans had the highest numbers of centenarians in the world with 80 percent lower rates of common cancers.

“Dr. David Sinclair: ‘When we age, there is loss of NAD+, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, which controls sirtuins. This decline in sirtuin activity is the reason our body catches diseases when we become old.”

Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, MD, the author of ‘Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease’
says, “Heart disease, our number one killer, can largely be halted or reversed, and risk for heart attack almost eliminated with the help of a whole food, low fat, plant based diet.”

For example, by eating enough fiber daily, which binds pollutants like PCBs, DDT and potentially help flush them out of the body.
These chemicals are key culprits in our body to cause heart diseases and cancers.

Dr. David Sinclair, PhD, professor of Harvard medical school and the author of ‘Lifespan’ said, “After 25 years of researching aging and having read thousands of scientific papers, if there is one piece of advice I can offer, one surefire way to stay healthy longer, one thing you can do to maximize your lifespan right now, it’s this: eat less.”

If the genome is a computer, the epigenome is the software.
Aging is nothing but a loss of information, both digital and analog.
Aging is the continuous disorganization of the epigenome, which is the software that controls gene expression which is hardware.
Aging disrupts cellular function and leads to many age-related diseases.

Sirtuins are enzymes, a key component of the epigenome, they change the packaging of the DNA, turning genes on and off when needed.
Sirtuins are not only longevity genes, there are others too.
Dr. Sinclair says, “When we age, there is loss of NAD+, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, which controls sirtuins. This decline in sirtuin activity is the reason our body catches diseases when we become old.”
I highly recommend watching Dr. Sinclair’s TedTalk ‘Is Aging Reversible’?

Conclusion

To conclude, here is one more example from recent research how animal protein like milk is associated with risk of cancers.

DNA is our blueprint where our genetic code is stored.
Messenger RNA transcribes DNA code which is a gene, and translates into a finished product which is either protein or an enzyme.

The fascinating thing in our body is that only about two percent of our total DNA actually codes for proteins.
The remaining 98 percent transcribes into noncoding RNAs, which don’t code for any proteins.
Among these noncoding RNAs, one is microRNA.
MicroRNA grabs messenger RNAs to stop them from being translated into proteins.

Let’s put this way, DNA is our pharma company.
Messenger RNAs are scientists working in pharma companies.
MicroRNAs are FDA regulatory bodies to check the safety of the finished products like approval of drug molecules.

As an example, one of the most abundant microRNAs is found in our milk which is microRNA-148a.
It is a key inhibitor of crucial suppressors to the aging enzyme mTOR.
In reality, both very high or very low mTOR are not ideal for us, we need a dynamic balance for health and longevity.

Recent research shows that microRNA-148a directly stimulates prostate cancer growth in vitro.
This indicates there is a link between milk consumption and increased risk of developing prostate cancer.

T. Colin Campbell, PhD, an expert nutritional biochemist: “The people who eat the most animal protein have the most heart disease, cancer and diabetes.”

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.”

Nobel laureate and psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s book ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ has had a huge impact in my personal and professional life.
Especially, when I change my fast, automatic, and emotional thinking to slow, deliberate, and logical thinking, I not only improve my decision making process but also my understanding of human habits, patterns, and conflicts.

I’ve tried to apply the essence of this book not only in my professional life but also in my personal life, particularly in my current lifestyle.
I’m sure there are hundreds of thousands of people who are positively influenced by Kahneman’s seminal work.
If you want to improve your life by improving your decision making process on various aspects of life, especially long lasting strategic life movements like health, longevity, fulfillment, professional skills; please read it and apply it in your life.

In my experience, most of the time, we make mistakes by quick emotional decision making processes, and Kahneman teaches you the ways to improve on it.

We, humans, are actually nothing but the collection of our own thoughts which shape us to move forward or backward because they dictate our actions and behaviours

The other book that has had a huge impact in my lifestyle is Daniel Goleman’s ‘Emotional Intelligence’.
In nutshell, after reading this book, I learned and strengthened my emotions to motivate myself and in developing relationships around me.
I mean the quality relationships, the win-win relationships, the relationships that might go ten, twenty or thirty years from now in both ways.
Our relationship with our family and quality friends; our relationship with our foods and daily habits all will change gradually if we seriously follow what Goleman says in ‘Emotional Intelligence’.
Of course, we can be emotional because we are human but at the same time, we also can make better and sustained personal and professional progress.

There is another related concept of neuro linguistic programming, NLP, developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder which teaches us to understand the relationship between language, behaviour, and our own thoughts.
We, humans, are actually nothing but the collection of our own thoughts.
Everyday, our own thoughts shape us to move forward or backward because these thoughts dictate our actions and behaviours.

A lot of things that are glamorized by society aren’t actually worth listening they are just preinstalled human mentalities

Once in the past I’d thought, I’m not this kind of personality or that kind of personality.
I’d think I’m introvert but still I was asking questions to my advisor and line manager all the time.
I was compelled to present in front of people, almost always.
My colleagues who’d say they were extroverts but still hesitating to present in front of teams or colleagues.
I learned that saying is one thing but doing is completely different.
Our mindset gradually changes by doing not just by saying.

After reading the book ‘Mindset’ by Carol Dweck, PhD, I gradually learned how our mind works and how it changes over time.

Carol Dweck’s ‘Mindset’ is a generational book to read, and especially, for those who think they are having one kind of personality or another kind of personality or if you think that you are born with a particular set of genes in your body.

The fascinating thing about ‘Mindset’ is whatever others might think about our life and behaviours, our mindset is our own.
Only we can feel it, recognize it, taste it, and improve it, no question about it.
The best lesson of ‘Mindset’ is we can actively choose to take steps to develop and deploy a growth mindset over a fixed mindset all the time at all ages.

Tony Robbins, one of my inspirational figures and author of ‘Life Force’ often shares his own life experiences to indicate the power of mindset, how shifting his own perspective from a fixed to a growth mindset helped him overcome many obstacles and achieve his numerous goals.

In the past, I never completely understood the connection power between opportunity, skills, and people around me.
Everytime, I was blaming more on my capacity and incapable mind, I was fixated with my mindset.
No doubt, I’m still failing all the time but at the same time also developing my growth mindset internally.
In my view, a lot of things that are glamorized by society aren’t actually worth listening to at all. Society says you can do this but you can’t do that, you should be doing this when you grow up but not doing that because you are not capable of it.
Carol Dweck in ‘Mindset‘ teaches us that all of these preinstalled mentalities are BS.

A black swan is an unpredictable event or circumstance that is beyond our prediction like having a cancer but that could be obvious in hindsight

An amazing and key thing about our mindset is our mind is always a work in progress.
Our mind is run by neuroplasticity, it’s flexible, mobile, and always on the move.
Neuroplasticity means our brain reorganizes itself by forming new neural connections throughout our life based on what we think and do everyday.

I strongly recommend watching ‘Developing a growth mindset with Carol Dweck’ on YouTube.

Here is one example of how I used Daniel Kahneman’s slow and deliberate thinking mode in my life.
I used to eat a lot of roasted and salted nuts as a snack but I didn’t realize how the excess salt and preservatives were affecting my life.
I thought nuts are pretty good for our health without really understanding what I was eating.
The first time when I was reading Kahneman’s ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ , I still remember, it was 5 am Friday morning.
I was a little bit sick with a specific kind of disease, related to blood clot and intestinal microbiome, so basically I was taking Friday off from work.

By the way, I’m an early riser.
I naturally wake up early in the morning, typically before most other family members so that I can enjoy quiet time, focussed concentration, and a positive mindset.
Robin Sharma, the author of ‘The 5AM Club’ has popularized the ‘5 AM Rule’ that involves waking up at 5 AM to dedicate the early morning hours to personal health, growth, and productivity.

In the middle of the reading ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’, I said to myself, I’m not living just for today or tomorrow, I’m married, I’ve very young kids, and they need me.
I have to live a long healthy life, then what I have to do now.
I have to change myself, I have to be proactive about what I put in my mouth, and what I do throughout my day.
These all were the results of what I was reading about the effects of slow and rational thinking in Kahneman’s book ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’.
I don’t want to make my life a black swan or a gray rhino.

Michele Wucker, the author of ‘The Gray Rhino’ said, “A black swan event is completely unexpected but a gray rhino event is a more visible threat that is often ignored.”
My health problem at the time was a gray rhino event in my life.
I realized if I ignore or dismiss what my body is whispering to me, it would be too late to act.
I must be humble in my understanding of my body and physiology.

Remember, black swans and grey rhinos are our remainders of human understanding of our complex body as well as the complex world, whatever the situation may be.
We must be open, curious and humble in understanding of our complex body and many alarming diseases like neurodegenerative diseases and cancers.
We have seen and experienced the news that somebody is diagnosed with a cancer like pancreatic cancer and the person is gone in three months since we knew the person had cancer.
Is cancer for the person a black swan or gray rhino?

By the way, if you are not familiar with what black swan is, please read ‘The Black Swan’ by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
A black swan is an unpredictable event or circumstance that is beyond what we generally predict which has potentially severe consequences in our lives.
These events are characterized by extreme rarity and severe impact, but they were obvious in hindsight.

Without a change in our food habits, there would be no change in our gut ecosystem, an increase in dietary fiber intake is a sure path towards healthy life and longevity

After reading these many books, I changed myself, and I’m still trying to shape these habits.
I’m changing my mind and mindset everyday.
Even though it was a little expensive to buy raw and premium quality nuts, I started eating them regularly instead of salted roasted nuts with preservatives.

My health issue was improving gradually with my food habit which was related to blood clotting and intestinal microbiome.

In the rest of the content, I’m going to share the advantages of key foods associated with microbiomes.

Research says that the king of nuts probably is walnuts.
Walnuts have the highest antioxidants and omega-3 levels.
They are the only nuts known to significantly improve artery function in our body.
They beat out other nuts in suppressing cancer growth in vitro.

Harvard Nurses’ Health study reports that among many nuts only walnuts are significantly associated with healthy aging.
Walnuts are extremely good ingredients for our microbiome in the gut.

Could you imagine how big our intestines are?
The total folds of our intestinal lining means its total surface area is about half the size of a badminton court.

Interepithelial lymphocytes are a special type of white blood cells, part of our immune system.
These cells perform two main functions; they serve as our gut’s first line of defense against pathogens and repair thin intestinal lining.
The Ah receptors cover these lymphocyte cells and activate the cells.
The amazing thing is that these receptors are upregulated in centenarians, who live one hundred and more years, and obviously their loss leads to premature aging.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, science communicator and author of ‘Astrophysics for People in a Hurry’
said, “More bacteria live and work in one linear centimeter of our lower colon than all the humans who have ever lived.”
Remember, prebiotics are things which we feed these good bacteria.
Probiotics are good bacteria themselves.
Postbiotics are things these bacteria make.

Our transition from adulthood into old age is accompanied by huge changes to the microbiome present in our body.

The 2005 Nobel prize in medicine was awarded to Barry Marshall and J. Robin Warren for their discovery of Helicobacter pylori.
This discovery fundamentally changed our understanding of the stomach and the power of the microbiome to colonize and impact health in the gastrointestinal tract.
This clearly indicates the broader need to pave the way for deeper understanding of the gut microbiome and how they affect our health and longevity.

Dr. Erika Ebbel Angle, PhD, discusses why the gut microbiome is the most important organ you’ve probably never heard of.
The gut is the second brain, and gut health affects your overall health.
Dr. Angle’s TedTalk ‘Your Gut Microbiome’ is worth watching.

There is always a shift in microbiome as we become older.
For example, a shift from the fermentation of fiber to the putrefaction of protein leads to gut leakiness.
It is the spillage of bacterial toxins into our bloodstream if we are not aware how to grow the good bugs in our gut.
Putrefaction becomes common when the gut has a low availability of fermentable carbohydrates like fiber or resistant starch.

What these good bacteria love is fiber in our daily food.
Without a change in our food habits, there would be no change in our gut ecosystem, the probiotics that we take don’t make any root in our gut permanently.
An increase in dietary fiber intake is a sure path towards healthy life and longevity.

One toxic postbiotic produced by bad bugs is TMAO, TriMethylAmine Oxide, grown by eating wrong foods, is linked to a high risk of heart attack and stroke

Fiber rich foods have two major advantages.
Firstly, they produce short chain fatty acids, SCFA, which enter in our bloodstream and work for the whole body.
Secondly, they selectively cultivate the good bugs in our gut to make these short chain fatty acids available all the time.
FDA recommends at least 25g fiber a day for women and 38g a day for men, but only three percent Americans actually meet the minimum requirements.

What is interesting is that researchers found tons of short chain fatty acids like butyrate or acetate from fiber fermentation from centenarian’s poop in their study.
This clearly indicates the fiber’s importance for longevity.
Bifidobacteria, Akkermansia, Lactobacillus are good health boosting bacteria, all accelerate our lifespans.

Michael Greger, MD, the author of ‘How Not to Age’ says “To stop leaky gut caused by bad bugs’ growth, we have to stop drinking alcohol and avoid NSAIDs like aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen.
These NSAIDs cause gastrointestinal lining damage in less than five minutes.
Eating cooked lentils everyday helps to stop leaky gut because of the zinc present in it.”

The bottom line is prebiotics like fiber and resistant starch feed our probiotics like Lactobacillus, Bifidobacteria, and Akkermansia to make beneficial postbiotics like butyrate and acetate.

Foods like legumes have resistant starch which cannot be digested by our small intestine and end up in the colon.
Good bugs like Ruminococcus like it and fosters the good bug ecosystem.

Author of ‘The Good Gut’ Justin Sonnenburg, PhD, said, “Humans are really composite organisms with microbial and human parts. But now, because of changes in diets, antibiotic over use, and over sterilization, our gut microbiota is facing a mass extinction which may explain the increase in some of our most troubling things, from food allergies to autism, cancer to depression.”

As a result of the extinction of good bugs, one toxic postbiotic by bad bugs is TMAO, TriMethylAmine Oxide.
It is produced by bad bugs grown by eating wrong foods.
Research shows that having a high level of TMAO is linked to a high risk of having a heart attack and stroke.

TMAO accelerates atherosclerosis by speeding the accumulation of cholesterol and inflammatory cells within artery walls.
TMAO makes our blood clotting platelets thicker and stickier resulting in high risk of blood clotting.
TMAO also creates oxidative stress so antioxidants like vitamin C and other polyphenols are very helpful to curb it.
TMAO is produced by bad bugs in our gut when we eat high choline foods like eggs and high carnitine foods like meat and energy drinks.

The best option to remove TMAO in the first place is, don’t grow bad bugs by feeding wrong foods.
One endocrinology journal article says TMAO is not ‘TriMethylAmine Oxide’ but ‘Time to Minimize intake of Animal prOducts’.

If we avoid processed meat like ham, bacon, salami, hot dogs, and sausages, our body does not make carcinogenic nitrosamines and nitrosamides because these animal products convert nitrates and nitrites into cancer causing nitrosamines and nitrosamides

Broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables boost our immunity against many pathogens, pollutants especially dioxins.
Cruciferous compounds block these harmful things.
Broccoli not only reduces inflammation level in our body but also helps to clear carcinogenic pollutants like benzene from our body.

Similarly, the power of nitrate containing food sources can not be ignored.
Nitrates improve the efficiency of our mitochondria, the power house of cells.
Research reports that a single shot of beet juice enables swimmers and free divers to hold their breath for 30 seconds longer than usual.
This is the power of nitrate vegetables.

According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, if we avoid processed meat especially ham, bacon, salami, hot dogs, and sausages, our body does not make nitrosamines and nitrosamides, they both are carcinogenic.
These animal products convert nitrates and nitrites which are very good to combat artery aging and muscle aging into cancer causing carcinogens.

Conclusion

Remember, what tackles carcinogens is antioxidants because antioxidants prevent free radical damage.
Which food has the highest amount of antioxidants?
The levels of antioxidants are different in different foods.

For example, one apple has 60 units of antioxidants.
One banana has 40 units of antioxidants.
Look at the berries per cup, they are so rich in antioxidants.
Strawberries have 310 units of antioxidants.
Likewise, blueberries have 380 units.
Raspberries have 430 units, cranberries have 490 units, and blackberries have 680 units antioxidants.
Berries are best to tackle oxidative stress in the body and fight for carcinogens.

In my research I also found that there are some amazing all rounder fruits for our body for healthy living.
For example, amla is so powerful that it reduces triglycerides, improves blood fluidity, reduces oxidative DNA damage, and systemic inflammation.
It also improves blood sugar control in diabetes, and may decrease the effects of heart stress.

Check Amla Benefits in NutritionFacts.org.

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.”

As I start writing on health and lifestyle, I always trust my instinct based on my own life experiences.
I trust more on what I feel before what I think.
I generally make clear momentum with my feelings because it is my internal force and nothing beats it.
Nowadays, my inner awareness always encourages my discipline so I must be aware of what I’m writing or trying to write.
After reaching this point in life, I don’t believe in who I was yesterday and who I am now, but I do believe in who I can become and help others in the long run.
I’m pretty sure this applies to everyone.

Wherever I’m in my life now, I think back a few years and compare who I’m now with who I was then.
I see many differences, especially the way of living and thinking about my own life.
What brings me joy now that wasn’t my priority before?
Looking back, I went through many different phases in my life, many ups and downs, though they didn’t feel much different at the time.
I remember I was always motivated by worry about money, desire for many material things, and a need to impress people around me.
The balance and significance of these things has changed drastically over time.

Exploration of inner talent requires time, thinking, flexibility, and self reflection

Certainly, for the long run in our lives, we need to measure things everywhere especially in our health and longevity.
As Peter Drucker, the author of ‘Effective Executive’ said, “What gets measured gets managed.”
In ‘Effective Executive’ Drucker said, knowing where and how to mobilize our strength for best effect with right priorities help to grow an organization.
In reality, this book is not only for organization, principles are also equally important for healthy living and healthy aging, if we apply thoughtfully.

At present, my notion of aging, engagement, passion, and retirement is changing continuously. My relationship with my passionate work is evolving everyday.
I’m sure, we all agree, if we become healthy with a vibrant mind and body, passion evolves everyday in a new form.
But if we fall sick, everything stops in life.

One of my passions now is to write and communicate things that matter in life.
Recently, I read a book called ‘The Algebra of Wealth’.
Scott Galloway, the author of ‘The Algebra of Wealth’ said, “Don’t follow your passion, follow your talent.”
What makes every one of us unique is our inner talent whether we know it or not.
But, the exploration of inner talent requires time, thinking, flexibility, and self reflection.
In the long run, in many circumstances, talent also appears as a passion.

A healthy lifestyle with a healthy body and mind leads to graceful aging

In the section on diversification of ‘The Algebra of Wealth’, Scott talks about working in any place in adult life as an active investment of our life.
Once we become old, the active part must be replaced by something else on which we have invested over the years.
As Scott says, personal growth is a part of our stoicism, career grind is a part of our focus, discipline is a part of our time management, and finally investing is a part of our retirement.
In the final stage of life, we call retirement, someone else is doing the real work and we sit back and enjoy the fruits of the labor.
The crux is, to enjoy the fruits at retirement, we must invest during time of active working years.

‘The Algebra of Wealth’ is a fascinating book to read, learn, and understand our life as a complete picture.

Our educational degree only focuses on what we can make and use, not who we are at the core and capable of doing.
This is based on my PhD title that I’m holding almost over a decade now.
My only curiosity was how do you find passion when you pass 40, you are married, and you are raising kids?
It is possible by developing a habit of self reflection each day for a few minutes that helps to pave the way forward, in my experience.

In my view, success in today’s world, overall, is communication and building relationships.
Whether you accept it or not, communication is salesmanship across different segments of humanity.
I’m writing and sharing my knowledge and experiences, it is a form of communication.
I’m trying to show my salesmanship.

One of my passions now is making people aware about the importance of their health and lifestyle during early years of their lives.
A healthy lifestyle with a healthy body and mind leads to graceful aging.

Struggling to remember and write our own children’s names in our late 40s directs to be proactive to find out about genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s

Recently, I met one of my old friends whose family is suffering now.
My dear friend’s conditions encouraged me to write this content.
I have watched the heart-wrenching journey of my dear friend’s father’s Alzheimer’s disease and how it had affected his family.
He did not want the same thing to happen in his family.

“After my father passed away from Alzheimer’s I began noticing my memory was slipping, even though I was only in my late 40’s,” said Naren.

At first he noticed that he was simply struggling to find the right word or name in conversation.
But then his memory became progressively worse.
He started to forget the name of his daughter frequently.

After knowing my friend’s family story, I recalled my own father who is 92 now.
He also finds it difficult to find words during conversation.
Most of his memory is gone now.
He speaks very little because words don’t come smoothly in his mouth.
My father is not diagnosed with Alzheimer’s formally yet or maybe we don’t know yet, but symptoms are moving in that direction.

At age 92, many things happen in our body.
Nerves transmit signals very slowly.
Maximal pulse rate declines.
Immune cells decrease in number as well as their effectiveness also declines dramatically.
Skin cells lose their elasticity.
All joints become less flexible.
All bones become less dense and more brittle.
This picture, seeing my father’s transformation, shows that aging is complex and invites a gradual decline in many physiological functions.
But, eventually, all we want is dignified aging, graceful aging.

When we find ourselves struggling to remember and write our own children’s names in our late 40s, we must be proactive and find out if we were genetically predisposed to getting Alzheimer’s disease.

Butyrate is a good bacteria byproduct of the gut fermentation as a result of eating fiber and other prebiotics that increases BDNF

In Alzheimer’s brain, there is destruction of nerve cells that use a neurotransmitter, acetylcholine that communicates with one another.
People with Alzheimer’s lose NMDA, N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors.
Remember, amyloid plaques in our brain can start forming as early as our late thirties in our lives.
We must be very alert for our health and longevity.

The reality is Alzheimer’s disease is incurable but preventable by diet and lifestyle changes.

To prevent Alzheimer’s with diet, we have to reduce foods with added sugars and salt, we have to reduce saturated fat, animal products, and processed foods.

Research shows that people with a total cholesterol of 225 mg/dL or higher have 25 times higher chance of amyloid plaques in their brain 10 to 15 years later.
Because, amyloid fibres cluster around tiny crystals of cholesterol.
They hang out together happily.
So, controlling cholesterol is key to minimizing Alzheimer’s.

One concept we have to develop is that brain health also equals heart health.
For both brain and heart health, vegetables, legumes especially beans, peas, and lentils, fruits, and whole grains should replace meat and dairy products.

Neurotrophins are growth factors that promote the development, function, and survival of neurons, the nerve cells in our brain.
The most abundant neurotrophin is BDNF, brain derived neurotrophic factor.
High BDNF blood level lowers the risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

Michael Greger, the author of ‘How Not to Age’ said, “Regular physical exercise boosts BDNF.
For example, just 15 minutes cycling or running can significantly elevate BDNF levels in our body.”
Dr. Michael Greger, MD, founder of NutritionFacts.org, further adds, “A good plant based diet could regulate every one of the most promising strategies for combating the effects of aging and chronic diseases like Alzheimer’s.”

For example, the food rye groats boost BDNF in our blood.
Butyrate is a good bacteria by-product of the gut fermentation as a result of eating fiber and other prebiotics and it also increases BDNF.
Know it, the vagus nerve goes directly from our gut straight up into the brain.
Animal rich diets increase pro-inflammatory species in the gut but plant rich diets increase anti-inflammatory microbiome.

The sulforaphane of cruciferous vegetables has neuroprotective effects from arsenic to carbon monoxide to pesticides

Low levels of vitamin D leads to poorer cognition over time and a high chance of developing dementia.

Homocysteine is a toxic metabolite naturally formed in the body.
It is a degraded product of methionine, an amino acid that mostly comes in our body from animal protein.
If we eat bacon and eggs for breakfast and steak for dinner, homocysteine levels spike in the blood.
This can be detoxified using three vitamins: folate, vitamin B12, and vitamin B6.
The deficiency of vitamin B causes brain dysfunction.
Vitamin B12, B6, and folate all are crucial for brain health.

Berries are best for brain health due to polyphenols called anthocyanins which are red, blue, and purple pigments capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier and settle in the brain regions of learning and memory.

As we become older, our brain slowly atrophy.
At age 90 and older, the brain weighs 10 percent less than at age 50.

Most elderly people have homocysteine level 11 micro mol/L is due to folate deficiency.
Remember, folate is found mostly in beans and greens, and more than 95 percent of Americans don’t eat a minimum amount of beans and greens.
The fact is folic acid is not folate, the best way to get enough folate is from food sources.

One more point, every one gram of daily fiber intake might increase 2 percent folate increase in blood.
This is due to folate production in the colon by the happy gut microbiome.

Green leafies are good for cognitive function but cruciferous vegetables are even better.
The sulforaphane component of cruciferous vegetables shows a broad range of neuroprotective effects from arsenic to carbon monoxide to pesticides.

Garlic, ginger, and black cumin seeds are very good brain boosting spices.

Walnuts and flaxseeds are major sources of long chain omega-3s DHA and EPA.
Non fish eaters can take 250 mg of a mix of pollutant free, algae derived, EPA/DHA.
The essential one is ALA, the plant based, short chain omega-3, because DHA and EPA can be made from it.
Non fish eaters can take 100 to 300 mg of DHA in a day.

There is a literature of case study of mercury poisoning by eating contaminated fish where the patient has Alzheimer’s.
But after stopping eating mercury contaminated swordfish, he became normal with no Alzheimer’s.

A lot of fish and fish oil products have heavy metals like mercury, cadmium, and lead, organochlorines, polychlorinated biphenyls, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
We should be very careful while consuming these fish and fish products.

Lisa Genova, neuroscientist and author of ‘Remember’ explains how our memory works, why we forget and how to keep our brain in great shape in her TedTalk ‘What You Can Do to Prevent Alzheimer’s’.

Conclusion

On average, daily, we replace about 330 billion cells in our body, which is about 1 percent of our total cells.
The biggest factor of getting older and catching disease is the slowing down of our cell’s turnover rate that also leads to faster aging.

These are some key habits for minimizing Alzheimer’s chance as well as dignified healthy aging.
Regular exercise is required in age 40 to 60, and to avoid fat weight we have to choose better plant based foods.
Absolutely no alcohol drinking.
No smoking at all.
Staying active mentally with our passionate work and having a social life is a prerequisite.
We have to keep a positive mental outlook and a good attitude towards life so that we can keep living well for a lot longer.
Mental stress affects cellular aging so we have to learn to remain calm and relaxed.
Controlling body inflammation by eating anti-inflammatory foods is essential because inflammation contributes to heart disease, insulin resistance, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

Most importantly, we have to be proactive about our health from the very beginning especially when we enter age 40.

Our biological age or how our body is working is more important to a long healthy life than our actual age in years.

The significance of living a fulfilling healthy life at any age is reflected in this popular quote: “Don’t just count your years, make your years count.”

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.”

Nowadays, my writing passion on health and lifestyle has increased.
I realized that crappy life sucks joy and energy from our life but passionate work provides meaning and creates energy.

Life is too short to not do something that each one of us loves, I love to read, write and think about my passionate things at 5 am in the morning, if I’m awake.
In a normal setting, I sleep between 9 to 10 pm everyday so 5 am is not a big deal for me.

My learning over the years is, the more time I dedicate to my passionate work, the more I am getting back tangibly as well as intangibly.
I feel vibrant and amazing.
Most of all, I feel full satisfaction from my actions.
The universe rewards us for helping others especially in knowledge transfer work in profound and immeasurable ways at some point.
This is my core belief.

I also feel more freedom and happiness when I do my passionate work, my belief is that freedom comes from limits and not from unlimited choices.
My limit is my rituals and routines in life.
My website www.yamtimsina.com has more than hundred articles now, all are results of rituals and routines of my life.
I’m a big fan of Jocko Willink, retired Navy SEAL and author of ‘Discipline Equals Freedom.’
Willink said, “The keys to becoming stronger, smarter, faster, and healthier, we need to achieve true freedom, and the way to go is discipline.”

One of my areas of passion is, obviously, a healthy lifestyle with a healthy diet because millions of people are dying from lifestyle diseases.
My mission is to help them, if possible.
Many many years ago, I was also suffering from a wrong lifestyle and diet that initiated a disease but eventually I crushed it simply by improving my habits.

Fibers bind with estrogen and cholesterol and flush them out during fecal excretions otherwise they are reabsorbed into our bloodstream

Over the years, I developed a fiber eating habit and that tremendously helped my overall health.
Here is one science fact about how fiber foods take care of our body.

Around 50 billion cells die each day in our body and about the same are born at the same time.
As we mature with time, our cells don’t grow in size, only in number.
We have around 40 trillion cells in our body, around 4 times more than when we were a child.

To regulate these cell growth, IGF-1, a hormone, a chemical signal, is responsible.
Our brain’s pituitary gland maintains and organizes IGF-1 production in our body.
If this IGF-1 is higher in our bloodstream, it’s not good because it means more risk for developing some cancers like breast, colorectal, and prostate.

The fact is, IGF-1 doesn’t just make tumors and kill us, it is because of its metastases.
IGF-1 separates cancer cells, infiltrates surrounding tissues and goes into the bloodstream throughout our body.
It is involved in all biochemical processes to turn normal cells into cancer cells and creates a bigger problem.

So the key is we have to lower the IGF-1, by lowering it, we have a double advantage, decreasing cancer risk and increasing longevity.

Many existing foods of animal origin contain sex steroid hormones like estrogen.
For example, nowadays, genetically modified dairy cows are milked throughout their pregnancy periods when their reproductive hormones are very high.
The hormones in dairy products and other growth factors could stimulate the growth of hormone sensitive tumors.

Remember, dairy milk increases the risk of breast cancers because of estrogen levels in dairy milk and the IGF-1 in the milk.
As a substitute, soymilk is the best choice to replace dairy milk in our diet because soy milk reduces the risk of breast and prostate cancers.
It improves gut health and decreases inflammation and free radical DNA damage.
It can improve insulin resistance and lowers LDL cholesterol.
Soymilk or soy products also prevent hair loss when we age.

For the same reasons, cow’s milk also stimulates the growth of human prostate cancer cells.
But, as a substitute, almond milk suppresses the growth of cancer cells.
People suffering from prostate cancers become worse if they eat animal products like chicken and turkey regularly.

Over the last many years, one habit I developed is I eat a lot of fibers everyday.
I eat whole grains, oats, flax and chia seeds, nuts, beans, and fruits all the time.
I check all the time the total amount of carbohydrate and fiber reported in the food label.
If the ratio of carbohydrate to fiber in grams is more than 5, I’m not interested, I need less than 5.

Keep in mind, the importance of fiber is immense.
Among many benefits, one is that our body removes excess estrogen and excess cholesterol by throwing them into the digestive tract.
If we eat enough fiber then they take those estrogen and cholesterol and flush them out.
If there is no excess fiber then these excess hormones and cholesterol are reabsorbed into the bloodstream.
This is bad for us so we have to eat a lot of fiber to remove excess hormones and cholesterol to excrete out.
Remember, by eating more plant based fiber food, we produce more fecal excretions so that we remove more estrogens out of the body.

I recommend to watch ‘How Fiber Lowers Cholesterol’ in NutritionFacts.org, from Michael Greger, MD, the author of ‘How Not to Die.’

Research also shows that ground flaxseeds and soy products are very effective for menopausal problems, the reason they are good is because flaxseed contains phytoestrogens.
They are nothing but lignans and omega-3s.
Soys contains soy isoflavones and soy phytoestrogens that help in menopause problems.

Lower the rate of glycation, lower the glycation products formation, and less chance of having lifestyle diseases and the longer we can live healthy

Do you know why Okinawan in Japan and Adventists in Loma, Linda, California live so long?
Read the book ‘Blue Zones’ by Dan Buettner to know the secrets for living longer from the people who’ve lived the longest from the blue zones.

One fact is they treat our human body as a temple, the belief developed by adventists in Loma Linda, California, the only blue zone in the USA.

One research reports that Okinawan people in Japan live long due to sweet potatoes which they eat regularly.
Remember, purple and orange sweet potatoes are the best of the best foods.
Purple sweet potatoes are miracles for healthy living.
They reduce inflammation, amplify autophagy, delay senescence in human blood vessel cells, and activate sirtuin activity by boosting levels of NAD+.

I’ve also developed a habit of eating sweet potatoes regularly.

Michael Greger, MD, author of ‘How Not to Age’ said “there are evidence-based strategies to combat aging through diet and lifestyle, exploring many cellular pathways and natural compounds found in foods like sweet potatoes that can promote longevity and wellness.”

Purple sweet potato anthocyanins have prebiotic effects, they enhance the proliferation of the good bacteria in our gut, Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus.

Remember, we have bacteria in our body, not only in our gut, we have bacteria in our blood and brain too.
Our brain has its own microbiome.
Our body has more bacterial genes than our own human genes.

Steven Gundry, MD, author of ‘Gut-Brain Paradox’ said, “We are beginning to see how the gut of the bad microbiome is becoming the real root of neuroinflammation, which is the real cause of neurodegeneration and many common mental health and cognitive issues.”
‘Gut-Brain Paradox’ is a fantastic read to know how the gut microbiome and brain communicate.
This relationship also emphasizes why we need to eat more orange and purple sweet potatoes.

To live longer like Okinawan in Japan,

-Eat more soy or soy products like soymilk.
-Eat sweet potatoes.
-Eat seaweed.
-Eat mushrooms and tempeh, a fungi fermented soybean cake. They are good sources of ergothioneine, a longevity vitamin, and a potent intramitochondrial antioxidant. Porcini mushrooms the best, followed by oyster and shiitake in terms of ergothioneine content.
-Eat garlic, ginger, and turmeric every day in some way.

Modern medicines can do a good job for broken bones, damaged muscles, and different chronic infections but not for lifestyle diseases.
In many of the lifestyle diseases, they do more harm than good.

Let’s take an example of diabetes and its relation to the present lifestyle of roasted hot dogs and chicken.
If we are diabetic, we do HbA1c testing which measures blood sugar level.
This gives our average blood sugar levels over the past two to three months.
This blood test indicates the percentage of hemoglobin in our blood that has undergone glycation in our body.
Simply to understand, glycation is a chemical reaction between sugar that we eat and protein like hemoglobin in our blood.

Remember, hemoglobin protein is in our red blood cells that carries oxygen.
When the blood sugar is higher, the more protein undergoes glycation reaction, the general chemistry principle.
Red blood cells can last about 3 months so the HbA1c gives us a rolling average over this period.

If 6.5 percent or higher amount of hemoglobin in the blood is under glycation, we are diabetic.
If we have 5.7 to 6.4, we are prediabetic.
If less than 5.7, we are normal.
Hemoglobin’s half life is low around 50 days so in around 50 days half of the hemoglobin gets renewed in our body.

Our general concept is if our HbA1c is under 5.7 we are good.
But what if this glycation reaction happens for other proteins than hemoglobin?
If these other proteins have a higher half life, then we suffer from high blood pressure, artery disease, heart disease, cancers, and many others.

Remember, In many cases, when glycation reactions happen in proteins, they cross link together with many others and stiffen our tissues.

Just think about the stiffness of your breast tissue, what do you suspect?
There is risk for breast cancer.
When these glycation products accumulate in our bones, joints, muscles, we bring a lot of problems like osteoporosis, arthritis, cataracts, Alzheimer’s disease, erectile dysfunction, and many other related diseases.

The bottom line is: lower the rate of glycation, lower the glycation products formation, the longer we can live healthy.
Minimize or avoid roasted, fried, broiled foods especially meat items because in these foods we ingest more glycation products.
These foods we make at high temperature, and glycation products are formed faster at higher temperatures than normal body temperature.

Over the last many years, I have significantly reduced ,minimized or avoided roasted, fried, broiled foods especially meat in my daily life.

Muscles undergo breakdown in old age to maintain our body’s pH, this breakdown prevention is possible by making a lifestyle with more alkaline foods like legumes, beans, fruits, and vegetables

Black tea is a unique beverage for our healthy living.
It is not only an anti-inflammatory beverage but also an antioxidant booster with tons of polyphenols including theaflavins, thearubigins, flavonoids, caffeine, and L-theanine.
Research shows that black tea improves arterial function within hours of ingestion as well as it increases attention and alertness.

But adding milk to black tea can completely remove the positive effects of tea on artery function.
Casein, a milk protein, binds the polyphenols of tea and prevents their absorption in our body.
If possible the substitute is soy milk, interestingly, soymilk doesn’t show the same irreversible binding.
Recent research also indicates the power of synergy between soy and tea, this combination decreased the tumor load of human prostate cancer implants in mice.

I recommend to watch ‘Tea and Artery Function’ in NutritionFacts.org, from Michael Greger, MD, the author of ‘How Not to Diet.’

Milk also does the same thing while making strawberry smoothies.
Strawberries blend with water spike strawberry anthocyanins in our bloodstream, it’s good for our health.
But the blend in milk reduces half of the anthocyanins in our bloodstream.
Anthocyanins are polyphenols which are best for our brain, they are capable to cross the blood brain barrier and settle in the brain regions of learning and memory.
Berries are best to slow the rate of cognitive decline as we become older.

When we become older, our kidney’s power to excrete acid goes down.
To neutralize this acid, our kidneys produce a lot of ammonia from glutamine, an amino acid pulling from our healthy muscles.
When acid level in our body goes up, our adrenal glands also produce stress hormone cortisol.
This hormone also degrades our muscle protein to produce the same glutamine.

What it all means, the muscle undergoes breakdown in old age to maintain our body’s pH which is acid base balance.
If this acid base balance is broken by shifting towards a more acid generating diet, there could be a lot of negative consequences in old age: osteoporosis, diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney stones, depression, anxiety, gout, and kidney failure.
What is the sustainable solution for us?
We have to try to make a lifestyle with more alkaline foods.
All legumes, beans, fruits, and vegetables are alkaline foods.
Most meats including fish, poultry, and dairy are acidic foods, we have to minimize or avoid them gradually.

Obesity is another challenge of modern lifestyle catalyzed by binge watching and processed foods.
Obesity is associated with accelerated cellular aging which is measured by telomere shortening.
This all happens due to oxidative stress and systemic inflammation that accompany excess body fat in our body.
Undoubtedly, the best weight loss diet is a whole food, plant based diet.

Remember, a ketogenic diet is a high fat diet, but a whole food plant based diet is a low fat diet.

One simple example to see the difference between unsaturated and saturated fat in our life.
Oleic acid, a primary monounsaturated fat in nuts, avocados, and olives is burnt 20 percent more readily than palmitic acid.
Palmitic acid is found mainly in meat and dairy, and is a saturated fat.
Reduction of foods with saturated fat is key to control obesity.

Chili pepper and ground ginger as a ginger tea activate BAT, brown adipose tissue, for weight loss.
BAT generates heat by consuming fat calories.
This helps to maintain BMI, body mass index.
BMI from 20 to 24 is ideal for the longest healthy lifespan.

Another habit that I’ve developed over the years is 7 to 8 hours of deep sleep.
Remember, we don’t have control of this precious life in many ways, our birth we didn’t have control.
Likewise, thinking of our death, we have no way of knowing how it is going to happen.
And as we all know, in between birth and death, there is life.
We have work, family, and many others to manage but, keep in mind, these all are possible, only if this machine functions properly.

Calm down and make a habit of sleeping 7 to 8 hours stress-free everyday, it needs practice to make a habit.
The reward of 7 to 8 hours of deep sleep is enormous.
Seven to eight hours sleep is a sweet sleep spot, less and more of this range are not good for various reasons.
Sleep enhances immune defenses in our body.
Fewer than six hours of sleep end up with significantly fewer protective antibodies in our bloodstream.

If we sleep only 5 hours for a week, our testosterone level will drop by 10 to 15 percent.
Sleeping pills to achieve this sweet spot of 7 to 8 hours don’t work scientifically.

Fenugreek seed can increase the testicular weight and testosterone production.
It also improves sex drive and arousal along with LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood sugar control.

Conclusion

These are some extra healthy habits I developed over the years, these are not only science based research facts but also my own personal experiences.

I made a habit of eating almonds and prunes.
If you think you have weaker bones, almonds prevent bone loss and prunes help to build bones so the combination of both is good for overall bone health.

I made a habit of eating mangoes regularly.
Mango has become one of my favourite fruits recently.
Mangoes are excellent to avoid constipation.
Remember, constipation is a common problem as we age and it is an invitation to more serious health problems later in life.
Mango has an anti-inflammatory effect, it helps to drop blood IL-6 levels.
It has a prebiotic effect, increasing the abundance of Lactobacillus, the good bacteria in our gut.

I made a habit of taking cranberry and its powder form to remove the problem of BPH and overactive bladder that helps to reduce trips to the bathroom.
Plant based foods especially with onion, garlic, and tomatoes are good for lowering BPH.
In my family, there is a BPH problem, so I’m taking these precautions very carefully, and it is working.
I’m also reducing evening protein consumption which produces urea and leads to nocturia.

I generally eat a lot of legumes, beans, soy milk and soy products, ground flaxseed and pumpkin seeds regularly.

I try to make a habit to reduce my salt intake everyday.

I eat berries, onions, and green tea regularly to increase circulating endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs).
Remember, decreased EPCs means a high risk of cardiovascular diseases as we age.

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.”

My life is a little bit different now than many past years.
I have made three circles in my life, these are somehow overlapping: the circle of passion, the circle of experience, and the circle of skill.
My circle of passion revolves around my health, lifestyle, diet, financial independence, and knowledge transfer.
My circle of experience revolves around science, chemistry and biochemistry, medicine, and body physiology.
My circle of skill is synthesis and characterization of API, active pharmaceutical ingredients, simply put as making and characterizing medicines.
At the moment, I am living in a small overlapped region of all these big three circles, but my overlapped region is really small now.

To be honest, what I experienced over the years is living in a small overlapped region is not the problem but the expansion of that overlapped region is really challenging.
This expansion means we need to know how to be a generalist after spending some time as a specialist.

The CEO of any company or any head of the government on the planet is not a specialist, he or she is a generalist

We humans are trained to be specialists, not generalists from evolution.
Our education system and society doesn’t support being a generalist, that’s a kind of society’s tag as jack of all but master of none.
Now, in this technological age of AI, specialists might have a hard time to cope in the looming future if we are only thinking linearly in a field of our specialization.

A lot of my core specialists friends are moving in many different directions very quickly to preserve their professions by sacrificing their family time and health.
They are no longer in their twenties and thirties anymore, most of them are in their forties now.
What I realized is they are still unaware or they are still not trying to understand how our life works, what to sacrifice and what not to.
We cannot sacrifice our health for something else. Period.
Why ‘period’?
If you want to know, read Steve Jobs’s biography when he was waiting death on bed from pancreatic cancer as a multi billionaire.

Most of my friends have PhDs, MDs, and MBAs but are unaware why they look so old and overweight so early, and why they already have at least some kind of disease.
Most of them have just passed halfway through life if everything remains normal, and many are on some kind of regular medication.

I might be wrong, this is just my study from my own experiences, my study says we are not learning how to be generalists, which by the way society also doesn’t teach us.
It completely depends on our personal decision.

Just one example.
The CEO of any company or any head of the government across the globe is not a specialist, he or she is a generalist.
He or she learns a lot of general principles of life to reach the top position.
In the end, he or she hires specialists to run their organization or the country, if needed.
This is the rule of success.

If you eat purple or orange mashed sweet potatoes with cloves and cinnamon, you will get more antioxidants to curb free radicals than a normal American diet in a week

I sometimes wonder why it’s so hard to be a generalist.
Because very few of us are able to connect dots in life and most importantly, very few of us are good at pattern recognition of the evolving society.

To excel in all of these things and especially to be a good generalist after being a specialist for some time, we need to be healthy and young for a very long period of time.
What is an option for us, be healthy first.
Know how our body works, and how to preserve this body without rust and corrosion.

We need to acquire some minimum knowledge about our body, health, diet, body’s biochemistry and physiology, and most importantly, act on it, apply it seriously in daily use.
Take action, not just read and forget.
In my view, these are basic principles to be a good generalist in life.

For example, I don’t want to age too fast and too quickly biologically, but the chronological number as our age is not under our control, it keeps increasing every year.
I don’t want to take any medicines lightly until and unless I really need to, because there is a heavy price I have to pay from the side effects of it later in life.

Research is showing that a lot of older age diseases like Alzheimer’s, dementia, heart disease are due to continuous medication side effects accumulated over a long period of time.

Remember, faster aging invites quicker death triggered by many different diseases.

Let’s see what aging is and how to slow it down.

Aging is an oxidation of our body like rusting of a metal bar.

As we become older, we have wrinkles, brown spots, and also we become more forgetful.
These all happen because of oxidative stress in our body.
Oxidative stress happens due to illness, smoking, pollution, wrong diet, lack of exercise, and sleep deprivation.
Mainly, oxidative stress means the presence of excess free radicals in our body, which are the culprits of fast aging.

The imbalance between free radicals and inadequate antioxidant defense in our body initiates oxidative stress.
This gives cellular damage and consequently accelerates aging.

There are different ways to prevent aging.
One way to reduce aging is by lowering mitochondrial free radical production.
This can be done by regular exercise and dietary switching like more plant based foods instead of animal products and meat.

Always remember the power of a plant based diet to lower free radical production.
For example, if you eat purple or orange mashed sweet potatoes with cloves and cinnamon powder as a spice, you will get more antioxidants to curb free radicals than a normal American diet in a week.

Curbing faster aging means avoid pro-inflammatory foods like saturated fat, endotoxins, NEU5GC, and sodium by minimizing intake of meat, dairy, oils, and salt

The fact is, all anti-inflammatory foods are anti-aging foods.
If you want to be young biologically, eat plenty of anti-inflammatory foods: legumes, berries, greens, tomato juice and paste, oats, flaxseeds, sesame seeds, purple fleshed potatoes, purple and orange sweet potatoes, shiitake mushrooms, turmeric, ginger and ginger powder, garlic and garlic powder, cloves, rosemary, cinnamon especially ceylon, cocoa powder, dill, green and chamomile tea, fibers, anthocyanins, and salicylic acid rich foods like black cumin seeds.

Remember, ground cumin seeds are the most salicylic acid containing natural food to substitute over the counter aspirin.

Berries, brightly colored pigments with anthocyanins, are purely anti-inflammatory.

Just keep in mind, the number one killer in the United States and on the planet is a bad diet and it is also the main cause of faster aging.

Michael Greger, MD, founder of NutritionFacts.org and author of ‘How Not to Diet’ and ‘How Not to Age’ said, “In the dietary inflammatory index, the spice turmeric is the single most anti-inflammatory food we need. Ginger, garlic, and tea are also very anti-inflammatory.”

Foods rich in fiber and flavones are also anti-inflammatory.
Flavones are in fruits, herbs, and vegetables like apples, oranges, parsley, celery, and bell peppers.
Chamomile tea is the most flavone-filled beverage.

Research shows that those who eat more fiber rich foods, they live longer.
Dietary fiber is in plant foods like whole grains and legumes like chickpeas, beans, lentils, and split peas.

Remember, interleukin 10, IL-10, is a potent anti-inflammatory cellular messenger in our blood.
By eating more fiber, we can boost IL-10 levels in our body.

According to research done in all kinds of foods, by eating more legumes is the single most aging preventer.
Legumes are loaded with protein, zinc, and iron but low in sodium and saturated fat.
Keep in mind, legumes have zero cholesterol.
They are also packed with fiber, potassium, and folate.
Same kind of research done by Dan Buettner, author of Blue Zones, centenarians and supercentenarians take a daily dose of legumes in their diets.

There are some other major ways to slow aging, the takeaway message is take good foods and avoid bad foods.

-We have to reduce dietary and endogenous exposure to inflammatory AGEs. AGEs are Advanced Glycation End Products which are genronto toxins, they make us age faster and invite many age related diseases. The main causes of AGEs are smoking, eating foods like bacon, hot dogs, foods from broiling and frying from high temperature, and high glycemic foods.

-By avoiding high AGE foods, Alzheimer’s epidemic can be controlled. Higher the intake of AGEs, lower the sirtuin expression, a type of protein involved in regulating cellular processes like aging and death of cells.
AGEs are produced when proteins react with sugars, mostly at higher temperatures like broiling, grilling, and frying.
AGEs trigger chronic and systemic inflammation in our body.
Higher the rate of AGEs formation, the shorter our lifespan is.
Remember, HbA1c in diabetes, it means, if 6.5 percent or higher amount of hemoglobin in our blood is under glycation means react with blood sugar, we are diabetic.

-We have to boost autophagy to help clear out inflammatory cellular debris in our body. For example, coffee is a good autophagy stimulant. Coffee contains more than 1000 bioactive compounds but the polyphenol chlorogenic acid is the most abundant. Remember, chlorogenic acid removes the trash of our cells.

-Most importantly, we have to avoid pro-inflammatory foods, saturated fat, endotoxins, NEU5GC, and sodium by minimizing intake of meat, dairy, tropical oils, and salt. NEU5GC is an acidic sugar in meat and dairy, contributing to the higher rates of cancer, heart disease, and autoimmune diseases.
It is found in most mammals, amphibians, and fish.
The highest levels are also found in goat meat.
The highest levels of endotoxins are in meat and dairy.

All blue zones food habits include 95 to 100 percent plant based foods, whole foods as much as possible, daily dose of beans, and mostly eliminate eggs, sugar, dairy, and meat

There are certain supplements we cannot ignore.
We have to take supplements like 2500 mcg vitamin B12, cyanocobalamin, at least, once a week or 250 mcg a day.
Remember, vitamin B12 deficiency is one of the main causes of reversible dementia.

We have to take long chain omega 3s daily.
Taking 250 mg of pollution free long chain omega -3s directly helps to curb faster aging.

Short chain omega-3s from flaxseed, chia seeds, and walnuts are very effective but the long chain omega-3s EPA, eicosapentaenoic acid, and DHA, docosahexaenoic acid, found in fish fat works pretty well.

If we eat some really fatty meat, all the common markers of inflammation- CRP, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) go up within a few hours of consumption.
Remember, one lousy breakfast or lunch meal can double C-reactive protein levels within four hours.
This clearly indicates why we should avoid a bad diet.

According to medical literature, Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s LIFE, Low Inflammatory Foods Everyday, diet is the fastest diet to reduce CRP in our body.

Rapamycin is another universal anti-aging drug that lengthens our lifespan.
Rapamycin inhibits an enzyme called mTOR, mechanistic target of rapamycin.
Inhibiting mTOR is regarded as the best validated aging regulator for us.

The compound DIM, diindolylmethane, which is made by indole-3-carbinol in cruciferous vegetables combined with stomach acid, suppresses mTOR activation.
Remember the powder of sulforaphane in broccoli that also suppresses mTOR.
Green tea contains EGCG, epigallocatechin gallate, a flavonoid type of polyphenol antioxidant that also suppresses mTOR activity.

The bottom line: to slow down aging, we have to slow down mTOR activity, this is possible by restricting certain amino acids like methionine and leucine, certain proteins, and full dietary control.
Choosing plant based protein sources whenever or wherever possible is the best way to go.

The five blue zones are Nicoya peninsula in Costa Rica, The island of Sardinia in Italy, Ikaria in Greece, Okinawa in Japan, and Loma Linda, California, USA.
All blue zones food habits include 95 to 100 percent plant based foods, whole foods as much as possible, daily dose of beans, and mostly eliminate eggs, sugar, dairy, and meat.

Drinking tea and coffee over soda and milk and eating cruciferous vegetables regularly is crucial for lengthening our telomeres and expanding our lifespan

One of the major anti-aging pathways is elevating cellular NAD+ levels and activating AMPK.

David A. Sinclair, PhD, Harvard professor, scientist, and author of ‘Lifespan’ said, “There is a requirement of a molecule called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD, the loss of NAD as we age, and the resulting decline in sirtuin activity, is thought to be a primary reason our bodies develop diseases when we are old but not when we are young.”

Sirtuins are a class of protein regulators that protect us from many age related diseases.

Protection and preservation of telomeres, which are caps in our DNA, is key for stopping faster aging.
Accelerated telomere shortening is a key biomarker for accelerated aging, disease, and diminished longevity.

Whether our telomere lengthens or shortens and at what rate is determined by external factors like environment, lifestyle, and diet.
The main drivers for faster telomere loss is again due to oxidative stress and inflammation, having pro-inflammatory food like saturated fat.

If we want to maintain longer telomeres, we have to take enough vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, foods high in fiber, and antioxidants.

Dean Ornish, MD, author of ‘UnDo It’ and Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, author of ‘The Telomere Effect’ reported a joint research that shows a healthy plant based diet and lifestyle can boost telomerase enzyme activity and effectively reverse cellular aging.

The best food for telomere lengthening is fiber, this is also the most anti-inflammatory food.
Foods containing plant pigments like beta-carotene are also essential for telomere.

Remember, the supplement vitamin D3 that delays telomere shortening.
Supplying 800-2000 IU vitamin D3 a day is very essential if our vitamin D blood level is under 20 ng/mL.

Making a habit like drinking tea and coffee over soda and milk and eating cruciferous vegetables regularly is crucial for lengthening our telomeres and expanding our lifespan.

Conclusion

Remember, the aging pathways are interconnected in a complex circle in our body.
So, we need a balanced act to curb our aging, mainly food, exercise, and sleep.
For example, a boost in AMPK downregulates mTOR but upregulates autophagy and NAD+ levels in our body, that raises the sirtuin activity and then lowers IGF-1 and feeds back on AMPK.
We have to know that they share the common triggers in our body.
Keep in mind, these terms like AMPK, mTOR, NAD, sirtuin, IGF-1, they look difficult in the beginning but once we start to connect these terms with our daily food and activities, they all become common.

This is the reason that diet and lifestyle approaches are the best because they can target multiple aging pathways at the same time.

Research shows that metformin, the common diabetes medication, extends the lifespan of mice by boosting AMPK and rapamycin by suppressing mTOR.
When both metformin and rapamycin are taken together, they work synergistically better.

I would like to end this content with a note which many of you may not be aware of.
This also indicates why we need minimum knowledge of the body’s biochemistry, nutrition, and physiology for healthy aging.

If we eat cheese, the source of saturated fat, and crackers, processed food, with red wine, the source of alcohol, we will increase our triglycerides at least five times in our bloodstream.

But if we do the same with water, there is no increment of triglycerides.
This means the villain is wine.
Remember, the marketed grape polyphenols in red wine which only act as antioxidants in isolation like eating red grapes separately.
But the same antioxidant when combined with alcohol becomes pro-oxidant which increases the markers of oxidative stress.
Oxidative stress means we are getting aged faster and catching diseases earlier like Alzheimer’s, parkinson’s, and heart diseases.
One research fact, oxidized cholesterol, mainly from meat and dairy products, is the driving force behind the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

Additionally, non-alcoholic red wine lowers blood pressure but regular red wine doesn’t.
Alcohol, by any means, is no good in our lives, it is the host and accelerator of aging and disease.
When alcohol oxidizes in our body, it makes acetaldehyde, a carcinogen.
So alcohol means no, no, no. Period.

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.”

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, once asked Warren Buffett, “If your investing thesis is so simple, why doesn’t everyone just copy you?”
Warren Buffett replied, “Because nobody wants to get rich slowly.”
In my understanding, this exactly applies to our health too, nobody wants to get healthy slowly but sustainably.

Most of us don’t like to do things that make us healthy and progress slowly towards healthy lifestyle.
We have to have a big vision for our healthy body which is the only one ultimate asset in this life, and for this we can start small to make it possible.
Just know this, by any chance, if this invaluable asset falls apart, there remains nothing valuable in this life.
And, most importantly, we have to just start a small healthy habit at a time and follow it consistently.

Two minutes of consistent breathing exercise changes our brain chemistry, eating one strawberry daily changes a lot of metabolic activities

As an example, one simple ritual which I’ve developed over the last many years: there is a cinnamon powder on my dining table at home.
I am a big fan of tea, both black and green, so, every time before I drink my sip of tea, I put a pinch of cinnamon powder in my tea.
Remember, it’s a small habit but does amazing work in our body.
Cinnamon is a natural source of many antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds, and also has antimicrobial properties.

Onc research fact regarding cinnamon: an addition of a half teaspoon of cinnamon in a bowl of oatmeal increases the antioxidant level fivefold in our body.
This can significantly increase the antioxidant capacity of our bloodstream and lower the free radical damage to our DNA.

I’m just giving tiny examples of healthy habit formation which have long term health benefits, there are hundreds of these types of small tiny healthy habits which we can adopt, and bring tremendous health benefits.

BJ Fogg, PhD, founder of Behavior Lab at Stanford University and author of ‘Tiny Habits’ says, “With the tiny habits method, you focus on small actions that you can do in less than thirty seconds.The easier a behavior is to do, the more likely the behavior will become habit.”

In your opinion, which is more true?
People become healthier because they are happier.
Or people become happier because they are healthier.
You can say either way, but the research says that mainly happier people become healthier in the long run.
That means we should be happy first to become healthier, but how?
Long lasting happiness comes with tiny habits because they unknowingly change our biochemistries in our body.
For example, two minutes of consistent breathing exercise each day changes our brain chemistry, eating one strawberry daily or five minutes walk in the backyard changes a lot of metabolic activities.
So, the key is habit formation of those tiny actions and follow religiously day in and day out to get benefits.
And, obviously, happy people live a lot longer because happiness helps to bring mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual well being.

Apples, berries, grapes, onions and green tea contain phytonutrients to inhibit MAO, monoamine oxidase, a depression causing agent

We all are treating aging as a malady, but getting older does not have to be getting sicker all the time.
So, the crux is, happier people live longer but we need longer lives without becoming sick.
Research also shows that all sick and diseased people don’t want to live longer internally because it creates pain not only for themselves but also for their suffering families.

Michael Greger, MD, author of ‘How Not to Age’ and ‘How Not to Diet’
said, “In the evolutionary tree of life, the most reliable way to extend a happy and healthy lifespan is long-term bad food restriction, especially animal products, by consuming as much as natural plant products in our diets.”
Michael Greger, MD, is also a research director of the extremely useful website NutritionFacts.org.

Mostly, happiness comes in life when we make more happiness hormones like serotonin and dopamine.

So, what is the science behind happiness hormones?
One factor that hinders happiness in the long run is animal products.
Let’s see how animal products affect our happiness levels.
Arachidonic acid found in many animal products especially in chicken and eggs is a pro-inflammatory compound.

It adversely impacts our mental health through a cascade of neuroinflammation in our body.
Research indicates that excess arachidonic acid in our body can contribute to inflammation and chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and cancer.
Anti inflammatory drugs like aspirin and ibuprofen work by blocking the conversion of arachidonic acid into inflammatory end products.

Scientifically, depression is caused by very low levels of monoamine neurotransmitters due to high levels of a neurotransmitter breaking enzyme called monoamine oxidase, MAO.

Serotonin and dopamine both are monoamines.
The amino acid tryptophan helps to make more serotonin, the happiness hormone.
Carbohydrate rich food helps tryptophan transport into the brain but we still need tryptophan rich food like sesame, sunflower, and pumpkin seeds.

Antidepressant medicines work by a mechanism to increase the levels of neurotransmitters.

Neurotransmitters are chemicals which help to communicate billions of nerves in our brain.
These billions of nerve cells don’t physically touch one another.

Remember, the human brain is one of the most complicated things in the universe.
It has 100,000 miles of 86 billion neurons with 150 trillion connections.
Just imagine its complexity.

Many plant foods like apples, berries, grapes, onions and green tea contain phytonutrients that naturally inhibit the MAO.
Cloves, oregano, cinnamon, and nutmeg also lower MAO.

When you see salad, remember one teaspoonful of vinegar on top of salad to extend your lifespan

Here is a little bit of science to understand long, happy, and healthy life.
Autophagy is a process that reuses the unusable junk in our body, think of it as a recycling process.
It’s a complicated process but think like a toilet flush.

One way to live longer and healthier is boosting autophagy by a compound called spermidine.
The important thing to remember is that spermidine levels decrease as we reach the sixties and seventies so that we have to supply from foods.

Spermidine is a key for cell growth, a potential activator of autophagy, so it helps to extend lifespan.

Research also indicates that spermidine is an anti-aging vitamin.

Soybeans, tempeh, mushrooms, wheat germ, and mango are spermidine rich natural foods.

Wheat germ is also very effective for dementia, it helps to improve cognition.
It is also effective to reduce hair shedding.

Autophagy cleans up, removes accumulated waste, and establishes a cellular reset in our body.
It is induced by an enzyme called AMPK, AMP activated protein kinase, it is a pro-longevity factor in our body.
When we become older, AMPK levels drop and aging is accelerated.
Most importantly, this enzyme is involved in the functioning of the majority of the aging associated regulators.

The saturated fat, especially palmitic acid, mainly found in meat and dairy fat suppresses AMPK.
Saturated fat is very toxic for the liver especially for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Barberries, hibiscus tea, and black cumin are AMPK booster foods, these foods work by interfering cellular energy production in our happy mitochondria.

Vinegar is another food which is an AMPK activator.
It not only activates AMPK, it also controls blood sugar.
Remember, vinegar is nothing but diluted acetic acid.
When we drink alcohol, it also changes into acetic acid but by a different route.
It goes into acetic acid via acetaldehyde path which is a carcinogen and responsible for many cancers.
So drinking alcohol is bad, no no, even though it also gives acetic acid.

But if we take vinegar, we avoid acetaldehyde.
So, my formula is, when you see salad, remember one teaspoonful of vinegar on top of salad.
Your AMPK will laugh and help to extend your lifespan.

The best way to remove senescent cells is exercise, caloric restriction, and diets with excess quercetin, fisetin, and piperlongumine

Fiber rich foods like legumes, beans, split peas, chickpeas, lentils, and whole grains also activate AMPK because happy microbiomes make acetic acid from them in the colon by fermentation.

We must feed our good bacteria in our gut with prebiotics like fiber.
These bacteria feed us back with short chain fatty acids like butyrates which are primary fuels for the colon cell lining.
Keep in mind, Metamucil, a fiber supplement, is not fermentable, this is inedible for good bacteria.

Cellular senescence means cells are getting older and powerless.
Cellular senescence is the marker of our aging.
Senescent and zombie cells are damaged cells which don’t divide but continue to produce inflammatory molecules, contributing to tissue damage and age-related diseases.
Zombie cells are no longer productive, they damage surrounding tissues and eat our brain.

The inflammatory SASP, senescence associated secretory phenotype, produced by senescent cells, is a factor of tissue deterioration and disease.

One way is to prevent DNA damage and clean senescent cells and their inflammatory SASP, we have to eat natural foods containing senolytic compounds.
Senolytic compounds are a group of small molecules which have the ability to selectively kill senescent cells.

The best way to eliminate these senescent cells is exercise, caloric restriction, and dietary supplements.

Eat quercetin rich foods like onions, apples, kale, and tea.
Quercetin is a flavonol, an antioxidant, also called unannounced vitamin P.
It reduces and removes senescent cells and improves healthspan and lifespan.

Eat fisetin rich food like strawberries.
Eat piperlongumine rich spices like pippali, also called long pepper.

One type of microbiome, christensenellaceae, a bacterial family, is associated with longevity based on study of centenarians and supercentenarians, people who are 100 and 110 years old respectively.

Conclusion

Living longer, happier, and healthier is also directly or indirectly related to strong muscles and a powerful brain.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, author of ‘Forever Strong’ said, “What we commonly think of as diseases of aging are really diseases of impaired muscle. Muscle contraction during both aerobic and resistance training stimulates the uptake of glucose without any need for insulin’s assistance.”

Some of the nerve cells die due to free radicals that shrinks the emotion centers in the brain.
The antioxidants diets like tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and folate packed greens are natural sources for tackling free radicals.

Also remember, the most antioxidant plant foods to tackle free radicals are berries, herbs, and spices.

Lisa Mosconi, PhD, a neuroscientist, integrative nutritionist, and author of ‘Brain Food’ describes three mechanisms that clean up the internal infrastructure of our brain.
The number one is deep sleep.
During the deep sleep zone, there is activation of the cleaning glymphatic system.
It is a pathway in the brain that acts as a waste clearance channel.

Number two is aerobic exercise which boosts enzymatic activity that dissolves Alzheimer’s disease plaques in our brain.

The number three is intermittent fasting, especially more than 12 hours that cleans up amyloid in our brain.

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.”

In our life everything is super important until we become sick and find out that our body is already crumbled a lot unknowingly.
Then we realize there is only ever one thing that is important.
My health.
But time has already slipped away from us, this is the reality of our lives.
If we are not proactive during the early years of our lives, especially in our thirties and early forties, the only thing remains is to regret but regret doesn’t do any good.
The good care and practice of our thirties and early forties are foundational for the healthy later part of lives because our body starts to make a transition in body biochemistries around the beginning of forties.

Aristotle said, “The purpose of knowledge is action, not knowledge”
My firm belief in the case of our health remains the same as said by Aristotle, especially for a healthy lifestyle: reading is not for knowledge, it is for action so that our focus should be to have a healthy body for a long period of time.

One of my favourite inspirations from Buddha also works for me the same way for a healthy body, he said, “what we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow; our life is the creation of our mind.”
So basically, my philosophy is that a healthy mind of today is a healthy life for tomorrow.
The key is an uptrending healthy mind which is possible by a healthy lifestyle and a small but consistent each day action to achieve it slowly, one step at a time.

Heterocyclic amine, PhIP, is not only a carcinogen, it is also an initiator, promoter, and progressor of cancer

Let me answer the title question of this content.
Probably you already know and if you don’t, the number one killer in the world is heart disease.
And, the killer number two is cancer.
But, remember, both are not chronic diseases which suddenly appear for some unknown reasons, both are lifestyle diseases accumulated over the period of time by our own actions except for a few abnormal situations.
So the key is lifestyle, the majority is what we do and what we eat day in and day out that has a huge consequence in the long run.

Mark Hyman, MD, author of ‘Young Forever’ said, “The point of healthy life is not to live longer but to live better, not just to add more years to your life but to add more life to your years.

One way to practice a healthy lifestyle is to obey nature’s rules, our body is a product of nature so there is a connection between our body and nature for running smooth biochemistries in our body.
As an example, women who interrupt their melatonin production by working night shifts might have increased risk for breast cancer.

Melatonin secretion peaks between 2 am to 5 am and then shuts off at daybreak, which is our signal to wake up.
The level of melatonin in our bloodstream is one way our internal organs know what time it is.
It works in our circadian clock.

Melatonin activates tumor suppressor genes such as p53, modulating estrogen and androgens and increasing cytokine production, collectively contributing to cancer suppression.
In the cancer stage, p53 is a tumor suppressor protein which helps to prevent cancer by maintaining cell division and promoting cell death when cells damage their DNA.

For people with melatonin deficiency, tart cherries naturally contain melatonin and have been used to improve sleep without any side effects.
Likewise, Goji berries have the highest concentrations of melatonin.

Healthy lifestyle to avoid these killer diseases also means eating more vegetables, fruits, and plant products than meat and animal products.
As another example, men suffering from prostate related issues including prostate cancers become worse if they eat meat regularly especially chicken and turkey.
Eating poultry advances cancer because cooked meat contains carcinogens like heterocyclic amines.
These carcinogens build up faster in poultry than other meats.

The heterocyclic amine, PhIP, is not only a carcinogen, it is also an initiator, promoter, and progressor of cancer.
The best way to reduce the PhIP is to reduce the consumption of roasted, fried, grilled, and baked chicken, beef, and fish.
Research reports that both green and white teas protect DNA damage caused by PhIP, the cooked meat carcinogen.

Sulforaphane isn’t only an anticancer agent, it also helps to protect our brain, eyesight, reduces nasal inflammation, and prevent diabetes

If we reduce meat consumption, then we reduce animal protein in our body and that leads to our IGF-1 level also go down and our IGF-1 binding protein jumps up.
The IGF-1 binding protein is our body’s emergency brake.
These binding proteins are released by our liver and control IGF-1.
The more IGF-1 hormone in our bloodstream, which is insulin-like growth factor 1, the higher our risk of developing cancers including prostate cancer.

Among many, the best food habits to prevent a recurrence of cancer are broccoli, flaxseeds, walnuts, citrus, turmeric, garlic, and tea.
Broccoli, brussels sprouts, collard greens boost the activity of detoxifying enzymes in our liver.
Research reports that eating broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower and kale reduces the risk of cancer progression by half.
This is the power of phytonutrients in a plant diet.

Sulforaphane, a component in cruciferous vegetables, suppresses the ability of breast cancer stem cells to form tumors.
Remember, broccoli doesn’t contain sulforaphane, only the precursors that turn into sulforaphane by chewing.

Sulforaphane isn’t only an anticancer agent, it also helps to protect our brain, our eyesight, reduce nasal inflammation, prevent diabetes, and even help to treat autism.
In autism, sulforaphane is assumed to act like a detoxicant, meaning it helps remove toxins or poisons from our body.

In the dietary inflammatory index, the most anti-inflammatory foods are turmeric, ginger, garlic, and tea

One fact about flaxseeds is that even Hippocrates, the father of medicine, also used flaxseeds to treat patients.
Flaxseed is one of the highest sources of essential omega 3 fatty acids.
They have 100 times more lignans than other foods.
They are phytoestrogens, they can dampen the effects of the body’s own estrogen.

Flaxseeds don’t contain lignans but the lignan’s precursors, they need to be activated and this activation is done by good bacteria in our gut.
This is the reason why we should have happy microbiomes in our gut.
Lignan consumption is associated with reduction of breast cancer risk especially in postmenopausal women.
Because lignan dampens the body’s estrogen effects.
Lignans found in flaxseeds which contain phytoestrogens slows the growth of prostate cancer.
Even people suffering from BPH, Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia, the enlargement of the prostate gland, can reduce the enlargement by eating flaxseed, onion, and garlic regularly.

Dr. Mark Stengler, the author of ‘Healing the Prostate’ said “Flax seeds contain lignans that are converted into certain compounds in the body by the gut, which help the body to detoxify bad estrogens which are associated with prostate cancer and prostate enlargement, so eat plenty of ground organic flaxseeds.”

Research shows that three teaspoons of flaxseed each day is equivalent to the drugs Flomax or Proscar.
But the advantage of having flaxseed means no drug’s side effects, no lightheadedness, and sexual dysfunction.

Flaxseeds also help to increase the levels of endostatin in breasts.
Endostatin is a protein produced by the body to help starve tumors of their blood supply.

One research report says that women in Asia have less breast cancer than North American women because Asian women drink green tea regularly.

Michael Greger, MD, author of ‘How Not to Diet’ said, “In the dietary inflammatory index, the single most anti-inflammatory food is the spice turmeric, followed by ginger and garlic, and the most anti-inflammatory beverage is green or black tea.”

Eat whole grains and legumes like beans, split peas, chickpeas, or lentils with every single meal

Other two foods which are directly associated with reduction of breast cancer are soy and mushrooms.
Eating more soy products, the phytoestrogens in soy help to prevent breast cancer.
Mushrooms block the estrogen synthase enzyme.

One fact regarding mushrooms so that we know why it is so vital for our body.
Ergothioneine is a potent intramitochondrial antioxidant.
DNA inside the mitochondria is vulnerable to free radical damage because many other antioxidants can not penetrate mitochondrial membranes.
Our body cannot make ergothioneine, the only source is food.
Mushrooms are the primary source of it.
After oyster mushrooms, black beans are the secondary source of ergothioneine.

One reason why we should reduce or avoid foods of animal origin is because many foods of animal origin contain sex steroid hormones like estrogen.
Nowadays, genetically improved dairy cows are milked throughout their pregnancies when their reproductive hormones are very high.

The hormones in dairy products and other growth factors could stimulate the growth of hormone sensitive tumors.

Research says that cow’s milk stimulates the growth of human prostate cancer cells but almond milk suppresses the growth of the cancer cells.
This is the difference between animal products and plant products.

Another research says that choline found in eggs is bad for prostate cancer.
This choline in eggs is the same as carnitine in red meat.
It is converted into a toxin, trimethylamine by bacteria in the gut who eat meat.
This trimethylamine once oxidized in the liver increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Cooked vegetables and legumes, beans, chickpeas, split peas, and lentils reduce BPH.
Remember, some veggies actually become healthier when cooked.
For example, tomatoes, when heated, release more lycopene, a potent cancer fighting agent.
Carrots, spinach, asparagus, and some mushrooms produce more carotenoids and ferulic acid, both antioxidants, when lightly steamed or slow-cooked.

There is a report from American Institute for Cancer research that says, “Eat whole grains and legumes like beans, split peas, chickpeas, or lentils with every meal. Not every week or everyday. Every meal.”
Beans are rich in fiber, folate, and phytates, which help to lower the risk of stroke, depression, and colon cancer.

TVP, textured vegetable protein, is a soybean product that is good for BPH reduction.

A prostate healthy diet is equal to breast healthy diet and both are equal to heart and cancer healthy diet.

Conclusion

Darin Olien, the author of ‘SuperLife’ said, “Eat a wide variety of whole, fresh, clean foods; mostly vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, seeds, grains, sprouts, and healthy fats. Eat a lot of it raw.”

Any processed or ultra processed foods might cause DNA damage that leads to mutations and that give rise to cancer.
The best food for DNA repair is citrus fruit or colorful foods with a lot of varieties of antioxidants.
For example, within two hours of consuming citrus fruits like oranges, lemons, limes, and grapefruits; our DNA becomes significantly more resistant to damage.
Citrus consumption is associated with lower risk of breast cancer including many other cancers.

I have my personal experience here.
Few years ago, I had a burning sensation during my long distance running, which I found later that it was related to the build up of lactic acid in my muscles.
From my own research what I found is that bioflavonoids found in citrus fruits helped me to tackle my lactic acid build up.
I also found that cherries helped me to reduce my muscle pain in my long distance running.

In a nutshell, remember Michael Pollan’s advice, author of ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’, he said, “If it came from a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, don’t.”
With Michael Pollan’s great advice, my additional point is that a bad diet is by far our great killer followed by smoking.

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.”

Many years ago, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the department of medicinal chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University.
One of the graduate students was kind enough to share his father’s story with me.
When his father was 40 years old, he was diagnosed with colorectal cancer and had a stroke once.
His dad had struggled with obesity all his life and suffered a lot, practiced all kinds of dieting to reduce his weight.
His grandparents were also obese with heart disease, so he figured that his own diagnosis was inevitable.
It’s from my family.
It’s genetic.
There was nothing he could do, this was all his impressions.

What he told me was amazing.
His dad’s initial diagnosis was back in 2011.
Then, in 2014, he switched to an entirely plant based diet and completely turned his life around.
Today, his father is cancer free, more than that, he looks and feels younger with BMI, body mass index, under 25.

As a health enthusiast and research scientist, I also believe from research and my own experience that adopting a healthy lifestyle with a plant based food habit help to prevent all kinds of new lifestyle diseases.

Research says, to become virtually heart- attack proof, we need our LDL cholesterol at least under 70 mg/dL

Around 700 thousand people died from heart disease in 2023 in the US and more than 600 thousand died from lung related disease the same year.
In 2023, globally more than 10 million people died from heart disease and more than 7 million died from lung disease.

In 1900 in the United states, the top three killer diseases were pneumonia, tuberculosis, and diarrheal disease.
Now the killers are lifestyle diseases, and they are heart diseases, cancer, chronic lung disease.

The key is, let’s not blame genetics, let’s focus on what is under our control.

David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD, author of must read book ‘Anticancer’ said
“All research on cancer concurs: Genetic factors contribute to at most 15 percent of mortalities from cancer. In short, there is no genetic fatality. We can all learn to protect ourselves.”

The key control actually is lifestyle and food: no smoking, not being obese, getting 30 minutes of exercise a day, and eating healthier by eating more fruits, veggies, whole grain, and less meat, and if possible, no meat.
These are all under our control, if we want to live happy and healthy.

The reason people are dying from heart disease is there are dramatic shifts in our dietary patterns at the moment.
High blood pressure is no more a normal disease, it is a disease of overnutrition.
The cause of high blood pressure is not about the medication need.
The real cause is what we eat and how we live.
Flaxseeds, hibiscus tea, and whole grains have potent blood pressure lowering effects.

People are dying from atherosclerosis.
One way to prevent atherosclerosis is to reduce LDL cholesterol level.
High fiber diets lowers blood pressure but we are not eating enough fiber.

High fiber intake from whole plant foods prevent strokes including both ischemic or hemorrhagic.
Fiber controls cholesterol and blood sugar levels that reduce artery clogging plaque in our brain’s blood vessels.

One more advantage of fiber is it binds to toxins, such as lead and mercury, and flushes them away.
The other problem is if we aren’t constantly filling our bowels with plant foods which are the only natural source of fiber, the unwanted waste products can get reabsorbed and weaken the body’s detoxifying effect.

We have to reduce the intake of trans fat coming from processed food, meat, and dairy. We have to reduce saturated fat coming from animal products and junk foods.
We must cut off dietary cholesterol coming from animal derived foods like eggs.

Many doctors say to patients that if your cholesterol is under 200 mg/dL, that’s normal.
But the research says otherwise, to become virtually heart- attack proof, we need our LDL cholesterol at least under 70 mg/dL.
It’s only possible by adopting a diet around whole plant foods.

Meat promotes bacterial toxins, called endotoxins.
They are not destroyed by cooking or stomach acid or enzymes.
Once we eat animal products, these endotoxins reach our intestines and are carried by saturated fat into our bloodstream and they trigger the inflammatory reaction in our arteries.

Likewise, nitrite preservatives in meat may increase the risk of COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Unfortunately there is no cure for COPD.

One natural food to control cholesterol is Brazil nuts.
It is also a good source of mineral selenium.

Healthy lifestyle can boost telomerase enzyme activity and reverse cellular aging

Among many factors, one inevitable part of life is aging.
And, unfortunately, it poses the biggest risk factor for heart disease and cancer.
To understand aging, we have to know the role of the telomere in our body.
The tiny cap of the chromosome is called a telomere.

Every time cells divide, a bit of this cap is lost.
When the telomere is completely gone, the cell can die completely.
Telomere, basically, is our life fuse, the same as the fuse in a light bulb.
Smoking triples the rate of loss of telomeres.

Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, a professor and author of ‘The Telomere Effect’ was awarded 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine for her discovery of telomerase.
The finding is that a healthy lifestyle can boost telomerase enzyme activity and reverse cellular aging.
Remember, what kind of food we eat has more impact for telomere protection than weight loss or number of hours of exercise.
Eat more whole food, plant based diet, and reduce the intake of meats, dairy products, eggs, and processed foods.

I strongly recommend watching Dr. Blackburn’s TED Talk: ‘The science of cells that never get old’ where she talks about how we might have more control over aging than we think.

Revered biochemist, Earl Stadtman said, “Aging is a disease.”

Peter Attia, MD, author of ‘Outlive’ talks about the balance between what we can do to live longer and what we’re actually willing to do.
We need to track our glucose, optimize our sleep, follow a meticulous exercise routine, and potentially give up alcohol.

Dr. Attia said, “Risk is not something to be avoided at all costs; rather, it’s something we need to understand, analyze, and work with. One macronutrient, in particular, demands more of our attention than most people realize: not carbs, not fat, but protein becomes critically important as we age.”

In fact, epigenetics controls the gene activity.
Skin cells look and function differently than bone cells, brain cells, or heart cells, and the fact is all these cells have the same DNA.
Why they behave differently is because they each have different genes turned on or off.
This is epigenetics, same DNA, but different results.

Deepak Chopra, MD, and Rudolph Tanzi, PhD, authors of ‘Super Genes’ , explain how environmental factors and experiences can modify gene expression without changing the underlying DNA sequence.
These modifications are epigenetic marks, which can be passed down to future generations, bridging the gap between nature and nurture.

Older age, smoking, and unhealthy diets are risk factors for both heart disease and cancer.
If we adopt a healthy lifestyle with a balanced diet, 30 minutes regular exercise, and avoiding smoking, it can help reduce the risk of both heart disease and cancer.
Healthy diet can reduce stroke risk by reducing cholesterol and blood pressure while improving blood flow and antioxidant capacity.
The plant based diet is the best to go.

Curcumin, an active compound in turmeric, helps to prevent or arrest cancer cell growth

Research shows that broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower are cancer suppressors.
Kale lowers our bad LDL cholesterol and boosts good HDL cholesterol.
Kale is also an immunity booster vegetable.

There is another fact which says that only 7 to 10 percent of the adult Indian population eats meat daily.
If we don’t eat meat, we obviously ingest less substances like sodium, saturated fat, and cholesterol in our body.

Report says cancer rates in India are much lower than in the United States because the regular use of the spice turmeric in Indian cooking has been proposed as a possible explanation.

Curcumin, an active compound in turmeric, helps to prevent or arrest cancer cell growth.
It prevents DNA mutations, it also helps to regulate programmed cell death.

Not fully understood but, curcumin, leaves non-cancerous cells untouched.
Curcumin affects several mechanisms of cell death simultaneously.
Not only lung cancer, curcumin is effective against breast, brain, blood, colon, kidney, liver, and skin cancers.

Very small amount of curcumin is absorbed into our bloodstream because it is only soluble in oil. Unabsorbed curcumin ends up in our colon and it impacts the cells lining of our large intestine where mostly cancer polyps develop.

The phytonutrient, quercetin, which is found in red onion and grapes reduces the number and size of polyps suffering from colorectal cancer.

One big question is, if curcumin is so effective, then why not do detailed clinical study?
But the question is who is going to spend money for the study that costs millions of dollars which can’t be patented.
This is the reality of the big pharma world.

There is another mineral called iron that is a double-edged sword, less means we suffer from anemia; excess means risk of cancer and heart disease.

One natural solution is to eat more phytates found in whole grains, beans, nuts, and seeds.
They detoxify excess iron in the body which is the source of harmful cancer causing free radicals like hydroxyl radicals.

Non heme iron is mainly found in plant foods but heme iron is associated with cancer and heart disease.

People who donate blood frequently have less risk of cancer because they get rid of iron from the body.

Potassium rich foods like greens, beans, and sweet potatoes reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Citrus fruits like oranges contain a phytonutrient called hesperidin which increases blood flow throughout the body including the brain.
Seven to eight hours of quality sleep lifestyle is also essential to reduce stroke.

Conclusion

“Remember, nobody can make money by prescribing plants in our diets.
Medical community including pharma can make money only by prescribing pills, not by plants,” said Michael Greger, MD, the author of ‘How Not to Die’.

Yes, we all agree that we have to respond to the changing nature of disease patterns like heart disease and cancers.
This now requires a focus on prevention and that needs lifestyle change especially food habits.

I recommend watching Dr. Michael Gerger’s talk ‘Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death’ video on NutritionFacts.org.

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.”

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.

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