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longevity

BLUE ZONE SECRETS

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SARDINIA, ITALY​

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  • Eat a lean, plant-based diet accented with meat

  • Put family first

  • Drink goat’s milk

  • Celebrate elders

  • Take a walk

  • Drink a glass or two of red wine daily – Cannonau 3X flavonoids

  • Laugh with friends

​OKINAWA, JAPAN

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  • Embrace an ikigai

  • Rely on plant-based diet

  • Get gardening

  • Eat more soy

  • Maintain a moai

  • Enjoy the sunshine

  • Stay active

  • Plant a medicinal garden

  • Have an attitude

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LOMA LINDA, CALIFORNIA

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  • Find a sanctuary in time

  • Maintain a healthy body mass index (BMI)

  • Get regular, moderate exercise

  • Spend time with like-minded friends

  • Snack on nuts

  • Give something back

  • Eat meat in moderation

  • Eat an early, light dinner

  • Put more plants in your diet

  • Drink plenty of water

NICOYA PENINSULA, COSTA RICA

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  • Have a plan de vida

  • Drink hard water

  • Keep a focus on family

  • Eat a light dinner

  • Maintain social networks

  • Keep hard at work

  • Get some sensible sun

  • Embrace a common history

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IKARIA, GREECE

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  • Drink some goat’s milk

  • Mimic mountain living

  • Eat a Mediterranean-style diet

  • Stock up on herbal

  • Nap

  • Fast occasionally

  • Make family and friends a priority

National Geographic
The Science of Longevity  - How to Live Longer & Age Better (12/1/23)

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Rapamycin, widely prescribed to prevent organ reflection after a transplant, increases the life expectancy of middle-age mice by as much as 60 percent.  

 

Senolytics help geriatric mice stay sprightly long after their peers have died. 

 

Diabetes drugs met for in and acarbose, extreme calorie restrictions, keep mice living past their usual expiration date.

 

Studies show cold-water immersion combats obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.

When the elderly are around their children and grandchildren it keeps them young.  Modest exercise can improve physical and mental health.

 

Between 1900 and 2020, human life expectancy more than doubled, to 73.4 years.

Aging remains the biggest risk factor for cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, type 2 diabetes, arthritis, lung disease, and just about any other major illness.

It is believed our natural maximum human life span is 120-125 years.

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In industrialized nations, about 1 in 6,000 reaches the century mark, and 1 in 5 million makes it past 110.  

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Jeanne Calment in France, died in 1997 at 122 years, 164 days, holds the record.

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Caenorhabditis elegant worm -most studied – first evidence that aging could be 

Living Longer-Better 

SECRETS TO LONGEVITY

  • 1993 discovery that altering one gene in a worm, C. elegant, doubled its lifespan.

  • Genes play a relatively minor role.

  • Far more important are lifestyle, environmental factors such as exposure to air pollution, and socioeconomic status.  Being poor lowers life expectancy by 9 to 12 years, about as much as being a smoker.

  • Once people pass the age of 90, genes have greater influence on survival, and their impact starts to dominate around age 100.

  • By 2050 the global population of people 60 and older will be 2.1 billion.]

  • Never ever stop playing.

  • The cold water trains the flexibility of your nervous system, something that will help you to stay calm in the the ice bath,  It is good for blood circulation too.

  • All experiences have the power to improve brain function.

  • Walking in nature, sports, learning musical instruments, socializing – that’s how our brain learns through experience.

  • Movement increases cerebral blood flow, which is known to boost memory performance and other cognitive abilities.

  • “NeuroRacer” – 3D video game - showed improvements in cognitive performance, attention, and working memory in adults ages 60-85.

  • Painting – a creative endeavor helps slow cognitive decline for some with cognitive impairments.​

FITNESS FOR LIFELONG HEALTH

  • Strength training and bursts of intense exercise may be key to vitality in old age, and its never too late to start.

  • Five habits may increase human life expenctancy by 14 years in women and 12 years in men: regular exercise, good diet, healthy weight, not smoking, and not drinking too much. If you’re only going to do one, it’s exercise!

  • Brisk walking, running, and playing tennis, etc., keep the heart and lungs fit.

  • Years of research show that those who regularly do aerobic exercise live longer.

  • 150 minutes of moderately intense aerobic activity weekly lowered their risk of dying from any cause, not just heart disease.  Poor cardiorespiratory fitness cuts life short.

  • Any routine that drives up heart rate is good, but brief intervals of strenuous movement seem to provide a longevity edge.

  • Resistance training can be as effective as aerobic exercise, and sometimes even better, for helping people 65 and older fend off disease.

  • The trend is so clear that we would encourage health authorities world wide to recommend high intensity exercise for older adults.

  • Evidence suggests it’s at least as important for health and longevity, and some say it’s even more beneficial.

  • 30-60 minutes a week of muscle strengthening appeared to lower the risk of death by 10 to 17 percent.  

  • Loss of muscle mass due to a sedentary lifestyle usually is one of the most important predictors of poor health outcomes later on. 

  • Resistance training has its most obvious benefit as a counterforce to physical decline.

  • Aerobic exercise for people 65 and older can fend off heart disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes.

  • Resistance training releases peptides called myokines, which flow through the bloodstream to reduce inflammation in many organs and improve insulin sensitivity.

  • Exercise encourages healthier eating.

GET SOME ZZZs

  • Another secret for lifelong health, high-quality sleep.

  • Sleep protects the brain.

  • Consistently sleeping well is as important for preventing brain again and deterioration as exercising and eating healthy foods.

  • Sleep allows the brain to clean out damaging waste products so cells can function at their best.

  • Poor sleep contributes to brain shrinkage, and the loss of neurons and intracellular connections critical for cognition. 

FEEDING A LONG LIFE

  • It’s not just what we eat that matters, but when.  Fasting is a popular practice, and research shows it has real health benefits.

  • Vegetables, beans, fruit, olive oil, pasta, and minimal meat.

  • Fasting can delay aging, prevent many illnesses that come along with growing older, and help more of us blow past age 100 by resetting our metabolism and cleaning out cellular debris. 

  • A fasting mimicking diet can extend our life span, revitalize the immune system, and lower the incidence of cancer. 

  • Men who eat late at night increase their risk of coronary heart disease by 55 percent.

  • Limiting the time spent eating keeps cells and organs, the brain included, running in sync.

  • Prescription blood pressure medication, rilmednidine, extends the life span of worm C. elegant by about 20 percent- and does it by mimicking the protective biological effects of calorie restriction.  

  • Rilmednidine also induces autophagy, or the clearing out of old cells, a critical process for health and one that deteriorates as we age. 

  • No anti-aging intervention has had strong, more consistent effects than calorie restrictions.  

  • Rapamycin and met forman, act on the same pathways and mechanisms that give calorie restriction its life-extending power. 

  • What we eat may be more important for longevity than how much.

  • Fasting induces physiological changes and encourages better food choices and less snacking.  

REIMAGINING OLD AGE 

  • People with strong ties to friends and family tend to live long.

  • A Satisfying social life was as beneficial for long-term survival as quitting smoking and may be even more crucial than and exercise and overcoming obesity.

  • Social connections may influence health through what the researchers call stress buffering.  Support from others helps us adapt emotionally to illness, the death of a loved one, or other challenges that often pile up as we get older.

  • Better coping, in turn, eases the flow of stress-induced hormones that weaken our immune system and increase susceptibility to deadly infections, heart disease, and stroke.

  • Strong relationships also encourage us to take better care of ourselves and can provide a sense of purpose-another factor associated with longer life.

  • Engaging in group activities is important for health and vitality late in life.

THE POWER OF BELIEFS 

  • Respect for the elderly is a key component for their happiness and longevity.

  • People in their 30s and 40s who had positive notions about old age, were more likely to be in good health decades later.

  • People 50 and older who had optimistic views were much better able to perform everyday tasks over their next 18 years.

  • Rose-colored perceptions of aging offer protection against cognitive decline.

  • People with the brightest view of aging lived an average of seven and a half years longer than those with the gloomiest.  

  • People with a positive mindset about aging tend to have better self-efficacy and self-mastery, the ability to take control of their lives and regulate their impulses.  They tend to eat well, exercise and take prescription medications. They have lower levels of cortisol and other bio markers of stress.  

  • Writing can help shift how we think about aging.

  • Women with highly optimistic outlooks increase their likelihood of healthy aging by 23 percent. 

  • Many older adults discover fresh opportunities to enjoy art, hobbies, travel and friends, as the pressures of work and raising a family recede.

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