3 Simple Steps to Living Longer without Disease

3 Simple Steps to Living Longer without Disease

Who doesn’t want to live longer? I guess I should ask, who doesn’t want to live longer providing you’re also healthy? Living longer with poor health is no fun, but if you felt great, then I think we can all agree that living longer is a goal.

How do we do it? Simply speaking, there are pathways in the human body which preserve longevity, as well as those which do the opposite, and speed up aging. It’s pretty basic: all we would need to do is enhance the function of those pathways designed to increase our longevity, while minimizing the function of those which shorten our lifespan.

Okay, makes sense.

How do we do it?

Let’s start with the pro-aging pathways. That is what Valter Longo Ph.D., professor of gerontology (the study of aging) and director of The Longevity Institute from USC did in his research. He wanted to understand how our diet and lifestyle might influence the functioning of pathways affecting the aging process.

The names of the pro-aging pathways are odd, welcome to biochemistry(!), but in case you’re interested, here they are:

• TOR – S6 kinase pathway (TOR stands for Target of Rapamycin). This pathway is involved with cell growth and proliferation, but also has a connection to cancer initiation.
• RAS-PKA pathway – known as the sugar PKA pathway (protein kinase A). This sugar pathway is not as well known as the TOR pathway but appears to be just as dangerous. It is thought to inactivate certain protective factors of cells.

Dr. Longo did most of his initial research on mice, but follow-up human trials appear to indicate the findings are valid for humans as well.

Obviously, if something in our diets could squelch aging pathways and enhance anti-aging pathways, we’d be all set to live long, healthy lives.

What I’m about to share with you is a sneak peek into this research and findings. His book isn’t released until next year (2018), so this truly is brand new information, not yet published.

Dr. Longo wanted to get the benefits of calorie restriction without the liabilities. He did so with what he calls “periodic fasting-mimicking diets” – observe the word “mimicking”; you won’t be starving with this plan.

Fasting-mimicking only requires no food for 12 hours each day, easy to do when you eat dinner about 3 hours before bed and sleep for 8 hours.

Extending life expectancy does not require starvation

True calorie restriction, by definition, means cutting your calorie intake by 30 – 50%. It has been touted as a link to longevity, however, long-term studies on animals fail to show consistent results. That’s good news – who likes to starve?! Apparently no one; compliance is poor with long-term fasting.

It was also discovered that the restricting of proteins and sugar were most important. Why? When protein and sugar are restricted, factors that regulate both growth genes and growth pathways were kept under control. Growth IS vital when you’re a child, but enhancing growth pathways as an adult can result in diseases such as cancer and diabetes, while simultaneously decreasing your longevity.

For those of you who like the specific scientific names, we’re talking about the effects on:

• GH – growth hormone, and
• IGF-1 – insulin-like growth factor 1, a known risk factor for cancer.

To confirm the hypothesis, Dr. Longo found individuals living in Ecuador who had a genetic mutation that resulted in them having fewer receptors for growth hormones. These individuals enjoyed not only great longevity but were protected from cancer and diabetes. It is thought the protection extends to other diseases as well, which only makes sense. Exactly the same outcome was seen in mice with the same genetic mutation – long-lived and protection from disease.

Not everyone has such a genetic mutation obviously, but we can down-regulate or diminish the expression of growth hormones and IGF-1 rather easily.

What should you eat to extend the life and protect health?

When the fasting-mimicking diet was done with humans the diet they followed was low in sugar, high in complex carbohydrates (fruits, vegetables, beans, and legumes), healthy fats, and low in plant-based protein; none of the protein came from animal products.

During a 3 month period, individuals fasted for 5 days per month and the result was that it put them into what is called “nutritional ketosis” where they starting burning fat as their primary fuel rather than sugar. Don’t worry, you won’t have to fast for an entire day to make this program successful – read on!

It is during the fasting stage that damaged cells are cleared from the body. During the “re-feeding” stage, cells are rebuilt and rejuvenated.

It is quite magical what happens to this type of diet. The bad things like IGF-1 and glucose lessen, and ketones rise, which is why the body burns fat. But which fat? It burns the bad fat; the visceral fat that is surrounding your organs and putting you at risk of degenerative disease. Specifically, belly fat diminished when this program was followed. (Skinny jeans here you come!)

Burning the bad fat

It is exciting to see that the first fat to get burned is the dangerous visceral fat. We know it increases your risk of all degenerative disease, yet it seems that when the body is put into a nutritional “ketosis”, the first fat to get burned is this dangerous visceral fat. It’s as if your body knows that, “Yes, this is what we should burn first to restore health”.

And, it’s not only burning the dangerous disease-causing fat, but it’s also clearing out the damaged cells during the fasting process.

A study was done by Dr. Longo on patients suffering from the autoimmune disease M.S. The fasting-mimicking diet killed some autoimmune cells (auto-antibodies) during the fasting stage and then turned on stem cells which regenerated new cells that no longer had autoimmune tendencies during the re-feeding stage.

To reiterate, the fasting-mimicking diet cleans out damaged, disease-causing cells and once you start eating again, young, healthy, functional cells are generated in their stead. This is truly amazing!

Talk of stem cells is all the rage these days, but success is quite variable. Dr. Longo pointed out that his study results confirmed improved stem cell production when the fasting-mimicking diet was followed.

Who needs a stem cell transplant, when your body can do it naturally with a simple, free, dietary change? Even better, because the fasting occurred first, once re-feeding begins, the stem cells that are produced know exactly what to do – their job is to replace all the old, diseased cells that were killed during the fasting phase. Cool, huh?

The diet is about 55% complex carbohydrates, 35% healthy fats, and 10% protein. If you want to get an idea of how to figure out your optimal grams of protein per day, read How Much Protein Do You Need?

High protein is a very bad idea for longevity

The key is to get adequate protein but no more. It’s a vital point to understand when promoting longevity and protecting yourself against chronic degenerative disease. Protein, especially animal-based protein, fuels the fire of the pro-aging, pro-disease pathways mentioned above.

Dr. Longo cited earlier research indicating increased mortality for those Americans eating a high protein diet. [Please re-read that sentence.]

Proteins rich in the amino acids leucine and methionine, as an example, “activate” the TOR-S6 kinase pathway and increase the production of IGF-1. Both are known to decrease your mortality and increase your degenerative disease risk.

Common foods high in the amino acids leucine and methionine include beef, lamb, cheese, turkey, chicken, pork, fish, shellfish, and dairy.

The higher the number of calories ingested in the form of protein, the greater the loss of protection of normal cells.

Don’t do this or it won’t work

And get this: even if you do a fasting-mimicking diet, there’s a way to ensure it won’t work. If you re-feed mice with even a normal level of protein, let alone a high level, much of the protective effects created by the fasting are reversed. In other words, anything but low protein (adequate, but lower than you’re likely used to) will not create the benefits to your health and longevity. Low protein is mandatory to enjoy the anti-aging, anti-disease effects of this lifestyle.

But what if you’re an athlete undergoing heavy training? Yes, you’ll need more protein. How much? About 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of lead body weight on days you’re doing strength training. But on alternate days cut back to 1.0 gram.

What if you’re over the age of 65? You too need a bit more protein, but moderate at most, and combine that with exercise to build muscle.

Ok, let’s sum it up. The truth of the matter is the power of simplicity is really at work here. Check this out:

3 Simple Steps to living longer without disease

1. Fast every day for 12 hours. Try to have a 3-hour window of no food before bed. If you then sleep for 8 hours, it’s pretty easy to be up and awake for an hour before you start eating – satisfying your 12 hours fast.
2. The quality and balance of what you eat are vitally important. Low protein, enough to maintain health, but low, is of the utmost importance. This is where Americans fail miserably and it’s shortening our lives. Next, include high complex carbohydrates and a decent amount of healthy fat. I don’t like to push percentages because I don’t want you to make eating too complex, but for those of you who do better with structure, it works out to be about 55% complex carbohydrates, 35% healthy fat, and 10% protein.

3. Lastly, it’s very critical to know WHAT to eat – plant-based was found to be the healthiest. Dr. Longo allowed some fish on his diet as well (I would like to stress the importance of the quality of fish and avoiding any that are laden with heavy metals – it’s not that easy to find truly healthy fish these days). You’ll get ALL your calories from plants. Healthy vegetables, fruits, beans, and legumes provide all the protein, complex carbohydrates, and fat you need.

Are you excited to live a longer, healthier life? It’s easy.

We all need help. Whether it’s because you have a genetic predisposition toward certain conditions, you’ve had a lot of stress in your life, or perhaps you had a lot of antibiotics due to illness earlier in life. Whatever the reason, it’s important to know, over and above what we’ve just discussed, your unique health background that is making optimal health a challenge for you to achieve.

That’s why I’m here.

If you’re not feeling your best and need some assistance, we are here for you. There’s no reason to not enjoy life. Your symptoms are there for a reason, let me help you discover why.