Can we prolong our lives by lifestyle choices and diet?
The search for the ‘elixir of youth’ and a way to turn back the hands of time is the theme of countless films, books, and unfortunately dubious marketing campaigns. The truth is that the aging process – and our ability to live well in our senior years – is all about basic biology, not some magical product or chemical formula.
However, that’s not to say you can’t improve your life expectancy and stay healthier as you age.? That too is something rooted in science – and influenced considerably by lifestyle choices and diet.
Keep in mind though that a sudden switch in your diet and joining a gym won’t instantly transform your prospects for a longer, healthier retirement! Expanding your longevity is about building good habits that improve your life expectancy, especially if you start young.
We all know the fundamental factors that can influence the pace at which our body ages and ‘wears out’. This includes the level of exercise we achieve on a regular basis, and whether we smoke, drink alcohol or use illegal substances.? Taking steps to maintain good mental and emotional health can also influence our physical health (and whether living longer feels like a good thing).
The dangers of over-eating, and the health risks of consuming too much saturated and trans fatty acids , salt , and sugar are widely publicised.
However, your ability to influence your ‘twilight years’ depends on far more than avoiding foods that are bad for you.? As nutritional research and knowledge improves, it is becoming clear that making meaningful dietary choices can prevent some premature effects of aging and make it possible to live longer.
In fact, one report suggests that thanks to improvements in diet in Britain, we have already been able to increase life expectancy by ten years.
What sort of foods or supplements improve our chances of living to ‘a ripe old age’ and hopefully continuing to enjoy a quality of life?
Fighting free radicals
Much of our ability to ‘eat ourselves’ to an older age is down to ensuring we get the sort of nutrients that protect us at a cellular level, including boosting our ability to prevent or slow down oxidative stress.
What is oxidative stress? It is the term used to describe an imbalance between the production and accumulation of oxygen-reactive species – including free radicals - in cells. It is also about our body’s ability to detoxify these molecules, to keep cells healthy.
If you have oxidative stress, it can have an especially negative impact on your circulatory, respiratory, and nervous systems; in other words, the functions that sustain life and keep the whole body working effectively.
Aging, the environment, and our biological processes play a role in the production of free radicals and oxidative stress. However, we can also take steps to consume antioxidants to help reduce the risk factors or pace of imbalance.
There are many natural food sources of antioxidants, including particularly beneficial ones such as vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, selenium, manganese, lipoic acid, flavonoids, and polyphenols .
This makes this an easy step forward in improving your life expectancy, as long as you get a mixture of these substances in your diet. That’s because each one has its own chemical properties, behaviours and biological benefits.
Alkalising with juicing
One of the best ways to improve your intake of a good variety of antioxidants is to combined fruits and vegetables into delicious drinks, using juicing techniques. However, regular juicing can also help to combat toxins that build in your body, and will create a pH balance that is more conducive to prolonged good health.
As one report puts it “Life on earth depends on appropriate pH levels in and around living organisms and cells. Human life requires a tightly controlled pH level in the serum of about 7.4 (a slightly alkaline range of 7.35 to 7.45) to survive.”
To mess with this, by consuming a highly acidic diet and allowing acid to build up internally, is logically a health risk. Whereas, the above report highlights that “Increased fruits and vegetables in an alkaline diet would improve the K/Na ratio and may benefit bone health, reduce muscle wasting, as well as mitigate other chronic diseases such as hypertension and strokes.”
In other words, this is another controllable factor in keeping your body’s balance right to a microscopic level!
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Other food choices to improve longevity.
Eating more fruit and vegetables has been mentioned in terms of both antioxidants and a more alkaline diet. However, the benefits of a switch to more plant-based foods extend much further than that, if you want to protect your health and potentially live longer.
Take for instance the nutritional value of nuts and seeds. These are powerhouses for antioxidant intake but also provide vitamins, minerals, protein, and beneficial plant compounds. They have also been linked with lowering cholesterol levels.
Similarly, eating more legumes (such as beans, peas and lentils) has been linked to better control of blood pressure and blood sugars, for example. Wholegrains too are advantageous to health and can help lower cholesterol and potentially reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.
Even the herbs and spices used to flavour meals can play their part in protecting your health. A great example is the potent bioactive compound curcumin that is present in turmeric. It has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties and is believed to be beneficial to brain, heart, and lung health.
Is a plant-based diet the way to a longer life?
Vegan or even vegetarian diets are not the only way to improve your chances of living longer, as these life choices now have an increasing presence of ultra-processed foods .? A carefully managed amount of red meat (preferably grass-fed and sourced from organic local farms) can deliver a valuable level of vitamins and minerals, as well as protein.
The trick is to avoid processed meats, however, especially things like bacon and sausage which contain nitrates, and cooking meat in saturated fats. This is the sort of food choice that can increase your risk of a range of diseases, including cardiovascular issues and some cancers.
After saying that, there is emerging outcomes as some forms of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. Making it impossible to ignore the potential benefits of this option, as long as you explore the best ways to supplement a vegan diet .
Finally, long life, and cellular energy
Of course, no summary of the potential for nutrition to improve life expectancy would be complete without reference to Omega-3. Finding a good quality source of Omega-3 plays an important role in protecting heart health, but also neurological function.
However, there is a less obvious and discussed way you can protect your health and possibly live longer. That is, to make sure that what you consume is properly supporting the natural energy your body needs to survive and thrive, right down to cell repair and regeneration.
The science of electromagnetic nutrition hinges on optimising how our bodies create, store and use energy, and ensuring we can be consistently efficient in the functioning of all our organs and muscles.
Of course, you can also use meaningful nutrition to manage your response to disease, by choosing foods that boost your immune system and heart health .
It all adds up to one thing – ‘the secret to living longer’ may be right in front of you every time you shop for food or sit down to eat.
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10 个月The answer is yes, though we can never be certain that even with those good choices, all will be well. Hence why considering private medical insurance might be a 2ndary choice. Get a health screening, get proactive. Kind of like a warning light on your car dashboard.