Longevity and Healthy Aging

The other night I attended a lecture from a visiting professor from my alma matter Cornell. He is the Director of Nutrition at my ole school. Every once in a while, my local alumni club puts together events, one of which every year is a lecture given by a visiting professor from our school.

The topic in question was on Longevity and Healthy Aging. He talked about what studies have show on how to achieve them and what the relation is between the two.

His first point was that Healthy Aging does not necessarily equal Longevity. You can have a long life without having a healthy one.

Case in point.......one study he quoted..the name escapes me right now, showed how a reduction in caloric intake can directly increase ones lifespan. A 30%-40% reduction in caloric intake can increase ones lifespan by a marked amount. Instead of consuming the recommended 2000 calories, take this down to 1400 calories. All body functions (metabolism, etc) are optimized at this calorie level. No one has figured out WHY this works, but it does work. Somehow the burning of calories shortens life span.

However, that same study noted that while those people lived longer, they were always tired, showed signs of depression, irritability, and continued to be hungry! They clearly were not living healthy!

An interesting point was that our genes are NOT accustomed to having food in abundance. Throughout most of our history, humans have NOT had an ample supply of food. Therefore, we have evolved to survive and thrive without massive amounts of food. The typical American diet has WAY TOO MANY calories in it! More on that in a later post.

He then went on to quote that there is an organization, calorie restriction .org, that promotes a calorie restricted diet. A study of some members showed that their cardiovascular system was typically 16 years younger than those not on their kind of diet. It also showed that these people were always hungry, felt depressed, tired, and irritable.

His main point here was that with a calorie restricted diet, while it may increase your longevity, you DO NOT get enough of the proper nutrients to live healthily!

Clearly, we are meant to receive all of the proper nutrients which is extremely hard to achieve with the typical American diet.

Why am I posting this? I want to encourage everyone to live a healthy life...one full of energy and happiness. Go green inside and out!

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I'll post more of this lecture in the next few blogs. Healthy Aging might be a little dry for some, but its an extremely important topic which I feel people need to know about!