How to REVERSE Aging With What You Eat Daily

Dr. Michael Greger provides insight into how a healthy diet, lifestyle changes, and understanding of cellular processes can contribute to longevity and potentially slow down the aging process.

Slowing Aging Lowers Risk of Many Fatal Diseases

Most Premature Deaths and Disabilities Are Preventable Through Diet and Lifestyle, Not Genetics

Greger emphasizes that the vast majority of premature deaths and disabilities are preventable, with only about 25% of the differences in lifespan between people due to genetics. This highlights the significant impact of lifestyle on longevity. He argues that basic behaviors, including not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising, and consuming fruits and vegetables, can add up to a decade of life. Greger also discusses cellular senescence, one of the aging pathways he covers in his book, suggesting that lifestyle interventions can influence this process.

Premature Aging Exponentially Raises Heart Attack, Stroke, and Cancer Risk

According to Greger, slowing down the aging process can reduce the risk of various diseases, which rise exponentially with age. He specifically mentions stroke, dementia, cancer, and heart disease. Premature senescence of cells, which can be prevented by consuming antioxidant-rich foods like berries and greens, relates directly to the prevention of these diseases through diet and lifestyle, rather than genetics alone.

Reversing Aging Can Extend Lifespan and Enhance Quality of Life

Greger introduces the "anti-aging pathway," which can be activated by acetic acid found in vinegar and is further stimulated by exercise and calorie restriction. This pathway has the potential to reverse aspects of aging, thus enhancing both lifespan and quality of life. Greger also highlights the Ha ...

Whole-Food, Plant-Based Diet Focused On Legumes, Nuts, Veggies, and Fruits Keys Longevity

Michael Greger emphasizes the importance of a whole-food, plant-based diet for health and longevity, supported by research pointing to blue zones, where people live longer and healthier lives.

Legumes: A Longevity-Boosting Prebiotic Source For Microbiome

Legumes, such as beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils, are noted by Greger to be associated with the largest expected life expectancy gains according to a study. He suggests including more legumes in your diet because they are the most concentrated sources of prebiotics, such as resistant starch and dietary fiber, that feed the good bacteria in our gut. Legumes are also linked to benefits like decreased inflammation, improved immunity, and muscle strength in frail individuals.

Walnuts Boost Heart Health and Longevity

Greger asserts that nuts, especially walnuts, are associated with the longest lifespan. Walnuts contain more omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants than other nuts and are the only nuts that have been shown to improve artery function within hours of consumption. They also played a critical role in the PRET-D-Med study in reducing cardiovascular disease rates. Consuming a palmful of walnuts daily is recommended, with health benefits plateauing at one ounce, potentially adding up to two years to lifespan.

Michael Greger discusses the benefits of eating walnuts, including their impact on heart health. Interventional trials showed that walnuts might improve heart health and cholesterol levels. This could be a contributing factor to their ability to prolong life, as demonstrated by observational studies that found decreased heart disease risk among nut eaters.

Cutting Sodium in Processed Foods Prevents Age-related Diseases

Greger advocates for the consumption of unsalted nuts and a reduction in sodium intake, as it's the number one dietary risk factor for death globally. Most of the sodium in our diet comes from processed foods. Greger expl ...

Michael Greger and Lewis Howes discuss how factors beyond what you eat can impact aging, focusing on meal timing and its relation to the body's natural processes.

Skipping Dinner Boosts Anti-Aging Pathways

The conversation explores the benefits of narrowing the eating window and timing meals to align with the body's circadian rhythms.

Fasting Induces Autophagy, a Cellular Cleaning Process, but Requires Cautious Supervision

Greger explains that while autophagy, a cellular cleaning process, has benefits and contributes to the aging process, it generally doesn't ramp up until 36 to 48 hours into fasting. He stresses that prolonged fasting should be done under medical supervision to avoid serious health risks such as electrolyte abnormalities.

The discussion looks at the intermittent fasting literature, which Greger admits can be confusing. He highlights that fasting with an eating window earlier in the day has remarkable benefits, but when the eating window is late in the day, it could be harmful, potentially causing metabolic issues. Greger emphasizes skipping supper rather than breakfast and suggests that eating the same food in the morning rather than the evening leads to less of a blood sugar spike, due to the circadian rhythms.

Aligning Meal Timing With Circadian Rhythms Enhances Metabolic Health

Greger suggests that one should ideally collapse their daily feeding window to 12 hours or less, stressing that this eating schedule should be earlier in the day to align with circadian rhythms. He mentions that people in regions known for longevity tend not to eat a lot of dinners, or if they do, their dinners are light or early, typically before 7 PM or even before 4 PM.

He also highlights the importance of chronobiology and how our circadian rhythms have a significant impact on our biol ...

Michael Greger outlines serious deficiencies in the medical system's approach to chronic disease prevention and treatment, highlighting a need for greater focus on nutrition education within the medical field and confronting the consequences of profit-driven health care.

Medical Field Lacks Focus On Nutrition and Lifestyle for Chronic Disease Prevention and Treatment

Doctors Lack Nutrition Education, Ill-equipped For Addressing Illness Roots

Lewis Howes brings up that medical education largely neglects nutrition, often offering at most an hour-long class on the subject. Greger agrees, pointing out that even in medical schools known for their nutrition training, such as the one he attended, he received only 19 hours of instruction, much of which focused on basic biochemistry rather than clinical nutrition or using diet to prevent or reverse diseases. Greger states that graduating doctors, as a result, lack the tools to fully heal patients despite lifestyle-related chronic diseases making up 80% of primary care visits.

Profit Motives Favor Symptom Treatment Over Disease Prevention

Greger comments on how hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry profit from treatments and lifestyle drugs for chronic conditions, suggesting a financial incentive to treat symptoms rather than prevent disease through lifestyle changes. He also discusses how businesses maximize profit at the expense of public health, noting that unhealthy, processed foods offer higher profits due to lower production costs and longer shelf lives.

Challenge: Lack of Incentive In Spreading Evidence-Based Nutrition

Greger emphasizes that peer-reviewed medical literature establishes the foundations of what we know in medicine, but this knowledge has not been assimilated into clinical practice or public awareness due to a lack of direct profit motives. He also points out that beneficial studies on natural foods are not widely promoted because there isn't a lot of money to be made, and the profitability of foods is inversely related to their health benefits.

Greger highlights the absence of advertisements and promotional campaigns for healthy foods, due to their lack of brand identity, which precludes individual growers from profiting sufficiently to justify significant advertising ...