How Not to Age: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier as You Get Older

by Michael Greger

In other words, we’re living longer, but we’re living sicker.

Moreover, the autophagy-promoting properties of coffee were independent of the caffeine content—decaffeinated coffee worked just as well.

In fact, those who eschew fruits and go on a ketogenic diet to lower blood sugars may actually make things worse in the long run.

Even eating lunch earlier, rather than later, can make a significant difference.

When people switch to a plant-based diet, their IGF-1 levels can drop significantly in less than two weeks.

if cholesterol were introduced as a new food additive, the conclusion would almost certainly be that it could not be considered safe at any level,

Five daily servings of fruits and veggies don’t appear to be sufficient to make a difference, but if you get eight servings a day, you can significantly drop your CRP levels

Muscle biopsies confirm eating berries can significantly reduce exercise-induced inflammation,1218 which translates into faster recovery times.

even looking only at those who drank the green smoothie each day without making any other changes to their usual diet saw an astounding 40 percent reduction in CRP within just one week,

One-eighth of a teaspoon of powdered ginger, which can cost a single penny, can work as well as the migraine headache drug Imitrex without the medication’s side effects.

Rats fed a diet of about 8 percent protein live almost 40 percent longer than rats fed a diet that’s around 20 percent protein.

On average, plant foods contain sixty-four times more antioxidants than animal foods.

No wonder cruciferous vegetable intake is associated with decreased risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mortality from all causes put together.

So, for everyone who says they don’t have time to work out, exercising potentially gives a three-to-one return on investment. Give twenty minutes of your life to theoretically get sixty minutes of life.

Excess sodium appears to be humanity’s number one dietary risk factor for death.

After the processed food sector, which is led by PepsiCo, the next top three food lobbies are sugar, meat, and dairy.

The conclusion, echoed by the World Health Organization2348 and the World Heart Federation,2349 was clear and unambiguous: “The safest level of drinking is none.”

The foundation of the Blue Zones Food Guidelines is “See that your diet is 95%–100% plant-based.” Vegetables are emphasized (especially leafy greens), along with fruits, whole grains, and legumes.

found that those who had fewer children seemed to live longer.

In the United States, the number one risk factor for dying is the American diet.

The largest association of nutrition professionals in the world, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, is clear in its latest position paper on the subject: Plant-based diets are not only “appropriate for all stages of the life cycle” but may “provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.”

They found that milk intake appeared to increase bone and hip fracture rates, as well as shorten people’s lives.3170

Journal of Internal Medicine titled “Osteoporosis: The Emperor Has No Clothes” suggested it would therefore be safer and more effective to focus on fall prevention rather than pharmaceutical intervention.

Lower-carb diners also suffered significantly higher risk of dying from cancer.

Nine out of ten women surveyed vastly overestimated the benefits of mammograms or had no idea how beneficial they are. One survey found that “if women knew how small the real effectiveness of breast cancer screening in preventing breast cancer deaths is, 70 % said they would not submit to it.”

Fruits, vegetables, soy, and plant-based omega-3-rich foods, such as flaxseeds, correlated with lesser symptom severity, whereas “total flesh food” (meat), dairy, and fish-based omega-3s were associated with more severe menopausal symptoms. What appeared to be the deciding factors, though, were berries, leafy greens, and vegetable intake more broadly.

the equivalent of about two servings of soy foods a day has been found to reduce hot flash frequency by about 20 percent more than placebo and hot flash severity by around 25 percent more than placebo, compared to more like a 30 to 40 percent net reduction from estrogen hormone therapy.

those randomized to the elderberry seemed to do worse, experiencing more aches and pains. Among those not taking Tamiflu, the participants randomized to the elderberry placebo were sick for five days, whereas those randomized to the real elderberry were sick for seven days.

those who ate the most healthful plant foods and the least meat, eggs, dairy, and junk not only had a significantly lower risk of suffering a severe course of COVID-19 but they also had a significantly lower risk of getting infected in the first place, even after taking into account comorbidities and other nondietary lifestyle risk factors, such as exercise, smoking, and socioeconomic status.

About 30 percent of people who are clinically diagnosed with Alzheimer’s are actually misdiagnosed.

“Dietary and Lifestyle Guidelines for the Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease” published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging was: “Vegetables, legumes (beans, peas, and lentils), fruits, and whole grains should replace meats and dairy products as primary staples of the diet.”

dental X-rays appear to increase the risk of the most common type of brain tumor.

high-lactose intake from milk and other dairy products may quadruple the risk of developing cataracts later in life.

Hospice is often framed as “giving up,” but, ironically, when you compare hospice versus nonhospice patient survival, the patients in hospice actually tend to live longer.

In contrast, VSED is legal throughout the United States: Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking.

Martin Luther King Jr. warned that “human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable,”

Arguably, the most important healthcare problem we face may be our poor lifestyle choices based on misinformation.

It reminds me of climate change denial, how healthy dietary advice can be overshadowed by industry interests, ideologues, and a misguided media.