6 replies to this topic

[resveratrol_guy]

As someone who has experimented for years with various purported longevity diets, I was interested in what the epidemiology of supercentenarians could tell us, if anything. All the sophisticated theories in the world cannot compete with real data.

Here's what I did: I went to this Wikipedia list of verified supercentenarians, the average age of whom being around 115, and looked at their respective Wikipedia articles. I did not use other sources, in order to avoid bias and ensure at least some degree of public corroboration. If I found something that said "X attributed her longevity to eating a donut for breakfast every day", then I put "donut" in my spreadsheet. If someone else said "I'm sure it's because I eat several donuts a week that I look so young", I then incremented the donut count to 2. On the other hand, I would ignore statements like "X loves donuts" or "X worked in a donut shop" because they provide no clue as to whether or not donuts were a regular part of X's diet.

Next, if there was some highly aberrant data, I made a note of it, for example, "X ate 7 donuts for dinner every day".

Finally, for all people mentioned in the sheet, I made a note of their dementia status to the extent possible, based on the information provided.

Compiling the list was as much art as science, but I think the numbers are revealing nonetheless and resistant to differences of opinion over any one supercentenarian's dietary comments.

You can view the sheet here.

It goes without saying that raw organic foods are superior to those sprayed with pesticides or adulterated with various artificial chemicals. (The one exception is probably peanuts, which are better sprayed with fungicide because otherwise the aflatoxin threat is far worse still. No supercentenarians I read about reported anything to do with them, anyway. Yeah, sorry, I love the taste of peanuts, too!) With that in mind, and considering that industrial food only became popular in the latter portion of most of these peoples' lives, those with the lowest dementia rates ate, in no particular order: eggs, herring, orange juice, red wine, chocolate, olive oil, potatoes, sweet potatoes, coffee, and various vegetables. Milk and bacon were multiply reported supercentenarian foods, but were associated with inferior mental status in later life. Steamed pork would appear to be a superior alternative to bacon, but the evidence is scant.

Insofar as dementia is concerned, this result is rather unremarkable and reinforces the notion that current thinking in vegan and ketogenic nutrition theory is reasonably well founded, despite being at opposite poles of the spectrum. Apart from the obvious polyphenol and antioxidant content of some of these food items, there is some congruity with estalished research, namely: (1) eggs, herring, and the soy lecithin in chocolate are all rich (phosphatidyl)choline sources; (2) olive oil consumption and modest red wine drinking and are cornerstones of the Mediterranean diet; (3) juice and coffee consumption have been associated with a lower risk of dementia; and (4) sweet potatoes are a staple of the traditional Okinawan diet, much moreso than fish, calorie for calorie.

On the other hand, we have something of a reproducibility problem. Red wine is now loaded with sulphites, except for the few organic brands. Olive oil tends to be an ad hoc mixture of various international sources, but for the pricier brands. Chocolate has become tainted with lead and cadmium (which is why I prefer 80% dark Endangered Species, but there are surely other clean sources). Herring, especially from the North Sea or the Sea of Japan, is going to be tainted with mercury and perhaps radioactive cesium. And purple sweet potatoes are difficult to obtain in most cities, although Asian special stores may carry them, perhaps from polluted third world farms. At least, organic vegetables are still easily obtained in some countries, as are free range organic eggs, preferably not grain-fed.

I would be remiss not to emphasize the importance of other nonnutritional aspects of supercentenarianism, chiefly, happiness, calmness, and a sense of social purpose. Moreover, hormesis is no stranger to this group: light smoking and light drinking, even of hard liquor, featured prominently among subjects. The trick, of course, is to be able to stop after a single cigarette a day or half a glass of red wine. Most people would fail that test.

I may update the list on occasion, but I have no specific plan to do so. I have provided it in the interest of public analysis and debate.
 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 19 March 2016 - 05:54 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

Building on my previous spreadsheet, I added another one here.

It's a list of all the supercentenarians whose diets I could discover at Wikipedia or indirectly via its cited sources. I was basically hoping to find groups of foods, as opposed to merely individual foods, which are correlated with longevity. On each line, I added the word "daily" if it was clear in the source that the food in question was in fact consumed daily. Otherwise, it was probably consumed daily anyway, but I wanted to draw the distinction. As previously, I avoided "favorite" foods or foods for special occasions, as these don't speak to habitual diet.

While the list is very broad and is surely not a comprehensive one in any one case, it does nevertheless provide some statistical curiosities.

First of all, cheese, butter, and red meat (other than bacon which is classified as white meat) are conspicuously absent. I would have expected a better showing for butter, for one thing. Maybe it's just too expensive for most people to obtain, or maybe there's some problem with it. Cheese contains casein and aluminum, which would seem to be neurotoxic in excess, so that's less surprising, despite its cardiovascular benefits otherwise. And we all know the red meat story, which connects L-carnitine to increased LDL, not to mention excess iron considerations.

Secondly, drinkers and smokers abound, although I haven't listed them explicitly. In any case, such habits are at most light, in the sense of one cigarette or serving of alcohol daily.

Jean Calment took the cake by, well, not taking any cake. She was the only overtly ketogenic supercentenarian, and she beat all the rest. Susannah Mushatt Jones was apparently close to ketogenic, having grits as her only documented source of carbs, and also lived extremely long even by supercentenarian standards.

However, carb eaters seemed to perform well, even those who ate fruit or whole grains, or drank milk. Vegetables featured prominently among them, and would seem to be necessary in the presence of the aforementioned foods.

Fish, including sushi, was popular as well.

A few supercentenarians specifically mentioned caloric restriction (CR), most notably the remarkably youthful Alexander Imich, some 6 years before he died. As a scientist quite familiar with modern nutritional research, his interview is an illuminating read.

To me, particularly in light of the monkey studies which showed only minimal life extension due to CR, it would seem surprising that maybe a third of those I surveyed seemed to follow it, particularly various Japanese supercentenarians (hara hachi bu), mainly because it's quite rare in the background population. If it merely improves health but has little or no effectiveness with regards to life extension, then it should not have featured so prominently. It may be that healthy humans, unlike healthy monkeys, are better able to learn about and implement productive health interventions. In other words, the monkey science effectively discounted the synergistic effect of CR on one's own capacity for proactive nutritional intervention. I consider this quite heartening, because frankly intermittant fasting remains the easiest healthy diet approach I've ever tried -- much easier and more sustainable than either juicing or keto.
 

I should add that there's one American lady who ate lots of potatoes and sweet potatoes. I found her article previously, but somehow couldn't dig it up again. Anyhow, I already commented on sweet potatoes above.

 

Finally, I'm intrigued by Salustiano Sanchez's regimen of 6 Anacin (aspirin and caffeine) tablets daily. If nothing else, it suggests that such a high chronic dose might be safe, and therefore worth the well documented benefits of NSAID consumption and enhanced bloodflow to the prefrontal cortex, so long as one carries the fast caffeine metabolism gene (most do).

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 11 November 2016 - 08:55 AM.

[gamesguru]

Don't forget tobacco.  Calment also smoked, although she did give it up age 117.

 

But the second spreadsheet looks a lot better, fewer questionable items (e.g. lard, grits, ice cream, bacon) and just more common-sense, what you envisage a good diet as.  You really don't know what's going on with these cases.  Perhaps the potato people have remarkable genetics, except a glaring potassium deficiency (with potatoes being a better source than bananas).  The fish people could have low rates of fatty acid synthesis from ALA.  Chocolate could be treating a very specific issue on the brain, heart or liver.  And if this is the case, none of these things will unlock a longer life in people with unremarkable genetics, people with more health problems who need a broader and more targeted approach.  You just admitted not everyone has the fast caffeine metabolism, and this guy has an iron stomach clearly taking all that aspirin.  Ymmv

[resveratrol_guy]

You're right: I don't think we have much of a clue what's going on here. What's not on the list is more illuminating than what is, frankly. Agreed: light smoking is wonderful if you have the discipline of a monk, wherein "light" depends on your genetic context, particularly with respect to lung cancer genes. Having a CT scan once in a while might also extend life, depending on the dosage and targetted volume; indeed, one of the Japanese supercentenarians visited Hiroshima the same week it was bombed. Oddly enough, living in a polluted city but otherwise following a healthy diet and lifestyle might provide the same effect. Unfortunately, "pollution" is diverse and difficult to analyze. One clue might be life expectancy in Hong Kong, which is plagued with diesel fumes yet remains at #11 in the world at the moment.

 

The one thing that's obvious to anyone who spends time studying the habits of supercentenarians is that virtually all of them are experts on stress minimization. The statistical significance could hardly be higher, if you read their comments about how they think they managed to live so long. ("That's why they call me Calment!") While none of them follow industrial diets (fast food or heavily processed food as a staple), it's equally clear in the spreadsheet that they're no strangers to junk food. (Sarah Knauss' penchant for chocolate turtles and potato chips is all I could find in the accounts, but clearly was not the core of her diet.) Logically, only people who completely forgo junk food should ever be able to live so long, but logic be damned, because we have hormesis, not to mention a litany of confounding factors.

 

I think the takehome message is this: (1) Learn to medidate and otherwise minimize stress, as though your life depends on it, because it does. (2) Eat a ketogenic diet if you can, or an unprocessed vegetable diet (perhaps with juice and eggs and herring) if you can't. (3) Eat less if possible. (4) When #1 and #2 are in conflict, have a shot of alcohol before bed(*) or eat a piece of chocolate candy (preferably dark, and not before bed).

 

(*) Check your genes first to see if you have increased susceptibility to alcoholism.

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 12 November 2016 - 09:05 AM.

[gamesguru]

I was intending it as a joke, like look what you can get away with, but since I found she only had 1-2 cigs per day, it's a non-factor.  Same with the red wine tbh.  You'll be drunk off your face before getting a microgram of resveratrol.

 

In addition to the chocolate she constantly rubbed olive oil on her skin.  There's also something to be said for the Med diet, tea, meditation, living at high altitudes, etc

[sthira]

And if you cannot dietary restrict, or practice chronic calorie restriction, then fast. Water only fasts for 3-5 days seasonally show great potential for healthy and unhealthy people. Just try it. With practice it becomes easier to control your habits. You won't lose your precious weight lifting muscles, and recent Valter Longo research indicates you may preserve and actually gain lean muscle mass by periodically fasting. Check out Dr. Fung's work. Why no one here is pursuing this for greater health and longevity -- despite clear suggestive evidence that fasting is very beneficial for human bodies -- tells me that people are lazy, don't want to feel temporarily uncomfortable, and would rather just swallow pills, then complain when pills don't work. Fasting, meditation, yoga, spending time surrounded by trees and rivers and mountains and oceans and deserts are answers until we develop the repair technologies ahead, which now, sadly, will probably be delayed yet again because of our fucked up political system.

[resveratrol_guy]

And if you cannot dietary restrict, or practice chronic calorie restriction, then fast. Water only fasts for 3-5 days seasonally show great potential for healthy and unhealthy people. Just try it. With practice it becomes easier to control your habits. You won't lose your precious weight lifting muscles, and recent Valter Longo research indicates you may preserve and actually gain lean muscle mass by periodically fasting. Check out Dr. Fung's work. Why no one here is pursuing this for greater health and longevity -- despite clear suggestive evidence that fasting is very beneficial for human bodies -- tells me that people are lazy, don't want to feel temporarily uncomfortable, and would rather just swallow pills, then complain when pills don't work. Fasting, meditation, yoga, spending time surrounded by trees and rivers and mountains and oceans and deserts are answers until we develop the repair technologies ahead, which now, sadly, will probably be delayed yet again because of our fucked up political system.

 

Well you raise an important point, which is Longo's assertion that you can CR down to between 770 and 1100 per day for 5 days, and obtain sustantially all of the benefits of fasting, provided that you do so once a month. This is the scientific assertion behind his fasting-mimicking diet (FMD) which has been commercialized into ProLon meals (scroll down to "Subject Results").

 

CRP dropped significantly, whereas BMI, IGF1, and glucose dropped only slightly. On the plus side, the people with the highest CRP before the 3-month study experienced the largest drop, which goes back to the notion that fasting is a diminishing-returns game, especially when one considers mortal risks unrelated to diet, such as accidents.

 

Longo said in one of his video interviews that one might have to do a 5-day ProLon session as often as every 2 weeks, depending on one's initial state of health. But he seems to think this is overkill in healthy individuals.

 

Back to your point about water (with some salt) fasts. It would only be too easy to lie in bed once a month for a few days and work on the computer, only to eat like a "normal healthy person" for the rest of month. I've never fasted for more than 72 hours, but what you propose might be even easier than intermittant fasting (IF). Longo's work certainly suggests the possibility that, say, a 72-hour water fast every 2 weeks would be equally as effective as continual IF. It would be a great deal more practical if it worked.

 

Part of the problem with IF is that people who do it tend to overeat on their eating day. Some science suggests that the margin is only like 15% more, but in my personal experience, it's probably 70% more, so the net CR margin is like 15% (1-(1.7/2)). At that point, it seems distinctly possible to me that a 72-water fast once every 2 or 3 weeks could accomplish similar benefits, because it's not like we're going to eat 300% more food the day after.

 

If nothing else, Longo's data gives us markers by which to evaluate the effectiveness of our fasting. One could test his parameters and calibrate the timing of one's eating windows.

 

His breakthrough was to discover that merely reducing calories over a longer period of time is equivalent in effect to fasting outright for a shorter period of time. This would seem obvious, but it's a great asset to anyone trying to sustain such a diet.

 

However, there's something about the rhythm of IF that, as one with a year or more of experience in this area, is distinctly sustainable. It's honestly a blessing to be able to say (right now, in fact) that in several more hours, I'll be able to eat anything that a sensible person would eat, right up to the point where I'm slightly overfull. I never feel deprived because it's only a matter of time until, say, I can hit the vegetable koorma at the local Indian place.

 

Keto diets and juice diets are quite different. Their sustainability is quite low for all but the most stoic of practitioners. I felt full, but thoroughly unsatisfied if not just plain ill, on keto. I felt gastronomically bankrupt, yet otherwise very well, on juice (and raw eggs). That leaves IF, on which I've always felt relatively well, yet completely satisfied. Ultimately, CR's effects depend on caloric intake over an entire lifetime; what good is an "optimal" diet that one cannot stick to?