How long can you live?
One small change in your health condition can be the first sign of a major health problem. But usually we tend to ignore them until it is too late. You have a wonderful family and good job. But suddenly you notice that you cannot control your temper any more, and you shout at your kids without a good reason and you start forgetting important things at work and making costly mistakes.
You have been passionate with your spouse for many years, but now you do not feel anything anymore. Intimacy is now a chore, not pleasure. And then you start having chest pain when walking. You go to your doctor and get tests done just to learn that you now have a heart disease. Then what is next? How long do you think you will live?
According to the Bible, the first man, Adam lived 930 years. Impossible, of course, for us. But the longest living person on the earth, Jeanne Calment, lived 122 years and 164 days. At least 10 people lived more than 116 years. This means that it is possible to live more than 100 years and to be active. But how? The average life span is about 80 years and does not mean an active life. So what is the secret to live more than 100 years? What is the secret to not die prematurely?
Two questions you have to answer
Unfortunately official medicine denies the existence of the fountain of youth. So it was not possible to find it in the medical textbooks or articles. Therefore I decided to do my own investigation to find the answers to only 2 questions:
1. Why we may be at risk of dying prematurely.
2. How to prolong our lives naturally.
I decided to find the proven respectful studies to get the answers. But it was not that easy.
Normally they do medical scientific studies on a huge number of people, who do not know certain information,which can lead to bias in reporting results. The money for these studies is coming from big pharmaceutical companies to prove the efficiency of their new drugs. They want to sell. But there are two problems with these so called scientific studies.
First – is the existence of bias 1. If you are interested in getting your drug sold, which report are you going to publish: favorable or negative?
Second problem is that Big Pharma is about selling drugs. Do you think they are interested in making you healthier and/or prolonging your life naturally? Do you think they are going to give money for this?
Longevity secrets – from real people
First thing I realized was: it can be done. Jeanne Calment, who lived 122 years and 164 days, was pretty active until the every end of her life and was not suffering from any significant chronic conditions. She even smoked until age 117. But how could she achieve this state of health till the very end? In medical school I learned that people die because they are sick. Therefore healthy people do not die. Sounds like an axiom. Turned out I was wrong.
Can people die healthy?
First breakthrough was the Kitava study in 1989 2.
It started with Staffan Lindeberg, MD from the Department of Medicine, University of Lund, Sweden. He decided to study the population of the Island of Kitava in Papua, New Guinea, which is about 24,000. To his surprise even old people over there did not have heart disease, diabetes, strokes, high blood pressure, cancer and any other health condition we hear about every day. Juptner in 1960 has got the same results. So I thought: this is it! Now i know where to look for my answers. Healthy people do not die! But there was a big problem with Kitava study: the average life span was about 45 years! It means: they were dying healthy! So being healthy does not mean that we live longer!
Same thing with a famous Danish Eskimo study 3.
Tho Danish scientists Bang and Dyerberg discovered, that Eskimos have almost no heart attacks, our number 1 killer in the world, despite the fact that their cholesterol is not low. But do they live linger? Not that I know of.
Second breakthrough was Blue Zones, areas of the world where people live longer 4.
Because official medicine does not give the prescription for longevity Dan Buettner, journalist not a doctor, from National Geographic went to Japan to learn more about Okinawa longevity secrets. But according to demographer S. Jay Olshansky of University of the Illinois in Chicago, as well as 51 longevity experts in their position statement wrote in 2002 that “There are no lifestyle changes, surgical procedures, vitamins, antioxidants, hormones, or techniques of genetic engineering available today with the capacity to repeat the gains in life expectancy that were achieved during the 20th century.” 5
Really?
Fortunately to the humankind they did not know about this statement and Blue Zones – a few areas on earth where people simply live longer.
What they did to find longevity secrets: they went to Blue Zones
To get the truth about longevity secrets journalist Dan Buettner and other members if his expedition identified the Blue Zones: Sardinia, Italy: Okinawa, Japan; Ikaria, Greece; Loma Linda, California, US: Costa Rica. They decided to learn from real people, not from theory, how to live longer. But what did they find?
None of them relied on the modern western medicine. Period. But does it mean that it is bad? Not really. Because with the help of the modern western medicine we are going to discover the secrets of longevity later on.
Also you do not have to go to deserted island to live better – Loma Linda, California is only 60 miles from toxic Los Angeles. But this made the mystery even more complicated: if it is not the place, it is not the specific fad diet, it is not the air, so what is it? That is why the Blue Zone expedition learned and documented what differs Blue Zones from the rest of the world.
Is it really water from the Fountain of Youth?
When a Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon came to Florida in 1513 BC, he was looking for the Fountain of Youth. He did not learn medicine and he did not know anything about genes and vitamins. But he already knew: it has to be water. And he was right: they drink plenty of water in Blue Zones, but not too much, especially in Nicoya, Costa Rica. They say that it is because of the high content of calcium in it. But there is plenty of calcium in green vegetables, especially organic. Or calcium OTC pills. But do they prolong life? Not that I know of. Do we have to drink enough water to live longer? Absolutely!
Water is necessary for detoxification: it helps you to get rid of your toxic waste. The question is: is it water itself, or it is something in the water we do not know about?
1550 BC, Venice, Italy there was no modern technology, no Internet and no microscope. But the first Anti Aging manual was written by Luigi Cornaro –”The Sure and Certain Method of Attaining a Long and Healthful Life”. Without tools and information he figured out that moderation is the key. He did what he preached and he lived about 90 years and maybe even more. It took scientists more that 500 years to discover that Luigi Cornaro was right. They took two groups of mice. One of them was fed as much as they wanted to. Another group was given food just to keep mice alive. Guess what group lived longer? The mice that were given just enough food to survive. But mice are not people. So they did the same with monkeys and they got results, suggestive, that calorie restriction is beneficial for monkeys as well. But did it do the same to people?
In the Blue Zones it does.
How Much Should You Eat?
Calorie restriction is the main feature of the all Blue Zones lifestyles. But there is a big problem with calorie restriction alone: if you do not have enough calories, how can you combat infection or trauma or other stress situations? In Kitava Island they do not have plenty of food and they die on average at age of 45. So the longevity secret is not only less food to eat. But what else?
If you ask a dermatologist about the sun exposure, he will tell you how dangerous it is. Fortunately, they did not know about this in the Blue Zones. And they spent a lot of time in the sun. Do not think they were sunbathing! They did not have time for it. They had sun exposure naturally, as a part of their busy life. Have you ever seen a monkey on the beach?
Not really. Because monkeys know how to do it right. As a child I learned that the sun is good for me. My mom told me that if I did not get sun exposure I would get a bone condition called rickets, because the sun is good for the bones. What I did not know was: sun makes our immune system stronger and better, protects us from infection and cancer.
Not all times of the day are good for sun exposure, though. The best hours are before 10 AM and after 5 PM, because at those times you get more UVA and less UVB, which is harmful. But if you have to be in the sun from 10 AM to 5 PM use clothing, umbrellas and hats to protect yourself from UVB, because sunscreens are not that reliable.
It’s In What You Eat
What about living longer? They have plenty of sun in Africa, Kitava or Florida. But they do not live that long.
Could the secret be the magic food they eat? Maybe. They tend to eat more tomatoes and nuts. And this is understandable. Nuts are good for your health, because they are good for your heart: They have plenty of omega 3 fatty acids. Like fish, that is the staple of Eskimo diet. They do not have heart attacks. But Eskimo do not live long, either.
Tomatoes are different from nuts. They are the part of a rainbow diet. Think about it: if fruits or vegetables are of bright color, they are actually inviting you to eat them, and they are good
