Greetings fellow Longevanauts!
After an unplanned week hiatus, We’re back with part 2 of 5 of the Minimum Viable Practice series. The goal of this series is to establish a baseline practice for those who want to get serious about their health and longevity. I encourage you to sign up below if you haven’t already or share this email with a friend if you think it would be valuable to them.
Part one can be found here: MVP Part I: Dumb Ways to Die
TL;DR: Eat less. Limit out sugar and refined carbs. Eat mostly vegetables, heathy fats, and complex carbohydrates. Consider limiting your feeding window or another fasting regimen. Drink lots of water and consider supplementation to fill any gaps.
This week we're covering a broad topic: Optimizing intake. Diet can be tough to discuss. It's emotionally charged, highly politicized, and controversial. Everyone believes they have the right answers. Most are misinformed.
The “perfect diet” does not exist. What constitutes a healthy diet for one person may make another very sick. But for the average person, with no allergies or sensitivities, there exist dietary guidelines that have solid scientific backing. These rules will get you 80% of the way there. If you currently follow the standard American diet (SAD), incorporating these rules could spell the difference between dying of heart disease at 55, or living a long and healthy life into your 90s.
Cut the sugar and cheap carbs
The SAD is a recipe for disease and early death. What does it look like? In a recent email from Dr. Peter Attia, he cited a Harvard Medical School article titled, "Top 10 sources of calories in the U.S. diet”:
Grain-based desserts (cakes, cookies, donuts, pies, crisps, cobblers, and granola bars)
Yeast breads
Chicken and chicken-mixed dishes
Soda, energy drinks, and sports drinks
Pizza
Alcoholic beverages
Pasta and pasta dishes
Mexican mixed dishes
Beef and beef-mixed dishes
Dairy desserts
No wonder we feel like shit. Our diets are overrun with foods that spike our glucose, promote insulin resistance and lead to metabolic syndrome. The American Heart Association recommends adult diets contain no more than 25 grams of added sugar per day. Average Americans consume 71.14 grams! (283%). The best thing you can do for your health is not smoke, avoiding this list is a close second.
Start by abstaining from all foods with added sugar (have a cheat day once per week/month if you must). Next, examine the glycemic index of the remaining carbs you consume. If you want to get really granular you can use a glucometer to see how your body reacts to certain foods. From there you can limit further, leaving only foods that give you healthy glucose profiles.
More vegetables and healthy fats
The average American is getting plenty of protein, where we can do better is our vegetable and healthy fat intake. When attempting to connect vegetable consumption with lower mortality we run into the same issues found with all long-term observational studies. Conflating correlation and causation. Confusing relative risk with absolute risk. It’s important we read these studies carefully as to not end up in a “meat causes cancer” sort of situation. Taken with a grain of salt, there are some very strong observational studies inversely associating fruit and vegetable consumption with mortality and chronic disease.
We widely accepted the health benefits of vegetables for years, but fat has had a more tumultuous history. In the 1980s, low-fat diets were in vogue and the results were terrible for our health. Cutting out fat led to an increase in the consumption of sugars and refined carbohydrates. We avoided healthy, unsaturated fat sources like olive oil, nuts, and avocados. The result was an increase in our calorie intake, obesity rates, and chronic disease risk. Lucky for us, fats are back in style. Though the debate on saturated fat continues to rage on, we have strong evidence pointing to the benefits of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.* Olive oil, avocados, nuts, seeds, tofu, and salmon are a few good sources. Changing your diet to incorporate healthy fats and vegetables will crowd out many of the calorically-dense carbs that are enabling you to overeat. You’ll be swimming in micronutrients and starting to feel the benefits of lowering your calorie intake.
Eat Less
Many of us are too fat. Why are we fat? We eat too much. In fact, we eat a lot more than we used to. The average American consumed 2,481 calories per day in 2010, 23% more than in 1970. Estimated calorie needs for sedentary adults ages 36-40 is 2,400 calories for men and 1,800 calories per day for women.
Even if you aren’t over-consuming, there’s growing research backing the benefits of under-consuming. Animal studies have shown calorie restriction increases lifespan and staves off chronic disease. An NIA-supported study in the 1980s that put rhesus monkeys on a calorie-restricted diet. In this case, the experiment group was given 30% fewer calories than the control. The monkeys showed fewer age-related health conditions and 6 of the 20 in the experiment group lived to “maximum lifespan” (equivalent to 120 in human years). In another study, a research team from Duke collected biomarkers from 145 adults that had restricted their calories 11.7% over a period of 2 years. Analysis of the data “indicated caloric restriction slowed biological aging”. The benefits of CR are just becoming clear, but we have yet to find a longevity intervention more effective and safe than calorie restriction. According to a meta-analysis published in Nature, "CR or CR mimetics may be the most reasonable and potentially beneficial anti-aging strategy”. Even so, most aren’t willing to live the life of a CR Society member, restricted to 75% of recommended calories. There may be another option. New research is showing we can replicate these effects by going short periods with no food at all.
Fast
I've written before about emerging science linking longevity and fasting and I only see the body of evidence growing in the coming years. Unlike long-term calorie restriction, fasting strategies like restricting your eating window or following a 5-day fast mimicking diet are actually tenable for most people. There are many types of fasting: water-only, OMAD, FMD 5-2, 16/8, etc. We don't yet know what type is best or how often we need to adhere to these diets to get the health benefits. Restricting your eating window to 8 hours is probably a good place to start. Not only will it consistently put you in a fasted state, but it will also keep you from eating at unhealthy hours (right before bed) and over-consuming. If that’s easy enough do some research and decide what you want your food consumption pattern to look like. Always consult your doctor before making changes to your diet.
My current regimen is as follows:
16/8 every day
24 hour fast every month
5-day FMD every quarter.
Bonus
Take Omega-3, vitamin D, and possibly a multivitamin. Drink plenty of water. Consider supplementing with a greens powder on days where your micronutrient intake is lacking (I only use fermented greens due to digestion sensitivity).
*Although, our ratios appear to be off. A topic for another time.