Humans have long sought the elixir of life. Very few of us want to die soon, and if we enjoy life, or even if we hope for a better life down the track, we generally want to live long, healthy, happy lives. I personally want to “die young as late as possible.” As Abraham Lincoln said (repeated), “It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
It has been a personal quest of mine for at least 45 years to find out all I can about why some people live to active, ripe old ages – often well over 100 years – and whether it is possible to replicate this. I used to ask every Old Timer I came across what they thought was the secret to their particular long life. Often they seemed not to have a clue. They had not thought about it much, or they gave many stock answers (like the benefit of hard work), so it did not help me much. Even the researchers found the same, that older people gave wildly varying reasons for their long life. But in recent years I have come across some of the best research in this area.
One man who has put decades of research into this quest for the elixir of longevity, Dan Buetner, the author of Blue Zones, had this to say,
"The big aha for me, having studied populations of the long-lived for nearly a decade, is how the factors that encourage longevity reinforce one another over the long term. For people to adopt a healthful lifestyle, I have become convinced, they need to live in an ecosystem, so to speak, that makes it possible. As soon as you take culture, belonging, purpose or religion out of the picture, the foundation for long healthy lives collapses."
There are also many scientists working on this. Often their motivation is monetary, they hope to find a medicine, or in more recent years, a gene, that can dramatically extend life. One lot of research by Australian scientist Dr. David Sinclair, associate professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School, involves anti-aging genes and calorie restriction, or CR. He says,
“…there's a lesson that we've learned 70 years ago from studies in rats, that if you greatly reduce how many calories they eat, these animals will live dramatically longer, about 140% longer, which is an amazing extension of lifespan, if you think about it. For humans it might be 160 or so which, at the moment, seems crazy…” [1]
He claims that a compound called “resveretrol” triggers a type of immune system fighting mechanism when applied to a special gene. Resveretrol is found in dark grapes in larger amounts and in smaller amounts in Blueberries.[2] But I don’t think you will live to 160 by pigging out on dark grapes, sloshing down red wine or piling the blueberries on your ice-cream. Someone suggested you would need to drink five bottles of red wine a day to get the required amount of resveratrol! So I am quite sure that is not the answer.
The flip side to this phenomenon is the negative effect of obesity on lifespan.
Jay Olshansky says, “The life-shortening effect is roughly 12 to 13 years if you happen to be obese, and that range is …anywhere from 5 to 20 years depending on the level of obesity.”
In consequence of this negative information about eating too much, and armed with the 70-year-old research mentioned earlier by David Sinclair, a group in the U.S. are trying to put this information about calorie restriction into practice. I have seen their photos on their web site, and they look totally anorexic.
In the ABC Radio interview mentioned above, Lynne Malcolm asked Professor George Roth from the National Institute of Aging in Baltimore, Maryland, about how much they had to reduce the calorie intake of the animals they were studying to give them the 140% increase in lifespan. George Roth said,
“In the rodent studies the optimum seems to be about a 40% reduction over what the animal would normally choose to eat. For our monkeys it's about 30% but this is still quite a reduction.”[3]
So there you have it! If you reduce the number of calories you consume now by about 40%, you just may be able to increase your lifespan dramatically. Or, you may die of malnutrition, or lack the desire to do anything! Or you may just “snap” mentally and be seen running down a horse to kill and eat it! Or pigging out on fast food for three days. Who knows?
Actually, there was one man who felt so bad about being overweight he decided to take drastic action. His doctor suggested he go on a short fast, presumably to start him in the right direction. The trial fast was not meant to last that long but after a while he seemed to be feeling not too bad, and he was losing weight, so he simply continued fasting. To cut a long story short, for 382 days, ending on 11th July 1966, Angus Barbieri, then a 27-year-old Scotsman, ate nothing.[4] He ate no food at all – and his doctors monitored him with blood tests to verify the fact – for 382 days.
He was "grossly obese" at the time, according to his doctors, weighing 207 kg. (456 pounds). The doctors had aimed to put him on a short fast, thinking it would help him lose some weight, though they didn't expect him to keep it off. But as days without food turned into weeks, Barbieri felt eager to continue the program. He wanted to reach his "ideal weight," 82 kg. (180 pounds), so he kept going.
Sounds incredible, doesn’t it? But it’s true! He drank water of course, and his doctors suggested he take a daily vitamin regimen so his body could metabolise the fat he was burning, but he ate nothing for 382 days. I would be careful trying this without supervision, because fasts over 40 days are still considered a big risk, but I know from personal experience that 14 days or more is not a problem for me, as I have done it a number of times.
But now I want to get back to the real world and build on some fascinating evidence detailed in a book which enlarged upon a series of articles in National Geographic magazine.[5] These looked at a few isolated communities of people who have a high percentage of elders who actually live healthy lives to ages well over one hundred years.
When I was younger, the press and scientific communities were interested in cultures like the Hunza Kuts living high up in the Himalayan Mountains near the Khyber Pass, and Abkhazian people living in Georgia, near Russia. These cultures claimed many elders living to 120 or 140. But in the end researchers could not verify their ages with reliable birth certificates, and so they were forced to discontinue their interest. A joint Soviet-American team have since tested the veracity of the Abkhazians and accepted most of their age claims as being accurate.[6]
But scientists have become interested in a few pockets of culture where the birth dates can be verified, and where the elders do in fact regularly live to ages from 100 to 115 years, and more.[7] One of these groups lives on the Island of Sardinia, off the coast of Italy. They are not Italians as such, but related. Another group live on the island of Okinawa, part of the islands of Japan. Again, they are not Japanese, but related. The third group are in Costa Rica, in Central America. The fourth group are on a small island off the coast of Greece, Ikaria. And the fifth group will surprise you, but we will leave them till later.
There are several surprising facets about the eating habits of these groups that blow away many myths about healthy eating. There are also some important lifestyle practices that these groups all have in common that are intrinsic to their long lifespan.
The next post will look at the Okinawans, who arguably have the oldest average ages.
[1] Transcript of Interview – Health Report on ABC Radio National with Lynne Malcolm
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Published by his doctors in, Postgraduate Medical Journal in 1973.
[5] The Blue Zones, Dan Buettner
[6] Reference this?
[7] The oldest verifiable age for a woman to have lived was a French woman, Jean Clement, who lived to 122 years. The oldest verified male age is 115. So my quest to live to 110 is pushing the limits, but possible!
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