I think you better ask a food expert or at your local pharmacy :) I mean if there is serious concern they are low on certain nutrients, they should make a blood test. Then it's possible to change the diet if needed or add food supplements.
Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?
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Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?
#32My personal experience only - my grandpa lived to his mid-nineties:
Don’t bother too much with the medicines and pills. What really matters: daily social interactions (with friends and family members, not random people or nurses/doctors) and a regular schedule of “purposeful” activities to look forward to every week. Bingo every Tuesday, fish dinners on Friday, etc.
Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?
#33Smother them with 4 year olds. No, seriously: >> A unique social experiment that brings together elderly people in a retirement community with a group of 4-year-olds. Could this encounter between young and old help transform the lives of the elderly? https://thetvdb.com/series/the-old-peoples-home-for-4-year-o... https://thetvdb.com/series/old-peoples-home-for-4-year-olds https://iview.abc.net.au/show/old-people-s-ho…
Or just let them die, as they should. Why we should all suffer from the Prince Charles's Effect?
Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?
#34Rapamycin will probably be more effective than any of those. Also, resveratrol has very low bioavailability (Also, get them to a healthy body fat % (as measured by dexa) which is like 15% or less imo, and have them doing regular cardio.
Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?
#35Encourage them to walk as much as possible - hopefully daily.
Encourage them to shorten their feeding window. Perhaps as small as 4-6 hours but even 8 hours would be a big step up from a (typical) 12 hour feeding window.
If you wanted to be more ambitious, any kind of resistance training would be fantastic but not at the expense of the walking.
...
I notice you employing a familiar heuristic: "things doctors don't want to talk about" but I encourage you to embrace an even deeper heuristic:
If there were some natural substance, or plant extract, or pressing from (food) or (some combination of purple berries) that made people live longer, we would all know about. It would be carved into stone tablets and embedded in every religious tradition. It would not be a secret.
People have been watching and cataloging their food inputs for millennia - the pressed extracts of winegrape seeds would not have eluded their notice ...
Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?
#36Smother them with 4 year olds. No, seriously: >> A unique social experiment that brings together elderly people in a retirement community with a group of 4-year-olds. Could this encounter between young and old help transform the lives of the elderly? https://thetvdb.com/series/the-old-peoples-home-for-4-year-o... https://thetvdb.com/series/old-peoples-home-for-4-year-olds https://iview.abc.net.au/show/old-people-s-ho…
I was always struck when I lived in China how young, happy and active the elderly all seemed, even though they were much the same age as elderly folk where I grew up (the UK).
I had a feeling it must be at least partly due to their increased role in child rearing among most families.
This is partly just traditional Chinese culture but probably also comes in part due to the awful working hours most Chinese people tend to face. It's very common to just dump your kids on your parents out there.
It does cause some issues, as the grandparents tend to have more ... traditional parenting approaches (corporal punishment fairly common) but for the elderly themselves it's definitely something they really look forward to in their later years.
Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?
#37Keep them off non-essential medication for as long as possible, side effects of one medication often result in further medication and then you’re in the western geriatric medication spiral.
Do everything possible to avoid falls; remove rugs and any floor obstacles, door lips, etc from their living space. Avoid where possible any medication that causes dizziness or fainting. Metformin can cause low blood sugar and fainting if they miss a meal or have a low carb meal, or are generally unwell (eg fighting a cold virus or covid), and so should be avoided unless they have diabetes that cannot be managed through diet.
If they’re prescribed statins, make sure it’s on the basis of cardiac calcification tests and not just a blood test (latter has little to no correlation with cardiac risk)
Dehydration is a huge problem for older people in general, keep them hydrated any way possible. Dehydration leads to general poor health, digestion, dizziness and falls.
Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?
#38Smother them with 4 year olds. No, seriously: >> A unique social experiment that brings together elderly people in a retirement community with a group of 4-year-olds. Could this encounter between young and old help transform the lives of the elderly? https://thetvdb.com/series/the-old-peoples-home-for-4-year-o... https://thetvdb.com/series/old-peoples-home-for-4-year-olds https://iview.abc.net.au/show/old-people-s-ho…
Or just let them die, as they should. Why we should all suffer from the Prince Charles's Effect?
May be because people (at least some) love their parents and miss them when they are gone?
Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?
#39I think the best you can do is not smoking, not eating garbage, not being obese, doing medical check ups constantly and having a lot of luck. In my family older folks have consistently lived to 90s-100s despite growing up poor, never exercising nor caring about hyped vitamins.
Also after living with my grandparents, etc. I'm positive it's more important to have a fulfilling life than a long one. At some point you're done, it's time to go.
Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?
#40I think David Sinclair's track record of actually producing meaningful improvements in human longevity is zero. The whole sirtuin thing got big funding from pharma and then totally failed. I would remain very sceptical of what he says, as he definitely talks up his own work as high as it can go and beyond. Personally, I doubt these supplements make any difference. I also doubt that metformin makes a big difference (a…
Not sure about the evidence, can't judge on that. But he looks really good for his age. Of course depends if it is due of his lifestyle or not.
> he looks really good for his age
That's anectodal and also quite subjective. The fact that he uses this as an argument for his studies (I've heard him saying exactly that in interviews) makes it very hard to take him seriously.
> depends if it is due of his lifestyle or not
Most likely genetics. I know plenty of people who look great for their ages whilst eating what Sinclair would probably consider a bad diet (mostly beef and processed meats, with some grains, vegetables and fruits interspersed) and taking no supplements. I'm talking about senior people who appear 10-15 years younger than their ages.
I'm not using these anecdotes to promote not taking supplements or eating that kind of diet. Some of these people are but they're not in the business of selling their lifestyle and are not scientists at all.
Also, looking good for one's age doesn't mean they're not going to die of a heart disease in 5 years time.