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Here's what seems blindingly obvious to me from everything I've read: eating a balanced diet, staying fit (strength and cardio), having a healthy social life, are vital for staying healthy as you age.
You want to live forever? Don't do any of the things that make living worthwhile.
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> eating a balanced diet, staying fit (strength and cardio), having a healthy social life ... and sleep
Adults need less sleep as they age. Still useful to have it, of course...
Here's what seems blindingly obvious to me from everything I've read: eating a balanced diet, staying fit (strength and cardio), having a healthy social life, are vital for staying healthy as you age.
My hypothesis is that stress is the real killed. This might be survivorship bias, but I often see people that are above average old, smoking. That's why I think that perhaps the reduction of stress that smoking provides, could be more beneficial than the negative side. We do know that nicotine does have a neuroprotective effect and smoking does include a specific way of breathing.
I'm not saying smoking is good or that anyone should smoke. But I do think it's worth investigating.
I personally try to avoid stress whenever possible, of course, within reason.
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A friend of mine is a cardiac nurse and get massively frustrated by the overly complex regimens that people follow while ignoring the obvious stuff. e.g. going for low-gluten diets while drinking too much alcohol and not exercising enough. In terms of food I've always loved Michael Pollen's description of healthy eating as opposed to fad diets: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
I think Pollen should have said "Eat real food", and stopped there. Then our appetite will take care of itself, and won't require conscious - and ultimately - futile endeavour. And eating meat's fine (from a health perspective, if not ethical necessarily). We've been eating it for a couple of millions of years.
Humans didn’t exist millions of years ago…
Here's what seems blindingly obvious to me from everything I've read: eating a balanced diet, staying fit (strength and cardio), having a healthy social life, are vital for staying healthy as you age.
I do think that people underestimate the dangers of prolonged stress. My hypothesis is that stress is the real killed. This might be survivorship bias, but I often see people that are above average old, smoking. That's why I think that perhaps the reduction of stress that smoking provides, could be more beneficial than the negative side. We do know that nicotine does have a neuroprotective effect and smoking does inc…
it's quite a sample bias, because those who you see smoking are likely quite healthy and thus is _able_ to smoke to old age (or won a genetic lottery to be able to withstand smoking).
What you need to count is how many people smoke, and then the % of them dying earlier than those who don't. Otherwise, sample bias will give you the wrong conclusions, esp. if this bias is affirming your own world view.
Here's what seems blindingly obvious to me from everything I've read: eating a balanced diet, staying fit (strength and cardio), having a healthy social life, are vital for staying healthy as you age.
I do think that people underestimate the dangers of prolonged stress. My hypothesis is that stress is the real killed. This might be survivorship bias, but I often see people that are above average old, smoking. That's why I think that perhaps the reduction of stress that smoking provides, could be more beneficial than the negative side. We do know that nicotine does have a neuroprotective effect and smoking does inc…
The more control you can exert over your response, the better.
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Except that everyone's body is different, and sometimes you really should be on a particular diet of some kind. Ask your doctor what to eat, eat that. When they say "stop drinking", "cut back the salt", "eat more fiber", etc, do it.
> Ask your doctor what to eat, eat that. Ummmm ... maybe. I work in a medical practice, and I don't think the doctor's really have that great an understanding of nutrition. I'm not sure it's even something they study at med-school.
The absolute first thing you should think with articles like this: is the journalist confusing correlation and causation??? And sure enough, the main finding according the scientific paper [1] In this cohort of 177 709 men followed up for a mean of 9.6 years, higher cardiorespiratory fitness was associated with a lower risk of colon cancer incidence. A lower risk of death from lung and prostate cancer was also noted.…
Here's what seems blindingly obvious to me from everything I've read: eating a balanced diet, staying fit (strength and cardio), having a healthy social life, are vital for staying healthy as you age.
Does a balanced diet include fast food? How much ultra-processed food? How many carbs? Do we need to change the above answers with age or when someone is diabetic or has high blood pressure?
Thus, even though almost everyone will agree with the balanced diet statement from the outset, what constitutes a balanced diet will yield a diversity of answers.
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I think Pollen should have said "Eat real food", and stopped there. Then our appetite will take care of itself, and won't require conscious - and ultimately - futile endeavour. And eating meat's fine (from a health perspective, if not ethical necessarily). We've been eating it for a couple of millions of years.
> eating meat's fine... We've been eating it for a couple of millions of years. The behaviour of ancient humans doesn't necessarily indicate what will keep us modern humans healthy into old age, though. Do we even know whether they ate meat everyday? Personally speaking, I will generally put on too much weight if I follow my appetite and don't count calories or follow some kind of plan. That's true even if I eat "rea…