Eat to live for ever (well nearly!)

WE’VE had the 5-2 diet and the 4-3 diet, but a new book claims five days of a fasting-mimicking diet every few months could help tackle everything from cancer and diabetes to cardiovascular disease, as well as lowering your cholesterol and blood pressure, potentially adding years to your life.

Doctor Valter Longo, the director of the University of Southern California Longevity Institute in Los Angeles, and The Program on Longevity and Cancer in Milan, has spent 30 years studying how to live longer. And now he has created a new diet based on his research.

Here, in an exclusive extract from The Longevity Diet, he explains how it could change your life.

“The Longevity Diet is as simple as adopting this daily nutritional regimen and combining it two to 12 times per year (depending on your general health) with my fasting-mimicking diet (FMD), which is exactly what it sounds like: a diet that mimics a fast, providing all its benefits without the hunger.

“Combining these two elements can protect, regenerate and rejuvenate the body to keep us young and healthy longer. These diets can be adopted by relatively young people to help delay ageing and prevent disease, and also by individuals up to age 70 to help them return to a more youthful state.”

You really are what you eat

We all know the saying “You are what you eat”. For most people that translates into “avoid junk food”.

The food you eat can determine how you look and function, whether you sleep well at night, whether you will stay thin or gain weight, and whether your body shape is more like a pear or an apple.

The type of food you eat determines whether your brain will use glucose or ketone bodies to obtain energy. And if you’re a woman, the type and quantity of food you eat can affect your chances of becoming pregnant.

It’s important to eat food you truly enjoy, but it’s also important to eliminate or minimise the consumption of food that will make your life shorter and less healthy, and to increase the consumption of nutrients that will make your life longer and healthier.

This is the optimal diet there is for minimizing disease and maximising a healthy lifespan...

FOLLOW A PESCETARIAN DIET

Aim for a diet that is close to

100% plant and fish-based, limiting fish consumption to two or three portions a week and avoiding fish with high mercury content (tuna, swordfish, mackerel, halibut).

If you are past 65 and start to lose muscle mass, strength and weight, introduce more fish into the diet, along with other animal-based foods, like eggs and certain cheeses (preferably feta or pecorino) plus yoghurt made from goat’s milk, all of which are commonly consumed in high-longevity areas.

CONSUME LOW BUT SUFFICIENT PROTEINS

Eat 0.31 to 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. If you weigh 130 pounds (9st 2lb), that comes to about 40 to 47 grams of protein per day, of which 30 grams should be consumed in a single meal.

The diet should be free of animal proteins (red meat, white meat, cheese) with the exception of proteins from fish, but relatively high in vegetable proteins (legumes, nuts etc).

MINIMISE BAD FATS AND SUGARS, MAXIMISE GOOD FATS AND COMPLEX CARBS

Every day we hear about “low carb versus high carb” or “low fat versus high fat”. It shouldn’t be a question of either/or, but of which type and how much of each.

In fact, your diet should be rich in good unsaturated fats, such as those found in olive oil, salmon, almonds and walnuts, but as low as possible in saturated, hydrogenated and trans fats.

Likewise, the diet should be rich in complex carbohydrates, such as those provided by wholemeal bread, legumes and vegetables, but low in sugars and limited in pasta, rice, bread, fruit and fruit juices, easily converted into sugars by the time they reach the intestine.

BE NOURISHED Like an army in need of rations, ammunition and equipment, the body needs proteins, essential fatty acids (omega-3, omega-6), minerals, vitamins and, yes, sufficient levels of sugar to fight the many battles raging inside and outside cells.

When your intake of certain nutrients becomes too low, the body’s repair, replacement and defence systems slow down or stop, which allows the damage to accumulate.

EAT A VARIETY OF FOODS FROM YOUR ANCESTRY

To take in all the required nutrients, you need to eat a wide variety of foods, and it’s best to choose from those that were common on your parents’, grandparents’ and greatgrandparents’ table. This does not mean you should eat like your grandparents, but that you should pick foods that they would eat following the longevity diet guidelines.

The human body is the result of billions of years of evolution.

For example, in many northern European countries where milk was commonly consumed, intolerance to lactose is relatively rare, whereas lactose intolerance is very common in southern European and Asian countries because milk was not historically part of the traditional diet of adults.

EAT TWICE A DAY PLUS A SNACK

Unless your waist circumference and body weight are in the normal or low range, it is best to eat breakfast and one major meal plus a nourishing low-calorie, low-sugar snack daily. If your weight or muscle mass is too low or if it’s dropping against your will, then eat three meals a day plus a snack

OBSERVE TIMERESTRICTED EATING

A common practice adopted by many groups in which centenarians are common is time-restricted eating, or confining all meals and snacks to within 11-12 hours or less a day.

Typically you would eat breakfast around 8am You and finish dinner before 8pm should also not eat within three to four hours of going to sleep.

PRACTISE PERIODIC PROLONGED FASTINGMIMICKING DIETS

People under 69 who are neither frail nor malnourished and are free of major diseases should undergo two periods of five days a year in which they consume a relatively high-calories fasting-mimicking diet.

(It is risky to try FMDS other than those tested clinically and shown to be effective)