Jul
18
2020

Key Factors for Centenarians

By | alcohol, Alzheimer’s disease, Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, Diabetes, diet, exercise, fasting mimicking diet, fish oil, food, heart attack, Mortality, olive oil, omega-3 fatty acids, Prevention, Processed food, stress, Stress management, Stroke

A study from Washington State University (WSU) showed some of the key factors for centenarians to survive. The publication of the study goes back to June 17, 2020. In general, it was common knowledge that genetics plays a role in 25% to 35% of centenarians for their survival. That is to say, the remainder is the result of lifestyle factors. It is important to realize that the environmental factors play a significant role in the survival of centenarians, said Rajan Bhardwaj, a second-year WSU medical student. He and his research team determined what allowed centenarians to reach an age of 100 or above. Briefly, they identified the following factors that were necessary.

Three factors identified by the Washington State University study

  • walkability of the neighbourhood, which encourages regular exercising
  • belonging to the higher socioeconomic class
  • a high percentage of working population in the neighborhood (a mixed population) was also important

In the discussion the authors of the WSU study said that “blue zones” of centenarians had been mentioned before in the literature. To clarify, these are areas in the world where more than the average of centenarians live. Dan Buettner used the term “blue zones” in a National Geographic article about where centenarians were located.

The blue zones

He wrote a book about the location of the 5 blue zones. Notably, they are located in Sardinia (Italy), the islands of Okinawa and a group of Seven Day Adventists in Loma Linda. California. In addition, the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica, and the island of Icaria, Greece complete the 5 blue zones. Specifically, Dan Buettner described the following characteristics of the lifestyle of centenarians.

  • They engage in regular physical activity
  • Mostly eating a plant-based diet including legumes
  • Calorie intake is moderate
  • Moderate intake of alcohol, mostly wine
  • Having a purpose in life
  • Engaged in family life
  • Having an active spiritual life
  • Reducing stress
  • Engaged in social life

Other attributes of centenarians

Dr. Thierry Hertoghe gave a presentation in Las Vegas on Dec. 14, 2019 where he stated that centenarians are positive thinkers. This was at the 27th Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine. In particular, the topic of his talk was “Positive Psychological Attitudes of Centenarians “. Dr. Hertoghe is an endocrinologist in Belgium. He took an interest in people above the age of 100. These people, he felt, are special people with a very optimistic outlook on life. Dr. Hertoghe went on to say that centenarians have a will to live. Indeed, they adapt to changes; they have a sense of purpose, and they stay active.

More positive attributes of centenarians

Other psychological features, by the same token, show that they have a positive mood and they avoid stress and anxiety. Another key point is that they have self-determination. It must be remembered also that they are very sociable, have close family ties, love their relationships and often have a strong religious faith. In addition, there is a connection between their basic values, beliefs and spirituality. Truly, centenarians insist on their freedom and they have a feeling of youth. For one thing, centenarians have their own centenarian spirit where they can feel young or old.

In the following I am reviewing some of the details that Dr. Hertoghe gave.

The will to live

For one thing, it takes courage to grow old, and all centenarians have this. They say “Life is worth living”. Essentially, they have a certain resiliency in a world that has an obsession about youth. Despite negative experiences they had to overcome they do not give up and they enjoy life as much as they can. A Finnish study examined 400 individuals aged 75-90 and followed them for 10 years. Group 1 who wished to live less than 5 years had a mortality rate of 68%. Group 2 wished to live for 5-10 years. They had a mortality of 45.6%. The last group, group 3 wanted to live more than 10 years. Surprisingly, their mortality was only 33.3%. Be careful what you wish for!

Adaptability

In other words, this describes the capacity to overcome adversity and your ability to adjust. In a study of 7400 Chinese centenarians’ resilience to changes was measured with psychometric psychological tests. The majority of subjects did not qualify for being resilient. However, 9% of male centenarians and 6% of female centenarians had the resiliency where they qualified for high adaptability. This high resilience group had a 2%-4% lower mortality risk. They had a 36%-55% higher probability of not developing cognitive impairment. That is to say, they rated themselves to be in good health and having a “good life” satisfaction. These resilient centenarians had a 7%-12% higher probability of not developing a physical disability. In essence, these high resilient centenarians had no short-term health decline.

Remaining active

If a centenarian remains active and moves about several hours per day, the body functions are preserved. Anna Mary Robertson Moses who was known by her nickname “Grandma Moses” took up painting at age 78. She died at age 101 in 1961.

Positive emotions

One study of 54 Ashkenazi Jewish older adults (aged 98-107) compared those with positive emotions to those with negative emotions. The researchers noted that a positive attitude about life allowed centenarians to live longer.

A study involving 2282 Mexican Americans aged 65 to 99 showed that positive affect scores were a predictor for the following. Subjects with a high positive affect had a 52% lower probability of becoming physically disabled. They were 36% less likely than the negative controls to lose their walking speed. In addition, they were 47% less likely to die during the two-year observation period than their negative controls.

Nurses’ Health Study and Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study

Two studies, the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and men from the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study measured optimism. The researchers found that those with the highest optimism scores had a 1.5-fold higher probability in women and 1.7-fold in men to survive to age 85. This was compared to a control with the lowest optimism scores. Dr. Hertoghe provided 19 more studies that showed the effects of positive emotions regarding long term survival. For brevity reasons I will not dwell on them here.

What is the centenarian spirit?

When people are older than 100 years, they often have a mix of humor and eccentricity; they express emotions openly and they are happy people. They accept the death of spouses, siblings and significant others.

By the way, humor has a strong predictive survivor value. In a study that researchers conducted over 15 years, there was a clear positive effect of humor regarding mortality. A sense of humor reduced the all-cause mortality by 48% in males. In women humor lowered mortality regarding cardiovascular disease by 73%. Humor reduced death due to infections in women by 83%. Men had a non-significant reduction of all‐cause mortality by 12% and a significant lower mortality due to infections by 74%. Dr. Hertoghe cited three more publications that showed the power of humor in reducing disease and disability.

The fasting mimicking diet helps you to reach a longer life

A clinical trial with 100 subjects was undertaken by Dr. Longo and his research team. He measured markers after 3 cycles of a fasting mimicking diet for 5 days every month. They found that the FMD reduced aging markers, improved diabetes and reduced susceptibility for cancer and cardiovascular disease. In another publication Dr. Longo and co-authors describe how autoimmune diseases can be improved by the use the fasting mimicking diet for 5 days every month.

Another publication by Dr. Longo describes that “age-related disorders including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers and neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and stroke” can be prevented by fasting mimicking diet for 5 days every month.

Even cancer prevention and cancer treatment can be helped by the fasting mimicking diet.  The FMD makes chemotherapy more tolerable.

Key Factors for Centenarians

Key Factors for Centenarians

Conclusion

As we reviewed the factors that lead to longevity, we learnt that engaging in regular moderate exercise is one of the key factors. But belonging to the higher socioeconomic class and living in a mixed neighborhood with people from all walks of life is also important. We also reviewed the blue zones according to Dan Buettner. Mostly eating a plant-based diet including legumes with moderate calorie restriction prolongs your life. Add to this moderate intake of alcohol, mostly wine, and having a purpose in life. Augment this further with being engaged in family life, having an active spiritual life and reducing your stress level.

Living longer is a matter of fulfilling these longevity factors

With all of this you are on your way to become a centenarian. A review by Dr. Hertoghe in a lecture given at an Anti-Aging Conference in Las Vegas in 2019 added more criteria centenarians have. He provided references regarding the will to live, being adaptable, remaining active and harboring positive emotions. The more of these factors you can adopt, the longer you will live. At the same time, you will avoid getting diseases like heart attacks, strokes or cancer, which leads to a longer and healthier life.

The above text contains parts of this blog. The part about the fasting mimicking diet was published here before.

Sep
21
2019

What Makes Us Sick And What Keeps Us Healthy

By | diet, food, green tea, lifestyle, Nutrition

An article in Nature Communication essentially asks what makes us sick and what keeps us healthy? The publication is about eating enough flavonoids to protect you from heart attacks and cancer.

The publication appeared on Aug. 13, 2019. It is a prospective study involving 56,048 participants of the Danish Diet, Cancer, and Health cohort. The medium age of the participant in the beginning of the study was 56 (range 52 to 60). This was cross-linked with Danish nationwide registries. The observation time was 23 years during which 14,083 participants died. As this study had a high number of participants and had a long observation period, the data are quite robust.

The researchers found that when people consume 500 mg of flavonoids from vegetables and fruit per day, they are dying significantly less from heart attacks and cancers.

Details of the study on flavonoid intake

Flavonoids are polyphenolic compounds in plant-derived foods and beverages such as vegetables, fruit, dark chocolate, coffee, tea, and red wine. There are six major subcategories of flavonoids: flavonols, flavan-3-ols, flavanones, flavones, isoflavones and anthocyanins. But it does not matter, which ones we consume, just that we consume enough (more than 500 mg per day).

The results were obtained with much stratification. For instance, in one set of results they normalized for age and sex. They called this model1. In another set they adjusted for age, sex, BMI, smoking status, physical activity, alcohol intake, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, social economic status (income), diabetes, and prevalent disease. They called this model 2.

Participants with 536 mg of daily flavonoid intake had a reduction of 39% of heart attacks according to model 1. Using model 2 this changed to a reduction of 18% of heart attacks.

Cancer mortality reduction

The investigators did a similar analysis for cancer mortality reductions. At 536 mg of daily flavonoid intake model 1 showed a 36% reduction of cancer mortality. Model 2 still calculated a 21% reduction of cancer mortality. In both cases, the cardiovascular mortality risk and the cancer risk showed that more than 500 mg of flavonoids per day were not necessary as no more lives were saved by increasing the flavonoid dose beyond that. Unfortunately the opposite is true: people eat too many processed foods devoid of flavonoids, and they die of heart attacks and cancer prematurely.

Reducing the risk of heart attacks and cancer is not new

Many studies have shown what researchers found in this study, namely that vegetables and fruit can prevent heart attacks and cancer. Here is a brief summary with links to show this.

We heard many times that small amounts of alcohol consumption will keep the arteries clear of fatty deposits. This prevents heart attacks and strokes, but as the following study shows even small amounts of alcohol can cause various cancers.

Small doses of alcohol are still cancer producing

Dr. Timothy S. Naimi from Boston University Medical Center was the main investigator of an international team of scientists. The study found that every year 18,200 to 21,300 cancer deaths in the US (that is 3.2% to 3.7% of all US cancer deaths) are due to alcohol consumption. The authors of the study determined that every person who dies from alcohol related causes lost on average approximately 18 years of his/her life (scientists call this “years of potential life lost”).  51% of women developed breast cancer from alcohol exposure, 62% of men came down with upper airway and esophageal cancers. Less than 1.5 drinks per day caused between 26% and 35% of alcohol-related cancer deaths. There was no safe lower margin. The authors concluded, “Reducing alcohol consumption is an important and underemphasized cancer prevention strategy”.

Lifestyle important for longer life expectancy

I am reminded of a talk that Dr. David Katz delivered in a keynote address. He said that lifestyle improvements create profound changes in our system. This talk took place at the 22nd Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine in Las Vegas Dec. 10-14, 2014. One study that was mentioned showed that in men who adopted a healthy lifestyle 35% of heart attacks could be prevented. With healthy lifestyle the authors meant consuming a healthy diet, not exceeding moderate alcohol consumption, no smoking, regular physical activity and having a normal waist circumference (less than 95 cm).

The ingredients you need to make it to age 100

A Swedish longevity study that went on for 50 years gave me the idea to write a blog about the factors that can help you to turn 100 and still have your mental capacity and good health.Let me introduce you to this study. Researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy in Göteborg, Sweden (which is located at the University of Gothenburg) decided back in 1963 to follow a group of 855 Gothenburg men born in 1913 until they would either die or turn 100. The idea was to find out what killer diseases are in the way to reach such a ripe old age and if they would survive, what was it that made them reach this age. Think of it as a race to turn 100.

What diseases killed at older age and what led to longevity?

The researchers had checkpoints along that journey: various surveys were conducted at the age of 54, 60, 65, 75, 80 and 100 to analyze the factors that lead to longevity. 27% (232) of the original group reached the age of 80, and 13% (111) made it to 90. Only 1.1% of the men made it to the age of 100. What were the causes of death for the other ones who did not make it? 42% of deaths after the age of 80 were due to heart attacks, 20% due to infectious diseases, 8% due to strokes, 8% due to cancer, 6% due to pneumonia and 16% due to other causes. 23% of the men over 80 were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or dementia. Factors that made people survive were refraining from smoking, maintaining a healthy cholesterol level and limiting coffee consumption to not more than 4 cups per day.

Beneficial effects of green tea and black tea

A meta-analysis involving 194,965 people and 4378 strokes found that there was a reduction of strokes with increasing tea consumption. Those who drank 3 or 4 cups of green tea or black tea per day were the experimental group. Researchers compared them to the control group that drank less than one cup of tea per day. The experimental group had a 21% lower risk of getting a stroke than the control group.

A meta-analysis of 18 studies from China showed that green tea and black tea consumption was beneficial for prevention of cardiovascular disease and for cancer prevention. The highest consumption of green tea reduced cardiovascular mortality (heart attacks and strokes) by 33%. The highest black tea consumption lowered mortality by 12%. Cancer mortality turned out different. Green tea did not produce a reduction in mortality, but black tea lowered it by 21%. I suspect that the different subcomponents of the bioflavonoid content in green and black tea are key to those findings.

Plant-based diet versus animal protein based diet

A 2016 study that had gone on for 49 years was involving 131,342 participants. Animal protein intake showed an association with higher mortality from heart attacks and strokes. The investigators substituted 3% of energy from processed red meat by an equivalent amount of plant protein. This reduced the all-cause mortality by 34%. For unprocessed red meat the 3% substitution reduced the all-cause mortality by 12%. If 3% of egg consumption is reduced, all cause mortality drops by 19%.

British Medical Journal study

A new study has shown that you can save lives when you replace red meat and processed red meat. The replacement was with fish, poultry or protein from vegetables. The study appeared in the British Medical Journal on June 12, 2019. It involved 53,553 women nurses and 27,916 male doctors in the United States and ran from 1986 to 2010. Here is my summary of the blog where I reviewed this study in detail. A new study in the British Medical Journal showed that an increase in red meat consumption of only ½ serving per day for 8 years caused an increased mortality of 9% over the following 8 years. With regard to processed red meat the mortality was even bigger, namely 13%. The researchers replaced some of the meat with white chicken meat or vegetables and the mortality normalized.

In contrast, a Japanese study showed that there was no increase in cardiovascular disease with the consumption of up to 100 grams of beef or other meat products per week. The study went on for 16 years.

Using antibiotics as growth promoters is illegal in Japan and Europe

I pointed out before that there is literature explaining why there is a discrepancy: the beef industry in the US feeds the animals antibiotics as growth promoters. This changes the bowel flora in humans who eat the beef. The changed bacterial strains in the gut use carnitine from beef and make trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO). This is a toxin that causes both cardiovascular disease and cancer. This explains why in the US beef is one of the culprits that cause heart attacks and colorectal cancer. In Japan this is not the case. Both Japan and Europe do not use antibiotics as growth promoters in the cattle industry, as it is illegal.

In the US it is likely safe to eat organic meats (beef, chicken) as these meats will not contain antibiotics. Due to the numerous additives in processed red meat, it is a sensible idea to skip these products altogether, as they produce cancer.

What Makes Us Sick And What Keeps Us Healthy

What Makes Us Sick And What Keeps Us Healthy

Conclusion

Several studies have pointed out the importance of eating less animal protein and increasing vegetables and fruit in your diet. Heart attacks, strokes and cancers are still the major causes of death in all of the developed countries. The Danish study mentioned in the beginning showed that keeping the daily intake of bioflavonoids at 500 mg or more prevented 18% to 39% of heart attack mortality and 21% to 36% of cancer mortality.

In other studies we learnt that deaths between the ages of 80 and 100 were mainly due to heart attacks, strokes and cancer (these accounted for 58% of deaths). Only 1.1% of the men in that Swedish study made it to the age of 100.

More evidence that flavonoids and plant protein save lives

Another study measured the effect of green and black tea consumption: There was a 21% reduction of strokes with green or black tea consumption.

Another study found reduced cardiovascular mortality by 33%. Green tea reduced cancer mortality by 21%.

Another study showed that when plant protein replaced red meat there was an astounding drop of the all-cause mortality by 34%.

All of these studies show that you must eat enough flavonoids to protect yourself from heart attacks and cancer. Of course you also need to engage in a regular physical exercise program to stay fit and healthy.

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