Improve Lifespan With Longevity Guide Nutritional Factors

This longevity guide for nutritional factors is offered as a preventative advisory to help you better manage food nourishment, assimilation and anti-aging benefits. The cornerstone of our consumer directed healthcare and fitness culture is that no one will mind your business better than you will, if you know how. Our purpose is to show you how.

It would be terrific if we could invoke Woody Allen's longevity rule that says “I don’t want to know when I’ll die. Just tell me where, so I can avoid the place.”

It’s not that simple, so this idea requires four things that we hope are true for most of us most of the time.

1. That you can achieve a quality, fulfilling life that you enjoy so that you want to continue it and to improve it. The basis is a positive attitude. Not always present, but always available if we seek it.

2. That you are sufficiently motivated to maintain your quality of life so that you will expend the effort to achieve it and exercise the discipline to maintain it.

3. Avoid conduct that detracts from quality longevity. Rejecting the attractive but harmful often requires more discipline than doing the tedious.

4. If you wander from your intended regimen, exercise self-control to get back on the right track. Return to good habits as soon as you can.

The Longevity Game

A creative and fun way to help you take charge of your wellness issues can be found in “longevity games” that predict human lifespan. They seek to make individual lifespan projections based on heredity, environment and personal conduct factors that affect us. They point the way to the things we should do, the things we should avoid and the things which we can not control that affect our health and our life spans.

Because it incorporates vital “fixed factors” that we can not control, we favor “The Longevity Game”, as published by Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company. We do not represent or have any association with Northwestern Mutual. To see and play Northwestern Mutual’s game, go to Longevity Game.

Northwestern’s game uses an average life expectancy of 76 years as its baseline. Lifestyle factors allow you to add to or subtract from that baseline to estimate your own life-expectancy. We cite this game primarily as a reference point to discuss the longevity nutritional factors that you should or should not use in seeking to improve the quality and length of your life.

Longevity Nutritional Do’s:

Resveratrol: For anti-aging benefits, drink and eat foods high in resveratrol, an antioxidant that may also lower cholesterol and help stifle the aging process. Resveratrol may have powerful anti-cancer, anti-viral, anti-inflammatory, anti-aging and rejuvenating effects. It energizes muscles, reduces heart rates and boosts endurance.

Resveratrol is found naturally in red wine and red grapes, blueberries, raspberries, cranberries, bilberries and peanuts. It is also available as a nutritional supplement. No known studies have been made for proper dosage, but supplements are typically sold in 20mg to 50mg capsules, which cover the range of some recommended daily dosages.

Garlic: Garlic is a potent antioxidant that may also lower blood pressure and decrease risk of stroke.

Folate / Folic Acid: To stimulate brain development in embryos and to inhibit brain and heart aging in women, include Folate vitamin B in your diet. Sources include leafy green vegetables, beans, mushrooms and grass fed beef liver. We have also mentioned the indicated anti-cancer benefits of folate for both men and women who consume alcohol.

Olives: Eat olives, an ancient health food, that is high in amino acids and vitamins E and K. Olives may lower cholesterol and triglycerides and promote bone formation and blood clotting.

Coffee: Do drink coffee. Your morning coffee is rich in antioxidants that help protect against cancer and is beneficial against diabetes. Coffee is good as a morning pick-me-up, but not as a constant source of energy. Day long consumption starts to create balance problems with your body system and may lead to caffeine dependency.

Ginger: Do use ginger - often. It may be the best cancer killer in the kitchen. It tastes and smells good, can be an effective remedy for an upset stomach and intestinal inflammation. In laboratory tests, it has proven to be deadly to cancerous tumors.

Vitamin C & Flavonoids: For healthier heart and lungs, eat an apple a day. It’s a great source of vitamin C and flavonoids that improve blood and circulatory health. Other sources include red grapes, tomatoes, onions, green tea, broccoli, blue berries and, thankfully, dark chocolate. For information on this treat, check out Healthy Dark Chocolate.

Testosterone and Estrogen: Men naturally lose testosterone as they age. As a result of consuming estrogen-related hormonal additives in our current food chain, the cumulative effect on middle-aged and older men is that they are becoming more feminized. This is characterized by lower than normal levels of testosterone, by more depression, by loss of muscle mass and bone density, by a higher proportion of soft weight and by reduced sexual drive and performance.

To reduce estrogen, eat cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower and consider taking the nutritional supplement DIM (diindolylmethane), which is a derivative of such cruciferous plants and has uses including hormonal control. To increase testosterone naturally, consume foods high in zinc, such as oysters, animal proteins, beans and nuts and take the nutritional supplement zinc.

Stevia: Stevia, also known as “sweetleaf”, is a shrub in the sunflower family that is native to Central and South America. As a sweetener, stevia has a taste with a slower onset and longer duration than sugar. Stevia extracts are 300 times the sweetness of sugar, without the high carbohydrate properties of sugar and without calories. There are no adverse effects such as experienced with synthetic sugar substitutes like aspartame.

With negligible effect on blood glucose, stevia is an attractive natural sweetener for diabetics and for those who seek to reduce high carbohydrates in their diets. Stevia can be used as a sugar substitute in most cooking recipes. Stevia is widely used in some markets, principally South America, Canada and Japan, where it claims a forty percent market share.

As a political matter, stevia was not approved in the US until 1995. The FDA has approved stevia for sale as a dietary supplement, but not as a food additive, primarily due to pressure from sugar and sugar substitute marketers who do not want to compete with stevia. Coca-Cola and Cargill are seeking FDA approval for a stevia-based sweetener to use in a new generation of no-calorie beverages.

Zinc: Zinc may promote testosterone production and prolong the life of testosterone in the blood for men. Dosage starts with 30 mg per day.

Longevity Nutritional Don’t’s:

Charbroiled: For colorectal health, do not eat meat that has been charred or burned. Meat should be grilled or cooked at low temperature, preferably not well-done.

Glycemic Products: In a weight maintenance mode, minimize grain products. Even whole grain products have high-glycemic index ratings that raise the blood sugar and insulin levels that stimulate weight gain and aging. It’s better to eat sugar-based desserts than grain-based foods. Better still, eat fruit, cheese and nuts. One additional benefit stems from evidence that acne may be related to a grain-based, high glycemic diet. If acne is a problem, this may be a reason. Try a no-grain, low-carb diet. If in a weight loss mode, avoid grain products and high-carb starches. Don’t eat bread or pastries or breakfast cereal or pasta or potatoes or white rice or corn.

Diet Drinks: Avoid or minimize consumption of diet sodas. Many people use a diet drink as an excuse to over-indulge on something else. Some studies have shown that diet drinks make you feel hungrier and prompt you to eat more. In addition, a Tufts University study indicated a connection between bone density loss and consumption of carbonated drinks for women who drink as few as four to five carbonated drinks a week.

Adverse Additives: Avoid food additive problems. Another aspect of diet drinks and diet food products is that many people have had significant adverse reactions to aspartame, the basic artificial sweetener in most diet drinks and foods. NexusMagazine cites aspartame as “by far the most dangerous substance on the market that is added to foods.” It accounts for over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the US FDA.

Over 90 symptoms have been recorded, including headaches, seizures, nausea, insomnia, heart palpitations, breathing difficulties and vision problems. According to researchers and physicians studying adverse reactions to aspartame, some chronic illnesses have been triggered or worsened by aspartame. These include brain tumors, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, parkinson's disease, alzheimer's, mental retardation, lymphoma, birth defects, fibromyalgia, and diabetes.

An honorable mention problem food additive is monosodium glutamate, or MSG. It has some of the same toxicity features as aspartame and produces similar adverse reactions. MSG is a preservative that we often encounter at restaurants. It’s always best to ask before you order.

Omega 6 Oils: Monitor your use of omega-6 vegetable oils. Omega-6 fats are naturally found in vegetable and seed oils (corn, soybean, cottonseed, etc). Small omega 6 consumption contributes to normal growth, but heavy use is linked with inflammations and some cancers. Omega-6 oil has also been associated with increased risk of macular degeneration for those who consume large amounts.

When possible, healthier alternatives are natural omega-3 oils (fish oil, flax seed, walnuts, hemp seeds and eggs); saturated fats from meats raised on natural diets (grass-fed beef or buffalo, wild game, range-free chickens and coconut oil); and monounsaturated fats (nuts, avocados, and olive oil).

For ideas on Longevity Fixed Factors, go to Fixed Factors.

For ideas on Longevity Variable Factors, go to Variable Factors.

For ideas on Longevity Fitness Factors, go to Fitness Factors.

For ideas on Longevity Diet Factors, go to Diet Factors.

For ideas on Longevity Life Quality Factors, go to Life Quality Factors.

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