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Blue Zones researcher Dan Buettner considers some foods to be “effective supplements” for longevity.
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Beans are rich in fiber and protein and contribute to longer lifespans in older people worldwide.
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Walnuts are one of the few tree nuts that contain a good dose of omega-3 fatty acids, which are good for your heart.
It’s a warm, sunny day in Beverly Hills, and it feels like just about every important business person and political advisor in the world has arrived for the Milken Institute’s annual Globel conference.
Everyone here wants to know: “Can you live to 100?” That is the title of a six-person panel discussion on the conference stage on Tuesday morning, and the hall is packed. The panelists are discussing what might be the best ways to help people live healthier lives And longer.
Businessman Peter Diamandis, founder of the XPRIZE, is the most experimental of the group. He told the crowd what he does to live a long life: he lifts weights, emphasizes protein in his diet, tries to get at least eight hours of sleep every night and takes off-label supplements such as rapamycin as well as quercetin and berberine.
After hearing all this, researcher and journalist Dan Buettner turned to the audience: “I want to tell you about two revolutionary nutritional supplements,” he said. The crowd giggled, realizing that the products he was about to recommend were probably not nutritional supplements at all, but rather a few basic ingredients of a tried-and-true lifestyle.
Buettner has spent the last two decades researching the world’s “Blue Zones,” the world’s supposed longevity hotspots where people live long, happy lives without major pharmacological intervention. In these regions, he has found two cheap foods that are staples for many people: walnuts and beans.
Apart from the Blue Zones, there is a wealth of evidence from various studies around the world that demonstrate the health benefits of these two ingredients.
Beans are rich in protein and prevent cravings
“If you want to take a supplement, take about 80 black beans a day,” Buettner said.
Beans are a hearty, inexpensive, protein-rich and filling food that people in many of the world’s longevity hotspots eat at almost every meal.
Buettner recommends eating about a cup of beans daily. One of his favorite ways to eat more beans is to simmer a Mediterranean minestrone soup in his slow cooker.
He points to a 2004 study of hundreds of elderly bean lovers in Japan, Sweden, Greece and Australia, which found that people who ate more beans generally lived longer (a mortality reduction of about 7% for every 20 grams of legumes). For other foods, the link to life expectancy did not seem to be as strong.
Walnuts are good for your “intestinal garden”
“If you don’t like beans, we also found that people who eat between 15 and 30 walnuts a day live about three years longer than people who don’t eat walnuts,” Buettner said.
Walnuts are a popular nut among Seventh-day Adventists in Loma Linda, California, a population that typically lives about 10 years longer than other Americans. Adventists also get creative with their walnuts, using them as a substitute for meatless breads for dinner or sprinkling them on their cereal in the morning.
Walnuts are also the healthy snack of choice of journalist Michael Pollan, who has been studying the health and environmental problems associated with our industrial food system for decades.
Experts say eating nuts instead of nut butter is good for your “gut garden” (aka your microbiome) because it’s high in fiber, which keeps everything running smoothly. Walnuts are also high in linoleic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid that’s good for heart health and isn’t very abundant in other tree nuts.
Olive oil is also a scientifically based addition to your diet
“What about olive oil?” asked Diamandis Buettner, apparently fascinated by the Blue Zone guru’s science-based nutritional advice.
Buettner replied that he was “totally for olive oil”.
Olive oil is the favorite ingredient of biohackers like Bryan Johnson, who recently started selling his own expensive line of EVOO for $37 a bottle. But experts say cheaper oils from your local store work just as well.
Behind the hype is solid research supporting the benefits of regular olive oil consumption. Not only is olive oil consumption linked to better heart health compared to butter, there is also evidence that it may directly protect brain health by reducing inflammation and protecting the blood-brain barrier – thus protecting our heads from cognitive decline. A new 30-year study of more than 90,000 people in the US has found that even just a shot of olive oil a day can reduce a person’s risk of dying from dementia by about 28%, even if the rest of their diet isn’t very healthy.
“Olive oil shots!” said Diamandis with a smile.
Read the original article on Business Insider
