Irina
Irina Papidakis is 68, but she looks a lot younger. She is likely to live in robust good health well into her late 80s or early 90s. So will most of the people in Ikaria, the Mediterranean island where she lives.
Yuzo
Yuzo Nishimura is 80. But he too looks less. He lives in an area in Japan where many of his friends will also live, free of illness, to at least their early 90s.
They both live in what are called ‘Blue Zones’. Blue Zones are areas of the world where people are not just very long-lived – frequently to 100 – but where they also stay fit, mentally sharp and healthy.
We, in the West, are also living longer, but it’s how you live these years that really matters. Too many suffer in their last decade from degenerative diseases like diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, cancer and dementia.
COMBINING THE BEST OF ALL THE BLUE ZONES
Irina's Mediterranean Diet
Irina eats what’s called the ‘Mediterranean Diet’. It corresponds with current dietary recommendations from the American Cancer Society and the British Heart Foundation.
In March 2018, The Journal of Gerontology published a meta-review which stated quite clearly:
“Consuming a traditional Mediterranean diet rich in minimally processed plant foods has been associated with a reduced risk of developing multiple chronic diseases and increased life expectancy.”
Yuzo's Far Eastern Diet
The same review acknowledged that certain other populations in Asia, notably parts of Japan, also achieved similar extended health and longevity results.
Diets here include oily fish, green tea, soy and the curry spice curcumin (turmeric). These foods and nutrients help contribute to Yuzo Nishimura’s ‘healthy longevity’.
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SUPER-BOOSTED DIET
All these other nutritional elements – which have also been subject to top-class published scientific research – should logically be combined to become a ‘super-boosted’ Mediterranean Diet.
Breakthrough research from the Leibniz Institute on Aging in 2017 also suggests that a super-boosted diet should include optimum (not just RDA) levels of B complex vitamins, which are vital to prevent incorrect activation of genes.
SUPER-BOOST BASED ON HEALTH DEFENCE BESTSELLER
by Dr Paul Clayton
Paul Clayton
Dr Clayton is the former Chair of the Forum on Food and Health at the Royal Society of Medicine. In researching his best-selling book “Health Defence”, he set out to determine exactly what foods and lifestyles could maintain genuinely good health into old age.
His conclusions are based on thousands of peer-reviewed research studies and clinical trials. And from analysis of the nutritional intakes in the regions of the world’s longest lived and healthiest people – the Blue Zones.
Health Defence
The result was not just a best-selling book, but an invitation to present his findings to a UK Parliamentary Select Committee
Health Defence is over 600 pages long, and still available to buy in print or read online. But now Dr Clayton has also made his updated conclusions available as a simple to follow one-page plan you can get from this link.
The American Cancer Society, the British Heart Foundation and other health experts call for up to 10 portions of fruits and vegetables a day. And 2-3 portions of oily fish (or other source of Omega 3 essential fats) a week.
Because only these high intakes of vitamins, minerals and plant-derived nutrients seem to confer enough protection to help prevent premature illness.
Getting older
Getting older doesn't have to mean getting ill
The diseases we call ‘age-related’ are not actually related to the number of years of life – they are damage-related.
Damage to DNA, damage to mitochondria, damage to arteries and blood vessels, and a weakening of the immune system. Damage that leads to accelerated ageing and illness.
If you prevent that damage with an ideal diet, you give yourself the best possible chance of staying healthy.
Professor Partridge is the Director of the Institute of Healthy Ageing at University College London. She puts it well: "What if getting older didn’t mean getting ill?".
Looking younger
Optimum nutrition helps you look younger too
High blood levels of protective plant compounds – anti-oxidants, anti-inflammatories, vitamins, minerals and trace elements – are also linked to younger appearance.
Because a healthy look on the outside is a function of healthy cells and active mitochondria on the inside.
RDAs are not enough
A 10-a-day fruit and vegetable diet is really hard to achieve in normal Western daily life – even for conscientious people. So many people take a nutritional supplement. But will it work?
The evidence is that a simple one-a-day vitamin and mineral pill, at merely RDA levels, is not enough – especially for older people (50+).
Because, after this age, people’s nutritional needs increase - at the very time that their ability to absorb and utilise vital nutrients starts to decrease.
RDAs are established at ‘just adequate’ levels to prevent deficiency diseases – like scurvy or rickets – not at optimised levels to help counteract accumulated damage.
Not optimum
Just ‘adequate’ is not optimum.
All of which is why many doctors dismiss inexpensive, RDA based, A-Z supplements as largely ineffective. And that scepticism is supported by research – there is little evidence that multi-vitamins alone reduce the risk of heart disease or cancer.
That’s because they have been separated from other elements that make a Mediterranean or Far Eastern diet unquestionably healthy.
We have created a one-page simple guide that ensures you can eat the most protective foods for long term health. It includes lifestyle advice on achievable activity targets and ways to improve mental well-being with mindfulness and relaxation.
It crystallises years of advice in recognised health newsletters from universities like Harvard, Tufts and Berkeley – as well as 35 years of research by Dr Paul Clayton.
The guide recognises that there is a role for a comprehensive daily health supplement to ‘fill in the gaps’ so that you can achieve optimum nutrition every day. But this needs to include the sort of plant nutrients found in the Blue Zones, not just vitamins and minerals.
To get all these nutrients day after day, from food alone, is a challenge - in terms of planning, cooking and even calories.
Here are 12 important plant micro-nutrients that research shows can make a real difference. Some of them even activate genes that promote health and others deactivate genes that threaten health. You can click on any one for more information.
The healthy eating/healthy ageing plan
anyone can follow
See the plan here
You can download the one-page health plan based on Dr Clayton’s 35 years of research here.
We believe getting older does NOT have to mean getting ill, particularly if you take a comprehensive daily health supplement.
NutriShield, which contains all the vitamins, minerals and powerful plant micro-nutrients outlined above, designed by Dr Paul Clayton, is a unique supplement. Check it out here.