The Longevity Diet by Valter Longo
Run (or walk fast) to your nearest bookseller and get this book!
The Longevity Diet by Dr. Valter Longo is a must-read book if you are serious about later-life health. The full title is The Longevity Diet: Discover the New Science Behind Stem Cell Activation and Regeneration to Slow Aging, Fight Disease, and Optimize Weight. Dr. Longo is director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California as well as a professor and researcher at USC. His book, which shines a light on his methods and dedication, is a basic building block to understand what and how to eat in our search for longer and heathier lives.
Longo begins the book in a way that most other researchers don’t: he outlines how he came to his findings and why his results are a reliable guide to answer the question: “Who do you listen to?” In essence, he is presenting how he approaches the subject of longevity, so his readers know how thorough and sincere he is.
He says his research is based on what he calls the Five Pillars of Longevity. These are a blend of:
1. Juventology – The study of aging (notice he uses this youthful word instead of gerontology)
2. Epidemiology – Studies in risk factors
3. Clinical studies – The thorough gold standard of clinical research in medicine
4. Centenarian studies – How all this corresponds to the longest living people on the planet
5. Studies of complex systems – How all these aspects interact as well as all the other factors he has uncovered that deal with life and longevity
By presenting this outline and showing how he worked to arrive at his conclusions, it made trusting the advice that came after much easier for me. (I’m usually skeptical.) That advice breaks down into several categories. Using exhaustive studies as well as practical observations, three themes run through his Five Pillars: reliability, best practice, and also, surprisingly, how maintainable his recommendations are in modern life.
Here are just some of his major points:
1. What to eat – Longo recommends eating a pescatarian diet rich in vegetables, salads, healthy fats, complex carbohydrates (carbs that don’t break down quickly into sugar, like beans and whole grains), and a few portions of fish per week. He recommends eating roughly .35 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight per day, slightly more if you are over 65. For example, if you weigh 150 pounds, you would eat 52.5 grams of protein per day. One novelty is that he says the foods from your DNA ancestry, your own family tree, will probably be best suited to you. In other words, they would not cause intolerance or allergy given that your ancestors have continued eating them.
2. What not to eat – No surprises here: avoid sugar, bad fats, processed food, starch and simple carbohydrates, and meats. Limit alcohol and caffeine.
3. When to eat – He says two meals a day plus a snack works best. He also writes that a 12-hour fast per day (such as from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m.) supports most longevity and health goals.
4. Fasting – Longo is a big proponent of fasting and recommends a very low calorie (800 calories per day) five-day Fasting-Mimicking Diet (FMD), which you would do twice a year. He cautions that if you are over 70 you should do this only if you are in what calls “superior health.” Much of the rest of the book is a discussion of fasting and its role in religion, history, and science, as well as the effects of fasting on medical treatment of serious disease. It is fascinating reading.
5. Exercise – Although not in the specific diet recommendations, Longo devotes an entire chapter of the book to movement and exercise, saying that all long-living populations throughout the world have a basic lifestyle of staying active or very active. (Enough said from me if you’ve been reading this site!)
Along with my other studies, as well as experiences with detoxes and other self-experimentation, The Longevity Diet resonated with me and has helped me form a basic diet plan that serves my health goals very well. I have tailored my own likes and dislikes to this basic plan, and I observe an intermittent fasting window every day.
The internet and bookstores are overflowing with many different recommendations for what to eat to stay healthy and live longer. I don’t trust a lot of them, especially when a product, endorsement, or major claim is attached. Following a diet that resembles what and when we ate for the millions of years we were becoming human is my starting point. The Longevity Diet by Valter Longo tells me I am on the right track when it comes to the science behind that view.
My only gripe about lots of the advice out there, even the solid advice contained in this book, is that the answer to the question “Who do you listen to?” doesn’t also include yourself, the deep, beating heart of your conscience and your soul, to help you recognize, address, and maintain a health practice that works for you.
