Finding the perfect diet isn’t as simple as you may think.
When it comes to nutrition, there’s no shortage of dietary strategies for healthier aging — to the point that sifting through all this “advice” can feel a little bit overwhelming, and sometimes even disingenuous. After all, when you see one expert on Instagram swear by a diet that cuts out meat, and another expert on a podcast swear just as vehemently by a diet that prioritizes meat, it’s hard to know who’s telling the “truth,” and which diet will work best for your specific circumstances.
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), the only hard and fast truth to take from nutritional advice is that there is no hard and fast truth. Nutrition is a highly personal part of your life, and it might take years to nail down the eating habits that meet your needs.
With that said, we’re always looking for ways to make our lives longer, healthier, and happier, so we spoke to four leading experts who have spent years researching longevity about how you can use nutrition to achieve those goals — and the realistic limitations of doing so. As you’ll notice, each expert has a different approach to this topic, and we think that’s a good thing. By getting four different viewpoints, you can pick and choose the suggestions that fit best into your life.
What is the best diet for living longer — or is there one, to begin with?
Peter Attia, M.D., a Canadian-American physician and author of Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity,is quick to acknowledge the basic facts of nutrition. “Eating too much food is bad for you, and eating too little is bad for you, too,” he says. “It’s also true that certain vitamins and minerals are essential, certain amino acids are essential, and certain fatty acids are essential.”
But beyond those fundamentals, Dr. Attia notes, there’s really no one-size-fits-all answer for the best way to approach nutrition for aging — besides one essential truth in America.
“Most people are overnourished in this country,” Dr. Attia says. “There’s no judgment in that statement. It’s simply a matter of fact.” Attia explains that it comes down to a basic, yet challenging, predicament: Humans are operating with ancient genes during a modern time period.
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“We have genes that literally spent millions of years optimizing for energy storage,” Dr. Attia says, “and up until about 150 years ago, there was no problem associated with that. But then the abundance of food became so great…and when you pair such food availability along with all the other things that came with it, like less movement, less sleep, more stress, then we have this epidemic [of unhealthiness].”
Countless diet fads have come and gone in an effort to address these issues, but Dr. Attia says every single one of them involves some combination of three things: dietary restriction, time restriction, and caloric restriction. “These are just technical ways to describe what people already know and have been doing,” Dr. Attia says.
If you take Dr. Attia’s approach, then you want to focus on nourishment levels overall. Think of any diet you use as the means to an end (which is your overall health), rather than the end itself. Consider using all three strategies of restriction, and find the one that works best for you. Maybe you prefer to keep an eye on daily calories. Maybe you prefer to think less about calories and instead focus on a plant-based diet. Maybe you want to experiment with intermittent fasting or other forms of time-related nutritional structuring.
Whatever path you choose, remember not to worry too much about the next nutritional headline when you see it. “There’s always a new fad, there’s always a new diet, there’s always a new trend,” Dr. Attia says. “It’s sort of embarrassing.”
What vitamins should you look for in food to boost longevity?
For Dilip Jeste, M.D., an American geriatric neuropsychiatrist who studies the process of successful aging, nutrition is not always about what specific piece of food you put into your mouth. It’s about monitoring the vitamins and nutrients you’re taking in.
“In general, taking a trustworthy multivitamin pill daily is good,” Dr. Jeste says. “One does need to pay special attention to calcium, iron, and lots of fiber.”
Dr. Jeste notes that omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin E are often useful for brain health, though the exact amounts recommended vary — and not everything you hear about vitamins is necessarily ironclad. “Vitamin D has received a lot of publicity, but some of the claims are not fact-based,” he pointed out. “For years, it has been viewed as a popular supplement to address everything from mood disorders to heart disease prevention. New research suggests, however, that it may not be as useful for a number of these ailments as it was initially thought to be.”
This doesn’t mean that you should ignore Vitamin D altogether, Dr. Jeste says, so much as it should be a reminder that a single vitamin can’t be a catch-all solution for your health.
How eating can help you live longer — and where the limits are on nutrition and aging
Laura Carstensen, Ph.D., is the founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity and the principal investigator for the Stanford Life-Span Development Laboratory, and if you ask her what diet is the “best,” she’s quick to argue that most studies on the topic are not worth taking seriously to begin with.
“Right now, we only know a couple things for sure in the field of nutrition,” Dr. Carstensen says. “We know it matters, of course,” she adds with a laugh, “but not much beyond that. Most of our studies of diets are inherently really flawed.”
So why are these studies so flawed? Dr. Carstensen explains, “We’re not very good at reporting the size and the amounts of what we eat, and virtually all nutrition studies rely on self-reported information. So you should always keep that in mind: Unless the study researchers lock participants in a hospital and keep them there for six months and monitor everything they eat, you’re not going to have a very accurate nutrition study.”
Still, Dr. Carstensen acknowledges, there are certain diets she would recommend over others, based on admittedly imperfect research.
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“Right now it looks like eating a Mediterranean diet sounds really good,” she says. “I don’t know anybody who thinks that’s a bad idea.”
Why the Mediterranean diet is your best bet for living longer through nutrition
When it comes to eating for longevity, “the most effective advice is the simplest,” says Elissa Epel, Ph.D., an American health psychologist and director of the University of California, San Francisco’s Aging, Metabolism, and Emotion Center. “Try to eat whole foods and aim for the Mediterranean diet. This is the diet linked to longevity in most studies.”
People talk a lot about the Mediterranean diet — but what does it entail, exactly? A major emphasis on fish, healthy fats, and more (we have a full list below).
If you prefer a simple, straightforward approach to nutrition, this diet could definitely be the one for you. One of its perks is that most Mediterranean dishes are extremely easy to prepare (is there anything easier than dropping a slice of salmon on a baking dish and shoving it in the oven?), and it doesn’t make dining at restaurants a non-starter. After all, plenty of eateries have veggie or seafood-forward options that don’t sacrifice flavor.
We understand all this expert insight might be a lot to digest (pun intended), so while we remind you once more that there’s no surefire strategy for eating your way to a longer life, here’s a recap of the foods our researchers most highly recommend.
Prioritize food rich in the vitamins mentioned above.
As for omega-3’s, here’s a list of foods that are rich in fatty acids:
For the Mediterranean diet, prioritize plant-based foods and healthy fats:
A lot of fish (especially those rich in omega-3 fatty acids)
A healthy daily dose of nuts
Whole grains
Veggies
Olive oil
At the end of the day, don’t be afraid to personalize your approach to eating. Dr. Jeste has spent decades studying people as they grow older, with a goal of learning what it takes to “successfully age” — and what he’s learned is that personalization is everything.
“There have been lots of diet books that say that those diets will help everyone to live to 100 years,” he says. “Unfortunately, this is not true. The type of diet to choose depends on each person’s health needs as well as practical reality, such as cost and availability.”
“The single most important principle is to consult your own doctor,” Dr. Jeste emphasizes. “Something that worked wonders for one person can be toxic to another.”
Want more wisdom about living your longest life? Check back in next Saturday, when our series continues with advice about simple swaps you can make in your daily routine that’ll give you a healthy boost — and subscribe to Wake-Up Call to make sure you’re the first to see it!
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
