Here are two ways that you can live a lot longer and healthier. I’m actually going to cover a study where you apply this second method even if you are already old.
I’m actually going to cover a study where you apply this second method even if you are already old.
It turns out that even if you are old, you can still live a lot longer and a lot healthier
It starts with a guy named Dr. Roy Wolford. Dr. Wolford was a pioneer in the field of aging.
Dr. Wolford was a pioneer in the field of aging.
Unfortunately, he was following a very poor method called calorie reduction.
In calorie reduction, you eat a lot less. Like 1200 cals or 1300 cals per day, instead of 2000 or 3000 cals per day.
People who do calorie reduction waste away.
But calorie reduction is one of the only proven ways of living a lot longer. Because in all animal studies ever done, animals that were given very low-calorie diets, animals that were calorie restricted, lived a lot longer.
Unfortunately, Dr. Wolford died in a wheelchair, at the tender age of 79.
He was in a wheelchair for many years as a result of Lou Gehrig’s disease that he probably acquired from his dietary regime.
This is a real picture of Dr. Wolford:
Fortunately, there is a much better way of living longer and healthier besides calorie restriction
Proteins are made from amino acids.
In some amino acids, notably tryptophan, cysteine, and methionine, are not completely 100% wonderful.
In fact, tryptophan may actually be mildly carcinogenic.
And it results in excess levels of serotonin in the body, leading to mental illness and irritable bowel syndrome.
And another one of these that is not so good is methionine. Methionine is found in large quantities and muscle meat.
In other words, in nice juicy steaks, lamb chops, and breezes.
It’s found in all land animals in high quantities.
There have been many studies that have shown if you have a low methionine diet, the effects of calorie restriction benefit you.
But you don’t need to cut your calories!
This study was done with rats that already were quite old in rat years. These rats were put on a antiaging low methionine diet. To see if what would work with young rats, would work with rats already in their 70s and 80s (in rat years of course — rats live less than 4 years typically.)
The rats were given a low methionine diet, and their bodies exhibited the same positive antiaging effects that their younger colleague rats experience.
It turns out that you can apply these antiaging strategies at any age.
There are two ways of going on a low methionine diet
One way is by pursuing a vegetarian diet. Specifically, a vegetarian diet that is low in beans and lentils.
This may seem difficult and limited, but it is low in methionine and you can actually get by on it.
Another method of going on an anti-aging low assigning diet is to add extra glycine to your food.
The glycine seems to counteract the methionine, and again it has the same effect as reducing methionine, without actually having to give up steak.
Citations
Old rats lived longer with low methionine diets
http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2009/01/01/gerona.glp051.full
Low methionine vegetarian human diet for life extension
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.322.6550&rep=rep1&type=pdf
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