Calculate the Benefit/Risk Ratio When You Buy or Consume Food
According to Olivier Jolliet, professor of Environmental Health Science at the University of Michigan, if you eat a hot dog, which is transformed pork meat high in fat and sodium and poor in beneficial fats, you lose 36 minutes of healthy life. This adds up over time. Food for thought!
My wife and I buy and eat food as naturally as possible and often prepare some tasty dishes. Nonetheless, I calculate what this food brings to our bodies to keep us healthy. For the past 50 years, we have been taking several supplements that I will discuss later.
This is how we both keep young and healthy. At 80 years, I still do physical exercise, swimming, and jogging. Throughout my life, I kept up swimming and physical training, as did my wife, despite our busy professional life.
It is vital to be an example for your patients. Some of the patients I have treated for the past 40 years always say, “You haven’t changed. You always look the same.” My beautiful wife always looks young. This occurs when you respect yourself and your body and do not destroy yourself or your family with junk/industrial food.
Eating a variety of natural food is very important for your health. Unfortunately, most people still have a low intake of fruits, vegetables, and grains that contain vitamins, minerals, and precious antioxidants against oxidative stress. Vitamins in fruits and vegetables keep our cells young and healthy and help slow down or reverse the aging clock.
In 2017, a study published in the Lancet magazine (Bible of Oncology), demonstrated that one death out of five in the world is from a poor diet lacking whole cereals, fruits, vegetables, and fresh fish. Of the 11 million deaths in 2016, 10 million were from cardiovascular disease; 9,130,000 from cancer; and 3,390,00 from type-2 diabetes. Therefore, industrial (highly processed) junk food seems to be the number one killer, worse than tobacco (7 million deaths).
We know that the cancer risk increases with age because of a decline in immune efficacy. Yet, we ignore nutrition and deficiencies (8) and vaccinate aged people instead of improving their diet. A nutritional diet can stimulate the immune system at any age (9).
Excessive food intake and processed food are harmful to your health. When you are young, food can stay in the intestine for about 43 hours. But, if you are over 70, the digestion process can take up to 71 hours, meaning there is a stagnation of food, indigestion, and accumulation of toxins.
Biological Aging for Healthy Longevity-Nutritional Support
Aging and other common factors like severe fatigue are dietary and nutritionally related. Correction with dietary strategies using wholesome food, Bioactive nutrients, and supplements can significantly reverse aging.
This can also help restore the loss of energy. People on the Mediterranean diet have less heart disease, cancer, and premature aging. Their diet consists of fresh seafood, meat, wild vegetables, herbs, whole grains, fruits, sour milk, and cold-pressed, extra virgin olive oil.
People in Okinawa are an example of how healthy food produces longevity. Locals still work in the field at an advanced age. Exercise, even at any age, is beneficial. They consume seaweed, bamboo shoots, natto, daikon radish, okra, pumpkin, spices miso, sweet potato, and fiber-rich vegetables, which are rich in antioxidants. They eat a small amount of rice compared to the Japanese.
The Okinawa culture treats food as medicine, like the principle of Hippocrates. Natives in Okinawa or on the Island of Creta (Greece) occasionally consume 1-2% meat or fish in their diet (1, 2). In Okinawa, people consume a low- calories, low-fat diet but with optimal nutrition.
This keeps the body cleaner with less free radical damage and optimum mitochondria function. Whereas a hyper-caloric diet intoxicates our body and generates many free radicals.
While most of us do not live in Okinawa, we can learn how to live a healthier, longer life from them. This is what I studied about with Dr. Bernard Jensen, a pioneer of the past century, in Los Angeles nearly 60 years ago.
It is vital to start a good, healthy diet early in life. Dementia or Alzheimer’s disease (AD) begins slowly, often before 40 years of age. However, you can improve your physical and mental condition at any age by changing your diet and exercising. Walking in a forest, swimming, yoga, mental exercise, and relaxation have significant beneficial effects, such as increasing the activity of the Natural Killer cells.
You can even improve your physical appearance with diet and improve your brain function to be younger than your chronicle age by doing mental exercises. Spending time to be healthy is more important than spending time to treat diseases, time in the hospital, taking drugs all year long, or eating junk foods.
My patients, now between 78 and 86 years old, who followed my protocol and food advice for the past 30-40 years, now enjoy a good life quality and brain function.
I recall one lady that came to see me when she was 58 years old and unhealthy. Now, after 20 years, she is in good physical and mental condition, while her sister, who did not follow this protocol, has AD. Remember, it is up to you to take control of your health. What you do today will be reflected in the future with disease or premature aging and poor health.
Aging, Health, & Longevity
Part 3
by Professor Serge Jurasunas MD (hc), ND, MD (Hom)