by Raffaella Quieti Cartledge
–/–
The fountain of youth : how to alter your diet and lifestyle in order to live a long and healthy life, explained by Valter Longo
Award-winning researcher and author, Dr Valter Longo’s work focusses on the health benefits of the ‘fast mimicking diet’
Edna M. Jones Professor of Gerontology and Biological Sciences and Director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California –Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, Los Angeles, one of the leading centres for research on aging and age-related disease. Dr. Valter Longo is also the Director of the Longevity and Cancer Program at the IFOM Institute of Molecular Oncology in Milan, Italy
Dr Longo, what is your longevity diet ?
The longevity diet is a pescatarian diet, rich in legumes, vegetables, and healthy fats, so it is a nourishing dietary regime.
With regards to the macronutrients, it is important to assume complex carbs from vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. As for fats, they should be abundant and healthy, mainly from extra virgin olive oil, nuts, and fat fishes. Proteins should be low in quantity, but sufficient and adapted depending on age. Specifically, after 65 years old, protein quantity should increase.
The longevity diet also comprehends some lifestyle features, such as avoiding eating just before sleeping, eating foods from the longevity diet that our ancestors used to eat. It is important to monitor our waist circumference and weight, since overweight and excessive abdominal fat are related to poor health. For those who are overweight, it is recommendable to have 2 meals plus a snack. For all, it is advisable to have a 12-hour restricted eating and multivitamin and multimineral supplementation.
What is the second major factor affecting lifespan ?
After making changes in the diet, the second major factor affecting lifespan is physical activity. What physical activity is best for healthy longevity? The one you enjoy most, but also the one you can easily incorporate into your daily schedule and the one you can keep doing up to your hundredth birthday and beyond. However, it is important to exercise, but not to over-exercise, because knees, hips, and joints will eventually get damaged—particularly if you continue to exercise when you feel pain.
Walking fast for an hour every day, doing moderate exercise for 2½ to 5 hours a week, with some of it in the vigorous range and using weight training or weight-free exercises to strengthen all muscles could potentially help our longevity.
In your book, you establish that a low-protein diet is healthier. Can you explain why and the differences between your conclusions and the ones of the ‘China Study’ ?
Most large-population studies show an association between longevity and disease prevention, and a diet that is low in protein; largely plant- and fish-based; and rich in complex carbohydrates, olive oil, and nuts. For example, one study published by my lab of six thousand Americans suggested that consuming a high-protein diet is associated with increased levels of the pro-aging growth factor IGF-1, a 75% increased risk of overall mortality, and a three- to fourfold increased risk in cancer mortality compared with consuming the low-protein and plant-based diet recommended by the longevity diet.
Contrary to the findings of T. Colin Campbell in The China Study, which advocates consuming low levels of plant-based proteins throughout life, the beneficial effect of a low-protein diet seems to apply only before age sixty-five. Actually, protein requirements may be higher for people older than 65 if weight loss and lean body mass loss is occurring.
What does fasting do to our body ?
Fasting, and fasting mimicking diet (FMD) in particular, can protect, regenerate, and rejuvenate the body to keep us young and healthy longer. This is achieved in part by turning back the biological aging clock, which means that these diets can be adopted by relatively young people to help delay aging and prevent disease, and also by older individuals to help them return to a more youthful state. The FMD is also clinically proven to stimulate the loss of abdominal fat while preserving muscle and bone mass. These benefits are generated by switching on the human body’s own remarkable ability to activate stem cells and regenerate parts of cells, systems, and organs, leading to a reduction of risk factors for many diseases.
Dr Longo, what are the effects of fasting on cancer cells and on benign tumours ?
Cancer cells and normal cells respond to fasting differently, with a “differential stress resistance”. This is based on the idea that if you starve an organism, it will go into a highly protected, nongrowth mode—this is “the shield” of normal healthy cells. However, a cancer cell will disobey this order and continue growing even when it is starved, because it is in the “always on” mode. Since the growing state of cancer cells require high nutrition, during starvation, cancer cells are more sensitive to chemotherapy. On the other side, normal cells are protected against it. With regards to benign tumour cells, we may consider that they may respond to fasting like either cancer cells, so shrinking and eventually dying, or like normal cells which could have unexpected consequences since normal cells first die during fasting but then regrow during refeeding so by doing it is possible to really get any result (good, bad and neutral).
How often should the average person go on a fast and what age can a fast be started at ?
Healthy adults in the normal weight range between the ages of eighteen and seventy years can undertake the fasting mimicking diet, upon approval from a doctor or registered dietitian. Broad guidelines about frequency are as follows:
Who should not be fasting ?
Pregnant women, underweight people, people suffering from anorexia or other eating disorders, and those over the age of seventy should avoid fasting. Also, people with liver or kidney diseases and people affected by pathologies, unless they have the prior approval of their specialized doctor. Moreover, people affected by rare genetic mutations that block the organism’s capacity to produce glucose from glycerol and amino acids (gluconeogenesis) should avoid fasting.
The L-drink in the Prolon fast-mimicking programme contains glycerol and potassium in minimal doses and it is useful for re-mineralising the tissues, it counteracts muscle pain, and helps intestinal transit being a mild laxative.
Do oncologists get trained during their residential years on the effects of nutrition and fasting ?
It is not so frequent, this is why my Foundation in Los Angeles, The Create Cures Foundation, has created two science and evidence-based masterclasses for healthcare professionals, including doctors. Those masterclasses focus on dietary interventions, including fasting and its clinical applications, that have been shown to have benefits for longevity and for the prevention of various diseases. The Masterclasses are based on scientific research, as well as on the most relevant studies about longevity, nutrition, ageing, and other related diseases.
The course “Nutrition, Fasting, Longevity and Disease” and “Longevity Through Fasting and Nutrition” have been accredited by The Keck School of Medicine of USC and designed for 4 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ each. (https://education.createcures.org/)
So far, your discoveries have been revolutionary. Is there a new area of research you are going to focus on next or is there more to research in the field of the health benefits of fasting ?
My main objectives are to offer treatment and other health services to patients with serious diseases and to those who seek to halt the onset of such diseases; to educate the public—both adults and youth—about how to live a long and healthy life; to sponsor research to develop innovative and creative treatment strategies that are affordable and accessible to all; and to identify ways to prevent specific diseases.
To achieve these goals, I devolve all profits from my books to research and programs, made possible by my Foundations, in Los Angeles and in Italy.
Dr. Longo has received numerous awards for his work: the 2010 Nathan Shock Lecture Award from the National Institute on Aging (NIA/NIH), the 2013 Vincent Cristofalo “Rising Star” Award in Aging Research from the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), the 2016 Merz Professorship, the 2016 Boehaave Professorship, the 2016 Jubilee Professorship, and the 2016 Glenn Award for research on aging. In 2018 he was named by “Time Magazine” one of the 50 most influential people in health care for his research on fasting-mimicking diets as a way to improve health and prevent disease.