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Brain Health
Published in Carolyn Torkelson, Catherine Marienau, Beyond Menopause, 2023
Carolyn Torkelson, Catherine Marienau
Dan Buettner, author of Blue Zones, identified places in the world where a high percentage of people enjoy remarkably long lives, some well past 100 years old.10 When asked what factors improve brain health and longevity, he noted that nutrition is the optimal choice among all lifestyle factors. Buettner’s meta-analysis of 154 dietary surveys in five blue zones revealed that 95% of the 100-year-olds ate plant-based diets, including plenty of beans.
Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine
Published in Aruna Bakhru, Nutrition and Integrative Medicine, 2018
Blue zones are places in the world where people live healthier and longer than anywhere else on the Earth. Several Blue Zones exist on Earth where people with ages 90, or even 100 years are common. Along with a prolonged lifespan, these people appear to be living a very healthy life—without disability or medication. To date, five Blue Zones have been identified, and they are: the Italian island of Sardinia, Loma Linda (California), Okinawa (Japan), Ikaria (an isolated Greek island), and Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica (Barclay 2015).
The medical counterculture
Published in Lois N. Magner, Oliver J. Kim, A History of Medicine, 2017
Critics of Ellen White found her revelations less than wholly original and insinuated that a head injury sustained when she was young caused hallucinations rather than divine visions. Nevertheless, by 2010 the Blue Zones Project, which began with a search for areas where people seemed to enjoy long, healthy lives, found that Adventists typically enjoyed longer, healthier lives than their neighbors. Factors emphasized by Ellen White were cited as the basis of their health and longevity—a vegetarian diet, exercise, and strong social and spiritual bonds within the community.
Plant-Based Diets for Healthy Aging
Published in Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 2021
Hana Kahleova, Susan Levin, Neal D. Barnard
Furthermore, plant-based diets may play an important role in increasing life expectancy. Demographic and geographic areas with high population longevity, which have been referred to as “Blue Zones,” share common healthful plant-based eating patterns (7). One of them is in Loma Linda, CA, where people live up to ten years longer compared with the other white Californians. A plant-based diet can explain about half of this difference in life-span (8). Another Blue Zone is in Okinawa, Japan, where people consume a predominantly plant-based diet rich in phytochemicals and antioxidants. Over half of their daily caloric intake comes from sweet potatoes. They also consume a lot of green leafy vegetables and soy products, while intaking minimal amounts of fat (about 6% of the total energy intake) (9). The lessons learned from Okinawa had major practical implications in Japan. Until the first half of the 20th century, life expectancy at birth was very low in Japan. However, within a short span of 50 years, thanks to major investments in public health infrastructure and nutrition education, people in Japan now have the longest life expectancy at birth in the world (10). This example illustrates how fast the changes may occur and how the dietary changes may be a major driver in a positive shift of this magnitude.
Personalized Nutrition: Translating the Science of NutriGenomics Into Practice: Proceedings From the 2018 American College of Nutrition Meeting
Published in Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 2019
Okezie I Aruoma, Sharon Hausman-Cohen, Jessica Pizano, Michael A. Schmidt, Deanna M. Minich, Yael Joffe, Sebastian Brandhorst, Simon J. Evans, David M. Brady
A similar effect is seen when the activity of nutrient-sensing pathways is reduced by mutations that reduce the incidence of age-related loss of function and disease, including tumors and neurodegeneration, and increase life-span in model organisms of aging (42). Tumors and diabetes are also uncommon in humans with mutations in the growth hormone receptor (43), and natural genetic variants in nutrient-sensing pathways are associated with increased human life-span (44). Data from centenarians indicates a progressive delay in the age at onset of physical and cognitive function impairment, age-related diseases, and overall morbidity with increasing age, and the relative period of time spent with disease was lower with increasing age in centenarians (45). Genetic variations associated with improved nutrient metabolism may explain some of the health benefits observed in centenarians, while people with exceptional longevity are not distinct in terms of lifestyle factors from the general population, suggesting that people with exceptional longevity may interact with environmental factors differently than others (46). Data from Blue Zones (longevity “hotspots” around the globe), including the Seventh Day Adventists in Loma Linda, California, further emphasize the role of nutrition in modulating health span. Commonly observed combinations of diet and other lifestyle choices (exercise, body mass index, smoking status, etc.) account for increases in life expectancy of up to 10 years (47). Despite their geographical differences, all Blue Zones have diets in common that are (1) mostly plant-based, including fish and high intake of nuts, (2) low in animal-based protein and saturated trans fats, and (3) high in complex carbohydrates derived from plant-based sources (48). These findings identify a dietary pattern, often referred to as “Mediterranean diet,” consistently associated with the lowest death rates and the greatest survival rates (49–51). Prospective and randomized clinical trials demonstrate that diets with low protein content enhance metabolic health, promote lean physical appearance, lower blood glucose, and decrease the risk of diabetes in humans (39, 52). A study population from the National Institutes of Health–AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) Diet and Health Study cohort of half a million people aged 50 to 71 years at baseline further supports these findings (53): Men and women in the highest vs lowest quintile of red and processed meat intakes (estimated based on a food frequency questionnaire administered at baseline) had elevated risks for overall mortality, cardiovascular disease, and cancer mortality.
Rehabilitation: mobility, exercise & sports; a critical position stand on current and future research perspectives
Published in Disability and Rehabilitation, 2021
Lucas H. V. van der Woude, Han J. P. Houdijk, Thomas W. J. Janssen, Bregje Seves, Reslin Schelhaas, Corien Plaggenmarsch, Noor L. J. Mouton, Rienk Dekker, Helco van Keeken, Sonja de Groot, Riemer J. K. Vegter
This drives the costs of healthcare and the need for cost-effective choices. With a participative society, individual responsibilities towards health increase, physical fitness and activity and other healthy lifestyle dimensions are key to health. Recently, the Dutch Health Care Board made a plea for preventive health care. The new University Medical Center of Groningen (UMCG) research mission and vision embraced – next to mechanisms of disease and innovative strategies and techniques – prevention as one of the three central themes of research. In 2018 the University of Groningen and UMCG founded the Aletta Jacobs School for Public Health (https://www.rug.nl/research/healthy-ageing/aletta-jacobs-school-of-public-health/). The “Beweegziekenhuis” (“a hospital that expresses healthy aging, active lifestyle and “exercise = medicine’ in its essentials” [120]) has started to become more visible in the academic hospital organization [27] not only in research but also in patient care. Just recently at “the International Society for Physical Activity and Health Congress (ISPAH)” (15 to 17 October 2018), the new digital Moving Medicine tool was launched, intended to help healthcare professionals advise patients on how physical activity can help to manage their conditions, prevent disease and aid recovery” (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-physical-activity-resource-for-health-professionals). “Prevention” as one of three central research themes emphasizes this evolution in a very visible way. With different experiments on pre and post-rehabilitation [8,121–125], the “Lifestyle Navigator” [126] and “Physicians Implement Exercise = medicine” (PIE = M) [127], a collaborative project between VU Medical Center in Amsterdam and UMCG to provide an understanding of the potential and role of the doctor in the implementation of exercise, active lifestyle and sports (and later lifestyle) as medicine in direct patient treatment, exercise as a recipe; this should lead to a new e-based tool that supports the doctor in deriving an individualized advice or recipe. A similar approach is seen in the United Kingdom, where the Department of Health and Social care pronounced its ambition in “Prevention is better than cure; our vision to help you live well for longer” (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prevention-is-better-than-cure-our-vision-to-help-you-live-well-for-longer). Prevention is indeed the way to go in an ever-aging society and where health care costs keep growing beyond our reach. Following the worldwide movement of “exercise = medicine,” the paradigm of “lifestyle = medicine” is the next step to take in health care, professional training, and medical research. This will be even more so for rehabilitation medicine and care [128]. With those ambitions well aligned, the future could turn out to create a healthy aging population as part of a man-made “Blue Zone” in which health care, healthy living, durable living environment, and societal organization synchronize with one another (1st Healthwise Lustrum Conference Man Made Blue Zones: Healthy Ageing Together, Center for Expertise Healthwise, University of Groningen, 3 April 2018).