How many times have you opened a newspaper or clicked on a link to be told there’s a new miracle diet or beauty treatment that will cure cancer and banish wrinkles?
The truth is that there is NO magic pill or drastic change that will help you look great and live longer. Instead, there are some truisms about healthy eating that are applicable to us all, and some lifestyle changes that will work well for some, and disagree with others.
Personally I enjoy eating healthily, and incorporating foods that science proves are good for us into my diet. I generally follow a Mediterranean-style diet with lots of fruit and vegetables, olive oil and whole grains. I also love Asian food, including rice and tofu and tempeh.
But I am always on the look out for ways I can improve or adapt my diet, especially as I get older. With this in mind, I found an interesting article on the BBC with science-backed changes to protect our skin, body and brain from getting older.
From this I have taken four changes you can make to your diet to slow down aging that I found helpful, and I hope you do too.
1) Eat foods that contain spermidine
Bear with me here, but an experiment with semen in 1677 led to an important anti-aging discovery! To cut a long story short, semen contains a chemical called spermidine, which is also found in some foods, including include soybeans, mushrooms and cheddar cheese.
Studies show that people who get the most spermidine in their diet have been shown to live up to five years longer on average than those who eat the least.
Other natural molecules found in foods that could have anti-ageing properties include curcumin (the chemical that gives turmeric its yellow colour), quercetin (found in foods such as elderberries, red cabbage and dark chocolate) and fisetin (found in fruits like strawberries).
All this said, please bear in mind that there’s no such thing as a ‘superfood’. Binging on turmeric shots, or eating punnets of strawberries every day isn’t going to be a miracle cure for aging. However, ensuring that you include a range of foods containing these chemicals can play a role in a heathy, varied diet.
2) Eat more vegetables
We already know from the Blue Zones research how important it is to eat plants regularly. And this is backed up by a 2018 study led by Dr. Martha Clare Morris at Rush University Medical Center. The study found a connection between eating leafy green vegetables every day, and slower cognitive decline. In fact, the people who ate the most leafy greens had a cognitive decline rate equivalent to being 11 years younger than those who ate very few.
Two further longitudinal studies discovered a connection between eating cruciferous vegetables, green leafy vegetables, and red/yellow vegetables, and “maintaining cognitive function and slowing cognitive decline in middle-aged and older adults”.
So, if you want to potentially add a few more years to your life expectancy, ensure your shopping list includes plenty of vegetables!
3) Eat the right protein
A review of 32 scientific studies exploring protein consumption found that, overall, a higher consumption of protein decreased the risk of death. However, not all protein is equal and a diet rich in plant protein, such as nuts, seeds, legumes and soy products is better linked to longevity.
Here’s a list of 15 plant-based foods that are rich in protein:
- Hemp seeds – 30g protein per 100g
- Peanuts – 25.8g protein per 100g
- Pumpkin seeds – 24.4g protein per 100g
- Tempeh – 20.7g protein per 100g
- Plain cashew nuts – 17.7g protein per 100g
- Soya mince – 16.6g protein per 100g
- Tofu – 16.5g protein per 100g
- Chia seeds – 16.5g protein per 100g
- Boiled lentils – 8.8g protein per 100g
- Canned chickpeas – 7.2g protein per 100g
- Baked beans – 5g protein per 100g
- Quinoa – 4.4g protein per 100g
- Boiled brown rice – 3.6g protein per 100g
- Cooked buckwheat – 3.4g protein per 100g
- Boiled oats – 2g protein per 100g
4) Reduce your visceral fat
For decades now, much of the health wisdom has been that fat = bad. We now know that not all fat is bad for you (think olive oil versus trans fat). But when it comes to fat on our bodies, we’re not always as clued up.
For example, we have visceral fat, which which builds up between the organs inside our body, and subcutaneous fat that accumulates under our skin. Of these two, the former is far more dangerous as it emits a cocktail of inflammatory molecules that can speed up ageing.
This means that being a overweight can accelerate your own ageing process, and increase the risk of many different diseases that are more common as we get older, such as heart disease, diabetes and some types of cancer.
The good news is that there’s no specific diet you need to follow to reduce visceral fat. Just find a heathy eating plan that works for you and helps you to maintain a steady weight loss.
