I'm going to get to 100 and won't be following any of the blue zone indicators.
Do People in ‘Blue Zones’ Actually Live Longer?
The latest here:
Are Diet and Exercise the Keys to Longevity? Think Again, Expert Tells Senators
What's needed is an environment "that makes the healthy choice the easy choice"
Much of what people have been taught about making America healthier is wrong, Dan Buettner, the originator of the term "Blue Zones," told members of the Senate Aging Committee Wednesday.
Why are the people in Blue Zones living 10 years longer than Americans? "Because they're avoiding the diseases that shorten Americans' lives and are bankrupting us in many ways," Buettner, of Miami, Florida, said at a hearing on "Optimizing Longevity: From Research to Actionopens in a new tab or window."
What are they doing? "Well, none of them are dieting or exercising or running down to Latin America for stem cell treatments," he said. Instead, "every time they go to work or a friend's house or out to eat, it occasions a walk -- they're getting 8,000 to 10,000 steps per day, mindlessly. The cheapest and most accessible foods for them are peasant foods; they're whole grains. They're tubers."
"The cornerstone of every longevity diet in the world is beans," he said. "They're eating about a cup of beans a day. They're not spending time on Facebook. Instead, they're spending time in face-to-face conversations, living in extended families, and connecting with their neighbors."
In addition, they feel that they have a purpose. "We know that people who have a sense of purpose live about 8 years longer than people who are rudderless," said Buettner. "They manifest their purpose usually in family, but also with religion. We know people who show up at church or temple or mosque live about 4 years longer than people who don't show up at all."
In short, Buettner said, "We tend to think that health is a result of a pursuit in this country -- but actually, it's a result of an environment that makes a healthy choice the easy choice." Buettner has been working with several U.S. cities, including Albert Lea, Minnesota and Fort Worth, Texas, to implement some of those ideas.
Other witnesses at the hearing echoed more conventional wisdom. Obesity "is not just a health crisis; it is a cultural crisis," said Rhonda Patrick, PhD, founder of FoundMyFitness, a fitness company in San Diego. "Obesity is not inevitable. It is not an act of God; it is something that can be prevented. It is a choice that has been compounded by bad habits over time. It is reinforced by a culture that does not foster good decision-making and self-discipline."
"We have created a culture where these difficult truths have become personal attacks, where physicians are afraid to talk about a patient's weight because it's too taboo," she said. "If we can't have a conversation about obesity, how can we ever solve the obesity crisis?"
Eric Verdin, MD, president and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, California, pointed out that due to scientific advances, "we live longer but not healthier ... Our mission is to eliminate the threat of chronic disease by addressing the aging process itself." And just as vaccines and antibiotics revolutionized medicine in the past, "aging is the next great frontier in preventive healthcare," he said. "Investing in aging research must be a priority."
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) asked about a 4-year Medicare pilot program involving use of "medically tailored meals" to get Medicare beneficiaries with diet-impacted conditions to eat better, something that Sarah Nosal, MD, president-elect of the American Academy of Family Physicians, had mentioned in her written testimony.
"A lot of people don't even know what's nutritious," Gillibrand said to Nosal. "Our doctors don't really study it ... It's not well known what's nutritious and what's good for you ... [Medically tailored meals represent] innovation. We know that a medically tailored meal for somebody with diabetes is going to be extremely healthy for them. It'll have a lot more fruits and vegetables in it. It will have whole grains; it will have lean proteins; it will have no processed foods."
Nosal, who practices in New York City, discussed one patient with diabetes she had recently seen who had her diabetes well under control. "She has done a really great job at being physically active to the best of her ability. She uses a rolling walker with a chair, and ... reduced her risk of complications, and then came in this week and saw me and her diabetes was fully uncontrolled," she said. "I asked her what was going on, and she said her apartment [location] had moved, and so previously where she lived, she knew where the local soup kitchen was, and the food pantry," but now she didn't know where to go.
"This is really a patient who cannot find in her community the resources to have the healthy meal that she needs," Nosal said. "The idea that I could have prescribed her an appropriate, low-calorie diabetic diet ... would be the complete difference in her entire life."
Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) expressed concern about smartphones and other technologies that "seem to be driving isolation and idleness." He asked the witnesses for their thoughts on the harmfulness of these technologies.
"I have thoughts on the opposite," Patrick replied. "Most of us have an Apple Watch or a Fitbit or some sort of wearable device where we measure our heart rate, our resting heart rate, or heart rate during exercise -- a lot of different health parameters. And yet, I think there's a lot of regulations there that don't allow those devices to help give us medical advice," even though artificial intelligence has gotten better at predicting disease than physicians. "Yet we can't use that health information for anything, and it seems like it's something that would be very useful."
Husted pushed back on her response. "I agree that those things are valuable; I'm not sure that most of us have those things, though," he said. "I read that the average prisoner spends more time outside a day than the average child ... When you see the way social media is affecting young people, and how few of them are participating in sports, it seems like from the very beginning that we are getting children off to the wrong start."
No comments:
Post a Comment