A careful study of long-lived people and long-lived populations around the world—combined with a comprehensive understanding of animal experiments effecting animal life span—makes it clear that decisive action must be taken if we wish to retard aging, maintain high-level mental and physical performance as we age, and protect ourselves against the common diseases of aging.

The human body has a built-in capacity for healing and rejuvenation. This inborn process can be inhibited by a variety of influences, such as personal habits and the environment. Good food choices, in combination with other important health factors, give you your best possible chance for a long and rewarding life.

The seven key concepts in longevity are listed below. Your best health insurance is to keep these guidelines in mind and to put them into practice. The finest health care in the world is proper self-care—learning to live so healthfully that you can safely avoid hospitals, doctors, drugs, and surgery.

Disease is not caused by aging. Disease is caused by those negative influences that stress the body over the years and lead to eventual cellular dysfunction and breakdown. Water dripping on a rock over thousands of years may eventually wear a hole in the rock. But it is not time that makes the hole; it is the water hitting the rock over and over. In a similar way, we create the diseases of “aging” through our behavior. Fortunately, we can just as easily create a long, hundred-year life span, free of serious illness from birth to a gentle death.

1. Eat Fewer Calories and Live Longer
Eating more calories than the body needs to maintain a thin, muscular weight ages us. Extra calories (whether from fat, carbohydrate, or protein) are especially toxic when they are low nutrient calories—the so-called “empty” calories of refined and highly-processed foods. For our cells to be well nourished and maintain a clean internal environment, all of the calories we eat must be nutrient-rich. The most nutrient-rich foods are vegetables, beans, fruits, grains, and nuts and seeds. Refined foods, oil, sugar, and white flour are examples of calorie-rich but nutrient-poor foods.

Centenarian studies in Europe illustrate that those individuals living into their hundreds were likely to have consumed a plant-based diet consisting of fewer than 2000 calories per day. Multiple studies have confirmed that the thinnest people live the longest.

2. Prevent Deficiencies with Plant-Based Nutrition
As seemingly healthful as one’s diet may be, disease, accelerated aging—or even death—can occur if that person is missing B12, vitamin D, or any other individual nutrient. For example, one well-known advocate of a fruit-based, raw-food diet, died in his sixties of a vitamin B12 deficiency. The B12 deficiency leads to high levels of homocysteine, which can destroy the heart and blood vessels, even while the person eats an otherwise excellent vegetarian diet.

The most dramatic finding in nutritional science in the last fifty years is the power of plant-derived phytochemicals to affect health. Phytochemicals, along with the rich assortment of powerful antioxidants found in unrefined plant foods, fuel a defensive system that removes toxic cellular metabolites that age us. Phytochemicals are required for maintenance and repair of our DNA, and allow our bodies’ self-healing abilities to properly function.

3. Regular Exercise Pays Big Health Dividends
Despite the well-known benefits of exercise, only about 15 percent of Americans engage in regular physical activity. In people of all body weights, poor aerobic fitness is an independent risk factor for all-cause mortality.¹

Exercise is important for healthy psychological function and to maintain significant muscle and bone mass as we age. It has been shown to improve mental function; to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression; and to improve sleep patterns, aiding healthful cycles of deep sleep.

If you plan on living a long time, you want to have your bones last along with you. A good measurement of your bone density and strength is to test the strength of the muscle that moves that bone. Bone density correlates perfectly with muscle strength. As we condition our muscles and gain strength, our bones thicken and strengthen along with the muscle. Without regular exercise along the way, your bone structure can deteriorate as you get older. Some people survive with weak bones, but their quality of life suffers when they are immobilized by arthritis and osteoporosis.

4. Avoid Toxins, Including Medication
Drugs of all kinds are part of our toxic problem. The first thing doctors were taught in the pharmacology course in medical school was that all drugs are toxic. Whether prescribed by a physician, or by the drug pusher on the street corner, prescription medication is not health food. It is best to live in a manner to avoid the need for medicinal substances.

Antibiotics are some of the most frequently used and most toxic of all drugs. More studies are documenting the relationship between antibiotic use and occurrence of cancer in later life. Most recently, a study illustrated a doubling of breast cancer in women who used antibiotics frequently in their life. This is especially frightening when you consider that 95 percent of all antibiotics used are prescribed inappropriately.

Take steps today to reduce the amount of toxic chemicals that enter your body. If possible, plant your own organic garden; support organic agriculture and purchase organic food; politically support a clean environment; and do not put chemical weed killers and insecticides on your property. Use nontoxic cleaners, and try to manage insects and pests without contaminating your home. Eat low on the food chain (plant-based diet) and avoid animal fats, which are known to contain the highest levels of dangerous chemical pollutants.

5. Get Sufficient Rest and Sleep for Recovery
Adequate sleep is a necessary component of good health. During sleep, your body removes the buildup of waste in the brain. Sufficient sleep is necessary for the normal function of your nervous and endocrine systems. Most civilizations in human history recognized the value of mid-afternoon naps. The desire for a rest, short sleep, or “siesta” after lunch should not be seen as an abnormal need, but rather a normal one. People who “cover up” their lack of sleep by using drugs (such as caffeine) as food and/or food (such as highly processed, sugary foods) as drugs sometimes claim that they can get by with very little sleep. As you begin to live more healthfully, you may quickly recognize that you need more sleep than you previously thought.

6. An Emotionally Satisfying Environment is Vital
Humans are complicated creatures, and our minds have powerful effects on healing and wellness. A positive purpose, loving relationships, self-respect, and the power to control our destiny have beneficial effects on our physiological—and ultimately physical—well being.

A safe and satisfying work environment, a happy marriage, a satisfying social and/or family life, and activities you enjoy are all related to positive health outcomes. In other words, as you learn about and begin to care for things, you gain a legitimate reason to be pleased with yourself. A healthy emotional response to life hinges on your ability to grant value and importance to things that are deserving of it. This ability and desire to interact in a fair and equitable way with the world around you forms the basis of your emotional contentment and self-esteem.

7. Fast When You are Under the Weather
Viral infections such as colds and influenza can be seen as life-extension opportunities. These viruses help the body with internal housecleaning and create an excitation of the body’s powers of elimination. Viral infections are opportunities for the body to reduce cellular debris and cellular congestion. In that sense, they can be seen as having anti-aging benefits.

As we produce mucus and develop a fever, we expunge not just virions and dead cells, but other cellular debris and cellular toxins. The body has the innate intelligence and power to heal itself from within, if not hampered. We assist this renewal by thorough rest, which includes not eating much or not eating at all.

We naturally lose our appetite when we are ill. This is the body’s way of telling us when we are not equipped to digest food efficiently. Fasting when ill speeds recovery, reduces mucus production, and activates the immune system’s defenses to rapidly and dramatically eliminate the viral load.

Periodic fasting has been shown to increase life span in all species of animals, and this has been seen even when the caloric intake over time was not lowered. When you are sick is the perfect opportunity to partake in a short fast. Stay home, drink pure water, rest and fast –you can turn the illness into a longevity opportunity.

Conclusion
Many people mistakenly believe disease, illness, death, and aging are beyond our control. The fact is, we have marvelous, complicated bodies, capable of repairing and regulating themselves and maintaining health excellence when we supply them with some simple prerequisites of health—proper food, clean air and drinking water, adequate sleep, sufficient exercise or activity, and emotional stability.

References:
1. Blair SN, Kampert JB, Kohl HW 3rd, et al. Influence of cardiorespiratory fitness and other precursors on cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality in men and women. JAMA 1996;276:205-210.