Seeking Health

While most people instinctively know that living forever is likely to get pretty boring, most people want to enjoy a long life.

But how long is long? And how long is possible? I love life so much that I would eat a plateful of cardboard to spend another afternoon walking in the bush, another hour working in my garden, or another evening lying on the ground gazing up at the stars with my partner, Michael or our children. About to enter my sixth decade of life, I can hardly believe how young and healthy I feel. As long as I am functional, comfortable, and content, I want to live to be 120.

Aging is a normal part of life—a process that cannot be stopped or reversed; but age-associated diseases can be prevented and our functional lifespan can be prolonged. But for how long? The maximum human lifespan is believed to be about 125 years, but so far no one for certain has reached this limit. The oldest person of authentic record was a French woman who lived to be 122 years old.  The longest lived person in New Zealand was Maudie Wilson who lived to be 110 years old and died in October 2013. 

About 50 people alive today are over 110 years old —and there are presently 80,000 known centenarians (people who have reached 100 years).1 Interestingly, almost all of these “successful survivors” never saw a doctor until after age 90—obviously their exceptional longevity had nothing to do with medical intervention.

Life Expectancy Has Increased

The average life expectancy was 25 years or less during most (99.9%) of human existence. No prehistoric remains have been found of people older than 50 years. With few exceptions, war, accidents, starvation or infection ended lives before any of the signs of old age—graying of the hair, wrinkling of the skin, shortened memory, reduced strength, and decreased visual acuity—appeared. With the development of civilization people learned to control their environment and better protect themselves; with these advances some people then lived to a ripe old age. 

Do adults live longer today than they did in 1900?

We know that life expectancy has gone up tremendously. It was 47 in 1900. And today it’s 78. That’s 31 years. And people think that that’s because of modern medicine. But I come back to the question – are adults living longer than they did in 1900?

No. Not really. So how can that be? I just said that life expectancy went up 31 years. But let’s look at the data a little more carefully. If you were 65 in 1900, you could expect to live on average another 12 years, to age 77. That’s only one year less than life expectancy today. So, that means that adults today live little longer than they did in 1900. So what’s up with these figures?

The explanation is that the difference is seen in infant mortality. It used to be that 200 per thousand babies died in infancy, usually because of water-born illnesses, starvation, those type of issues. Today only 7 per thousand die. So that difference – those 193 babies in every thousand births that are now surviving to adulthood adds 31 years to the average lifespan. It’s not that people in 1900 were mostly dieing at 47 – a lot of people were dieing as infants and children and those that didn’t weren’t really living much less than we are today.

And most of the differences in lifespan are attributable to improvements in public hygiene, not medical advancements.

The History of Average Lifespans (in years)

Prehistoric 25

Classical Greece 28

Classical Rome 28

Medieval England 29

USA 1800 37

USA 1900 47

USA in 1950 68

USA in 2015 79

New Zealand in 2015 82

Japanese in 2015 84

All Adventists 85

Vegetarian Adventists 88.5

Conquer Chronic Diseases for the Next Big Boost

People living in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand eat a rich diet that shortens their life in many ways:

• Fat and cholesterol infiltrate their arteries, eventually causing ruptures and blockages (heart attacks and strokes).
• Inflammatory reactions scar the heart muscle and decrease its function.
• Food-borne environmental chemicals mutate the cells into cancer.
• Excess animal protein causes important loss of kidney function.

Even with all this disease from malnutrition, the average life span for the USA is 79.

Observing the health and longevity of people who eat better than most westerners provides clues to the potential gains from reducing chronic diseases. Japanese people who eat a diet based on plants (rice and vegetables) with little meat and no dairy products have an average lifespan of 84. But vegetarian Adventists do even better with women living, on average, to 90 years and men to 87 years. In fact, a direct comparison with other white Californians found vegetarian Adventists live an average of 10 years longer. However, these vigorous vegetarians still include way too much dairy, eggs, and vegetable oils in their diets to achieve the full potential of human longevity—leaving the opportunity to add a few more “good” years for people who are fully informed.

The November 2005 issue of National Geographic magazine carried an excellent article, “The Secrets of Living Longer.” They reported on 3 groups of long-lived people from Okinawa Japan, Sardinia Italy, and Loma Linda California—and all had in common that they followed a plant-based diet. At the very end of this issue there is a one-page “Do It Yourself” article with the subtitle, “Go Vegetarian.”

1 medium onion, sliced

1 tablespoon minced garlic

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 cups red lentils

6 cups water mixed with 3 teaspoons soup and stock mix or 6 cups vegetable broth

3 cups unpeeled diced potatoes, red look nice but any will work

2 cups chopped greens like kale, collards, silverbeet or sorrel

1 teaspoon lemon zest

4 tablespoons lemon juice

¼ cup chopped mint

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Sauté onion in water or stock for 3 to 4 minutes until they begin to soften. Add the garlic and cayenne and cook for 1 minute more. Add the lentils, broth and potatoes. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer, covered, for about 25 minutes or until the lentils and potatoes are tender.

Puree the mixture with a hand blender. Add the greens and cook 5 more minutes until they are wilted. Stir in the lemon zest and juice and the mint. Add salt and pepper, to taste. Serve hot.

Have a Healthy Happy Halloween.

With trick-or-treat sugary foods lurking everywhere, healthy eating during Halloween can be a challenge. So give you and your children a welcome break, the best of both worlds by offering some kid-friendly, healthier options.

With a little creativity you can make scary teeth from apples, peanut butter/jam and almond slivers, ghost boo-nanas with bananas and grapes, grape and raisin spiders, mini pumpkins from mandarin orange and a stick of celery, carved watermelon brains, fruit platters and lots more. Don’t forget the pumpkin carving and jack o lantern vomit made from hummous with cruditees!

 

 

World Osteoporosis Day, 20 October, might not be as exciting as Christmas Day, or even Pancake Day, but it's important nonetheless. An alarming number of people in New Zealand suffer from osteoporosis, a condition which can lead to serious and sometimes disabling fractures.

Many osteoporotic fractures are preventable – essentially it’s “the disease we don’t have to have”. Like the major epidemics of the past, targeted health interventions now could drastically curb the incidence of osteoporosis, fractures and morbidity, which in New Zealand currently stands at one hip fracture every two hours.

This year about 80,000 New Zealanders will break bones because of osteoporosis, and about three quarters will be women. That is a fracture every 6 minutes, and if nothing is done, this will increase to 120,000 people by 2020, with a fracture every 41/2 minutes.

Too Young to Have to Worry?

Most fractures are seen later in life, but the foundations of bone health are laid down in childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, and so osteoporosis is sometimes referred to as a paediatric disease. If preventative action is taken early on, the health burden and financial burden of osteoporosis for New Zealanders can be significantly reduced in the future.

What is Osteoporosis?

Bone is living, growing tissue made mostly of an organic matrix (protein collagen), bone cells and bone minerals. Bone cells consist of osteoblasts (bone forming cells) and osteoclasts (bone resorption cells). The bones that form the skeleton of the human body undergo a continuous process of modelling during childhood and adolescence. The mechanical competence of the skeleton is maintained by the process of remodelling where osteoclasts remove old bone, which is replaced by new bone formation by osteoblasts. Formation of new bones on one site, and removal of old bone at another site on the same bone, allows for bone growth and repair. During the first three decades of life there is bone growth, with relative balance occurring (under normal circumstances) between 20-40 years of age.

Peak bone mass, the point at which bones have their maximum strength, is attained at the third decade of life. With higher peak bone mass, the impact of subsequent bone loss is lessened, and therefore the risk of fracture is reduced. Bone mineral density (BMD) is often used as a surrogate measure of bone strength. Bone loss starts to occur when there is increased bone resorption that is not followed by equivalent bone formation. This bone loss gives rise to porous bones, or osteoporosis. Bone loss is often gradual and without warning signs until the disease is advanced. For this reason, osteoporosis has become known as “the silent thief”.

Osteoporosis is generally viewed as resulting from a combination of age-related, hormonal, dietary, lifestyle and genetic factors, all of which can lead to reduced bone mass. Much can be done to optimise bone mass early in life and slow/prevent bone loss later on in life.

As with other diet and lifestyle related diseases, forewarned is forearmed. Early detection can prompt people to make changes that will provide them with better long term outcomes for their bone health and mobility into old age. However, due to scientific advances in our understanding of bone health in recent decades, much of the popular wisdom regarding osteoporosis prevention is outdated and counterproductive.

For the latest in education for prevention of osteoporosis, visit OsteoHealth NZ.

Article written by Cath King based on information from “The Burden of Osteoporosis in New Zealand: 2007-2020” University of Auckland

 Today, let's consider the humble apple. We all know the folk wisdom that "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". This insight is supported by all the evidence science has amassed that shows the apple is a food that contributes to health. But what is it about the apple that promotes health? Food composition tables tell us that the average apple contains a significant amount of the following nutrients: vitamin C, vitamin K, vitamin B6, potassium, dietary fibre and riboflavin. Also, it’s got smaller amounts of vitamin A, vitamin E, niacin, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, manganese, and a whole host of other nutrients. From this long list can we figure out what really matters about an apple?

Well Dr Rui Hai Liu got curious about this question, and he and his research team set about looking for the answer.

In studying the apple, Dr Liu and his research team began by focusing on vitamin C and its antioxidant effect. They found that 100 grams of fresh apples had an antioxidant, vitamin C-like activity equivalent to 1,500 milligrams of vitamin C (about three times the amount of a typical vitamin C supplement). When they chemically analysed that 100 grams of whole apple, however, they found only 5.7 milligrams of vitamin C, far below the 1,500 milligrams that the level of antioxidant activity associated with vitamin C indicated.

The vitamin C-like activity from 100 grams of whole apple was an astounding 263 times as potent as the same amount of the isolated chemical. Said another way, the specific chemical we refer to as vitamin C accounts for much less than 1% of the vitamin C-like activity in the apple – a miniscule amount.

The other 99-plus% of this activity is due to other vitamin C-like chemicals in the apple, the possibility of vitamin C to be much more effective in the context of the whole apple than it is when consumed in an isolated form, or both.

The process of nutrition is profoundly wholistic, in that the way the body uses a particular nutrient depends on what other nutrients we ingest along with it. If we just take an isolated vitamin C pill, we miss out on the cast of “supporting characters” that may give vitamin C its potency. Even if we add many of these characters into the pill too, we are still assuming that whatever else is in the apple and not in the pill is somehow unimportant.

The conclusion of Dr Liu’s study was that “natural antioxidants from fresh fruit could be more effective than a dietary supplement.”

Dr Liu’s subsequent research provided an even clearer picture of the mind-blowing complexity of a simple food like an apple. Once he discovered that an apple was far more powerful a vitamin C delivery system than it “should” have been, he wondered about the mechanisms that might explain that difference.

His lab focused on searching for the kinds of chemicals that might account for the rest of the vitamin C-like activity in apples. In the summary of their findings, they show that there is a treasure trove of such vitamin C-like compounds in apples. These include other antioxidants with names like quercetin, catechin, phlorizin and chlorogenic acid found only in plants, each which may exist in many forms within the apple. The list of these chemicals in apples is long, and likely reflects just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s as if the inside of the apple is bigger than it looks from the outside.

2 boxes of no boil rice lasagna noodles (I used 1 box of whole wheat from Whole Foods and followed the directions on the box, boiling them for 4 minutes and then rinsing each noodle well in cold water)

6 cups oil-free marinara sauce

Filling No. 1:

1 box extra firm tofu, drained and wrapped in paper towel to remove excess moisture OR 2  cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

2 Tbsp dried basil leaves

1 cup pine nuts, raw cashews or hemp seeds

2 cloves garlic

1/4 cup low-sodium miso (I used regular miso)

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1/8 tsp red pepper flakes

1 kg frozen chopped spinach 

Filling No. 2:

1 kg sliced mushrooms

2 garlic cloves

1/4 cup tamari

1 large red onion

100 g sliced olives, rinsed and drained (optional)

Faux Parmesan:

In a food processor, grind 1 cup raw cashews or almonds, 1/2 cup nutritional yeast and 1 Tbsp of salt-free seasoning, until a powdery mixture is achieved. If you like it more chunky, process less.

Make the filling in a food processor fitted with the "S" blade, by adding tofu, basil, garlic, lemon juice, miso, nutritional yeast, nuts and red pepper flakes. Puree until smooth. Add drained spinach or kale and process again.

In a large non-stick saute pan, saute chopped onion in 2 Tbsp water or broth until translucent, about 8 minutes, adding more water if necessary. Add garlic, mushrooms and tamari and saute until browned. Taste mixture, adding more garlic/tamari according to your taste. Cook until mushrooms appear to be glazed and there is no more liquid left in pan.

Pour 3 cups of the sauce in a 9"x13" lasagna pan. Place one layer of noodleson top. Cover noodles with half of tofu/spinach mix, then with half of mushroom mix. Place another layer of noodles on top and add remaining halves of tofu and mush. Place one more layer of noodles on top and smother evenly with remaining sauce. Sprinkle olives on top of sauce and sprinkle with faux parmesan. (I put black olives on top of half of the casserole for my husband and put thinly sliced red peppers on my half).

Bake uncovered 200 degrees for one hour. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

1 onion, chopped or 1 leak, thinly sliced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 red pepper, chopped

1/2 cup (125 ml) dry white wine, dry sherry or vegetable broth

2 cups (500 ml) garbanzo beans (chickpeas), cooked and drained (if using canned beans, rinse and drain)

1 1/2 cups (375 ml) frozen peas (set out in a bowl to thaw while the dish is cooking)

4 cups (1 l) mushrooms, sliced

1 tsp (5 ml) salt (or to taste)

1/2 tsp (2 ml) paprika (optional)

1/2 cup (125 ml) parsley, chopped (optional)

1/4 cup (60 ml) cornstarch + 1/2 cup (125 ml) water

3 cups (750 ml) unsweetened soy, almond, coconut or other non-dairy milk

Fresh ground pepper to taste

Braise onions, peppers, mushrooms and garlic in wine, sherry or broth for about 10 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

Mix cornstarch and water in a jar and stir until smooth. Add non-dairy milk and cornstarch mixture and heat until milk thickens. Add peas and garbanzo beans, parsley, salt, pepper and paprika and heat through. Serve hot over brown rice, barley or noodles.