I am always looking for ways to maximize health and longevity.
There isn’t anything I can do about my genes, but research shows that only 20% of how long we live is dictated by genes, whereas the other 80% is dictated by lifestyle.
Therefore I am most interested in the lifestyle habits that lead to a long and healthy life.
Fortunately, one of the world’s leading longevity experts recently revealed his findings after 25 years of research on aging.
David Sinclair, PhD, is one of the world’s most renowned scientists, best known for discovering why we age and how to reverse it. Dr. Sinclair is a Professor of Genetics and co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School, and he has been named by Time magazine as “One of the 100 most influential people in the world” and among the “Top 50 People in Healthcare.”
In Dr. Sinclair’s new book Lifespan: Why We Age — and Why We Don’t Have To, he distills a quarter-century’s worth of research into some simple things we can do to live longer.
These tools and tactics are available to nearly everyone, regardless of age, location, or socioeconomic status.
1. Fasting
Calorie restriction is incredibly powerful for longevity.
“After 25 years of researching aging and having read thousands of scientific papers, if there is one piece of advice I can offer, one surefire way to stay healthy longer, one thing you can do to maximize your lifespan right now, it’s this: eat less,” says Dr. Sinclair.
You don’t need to constantly deprive yourself — even once-in-a-while calorie restriction yields tremendous health benefits.
Specifically, a periodic 5-day calorie-restricted diet called a Fasting Mimicking Diet has been shown to rebuild the body at the cellular level. The diet (developed by another top longevity expert, Dr. Valter Longo) calls for about 1100 calories on day one and 800 calories per day on days 2–5, consisting primarily of vegetable soups, low-sugar energy bars, and supplements.
People who completed this program once a month for a period of three months lost weight, reduced body fat, lowered blood…
