Know all about longevity diet and its promise of extended life span

You may have heard of the longevity diet and its promise of long life, but what exactly is it and is it different from other diets that promote good health?

The Longevity Diet is a set of dietary recommendations compiled by a biochemist named Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California. He is known for his research on the role of fasting, the effects of nutrients on your genes, and how they can affect aging and disease risk.

While the longevity diet has been targeted at older adults, it’s also recommended for younger people. Longo has said that he plans to live to be 120 years old following this diet. So how is the diet? Foods on this diet are vegetables, including green leafy vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans, olive oil, and low-mercury shellfish.

Therefore, most of the foods in the longevity diet are plant-based. Plant-based diets are generally higher in vitamins and minerals, dietary fiber, antioxidants, and lower in saturated fat and salt, leading to health benefits. Foods that are discouraged are excess meat and dairy, and those high in processed sugar and saturated fat.

For people who don’t want to go without dairy, the Longevity Diet recommends swapping cow’s milk for goat’s or sheep’s milk, which have a slightly different nutrient profile. But there is little evidence that sheep and goat milk provide more health benefits.

Including fermented dairy (such as cheese and yogurt) in your diet, as recommended in the Longevity Diet, is beneficial as it provides a more extensive microbiome (good bacteria) than any milk. Have you seen this diet before? Many of you may recognize this as a family dietary pattern. It is similar to the Mediterranean diet, especially since both include olive oil as the oil of choice.

The Mediterranean diet is promoted and supported by a considerable body of evidence to promote health, reduce the risk of disease, and promote longevity. The Longevity Diet is also similar to many evidence-based national dietary guidelines, including Australia’s.

Two-thirds of the foods recommended in the Australian Dietary Guidelines come from plant-based foods (cereals, grains, legumes, beans, fruits, vegetables).

The guidelines also provide plant-based alternatives for protein (such as dried beans, lentils, and tofu) and dairy products (such as soy-based milks, yogurts, and cheeses, as long as they are supplemented with calcium).

Intermittent Fasting Another aspect of the longevity diet is specific periods of fasting, known as intermittent fasting. The diet advocates eating within a 12-hour period and not eating for three to four hours before bedtime. Typically, with intermittent fasting, people fast for 1,620 hours with a four- to eight-hour window for eating.

Another intermittent fasting option is the 5:2 diet, in which you restrict eating to about 2,0003,000 kilojoules for two days of the week and eat normally the other five days.

Evidence indicates that intermittent fasting can lead to improvements in insulin resistance, which leads to better blood glucose control. This can lower your risk of type 2 diabetes and other chronic diseases, such as heart disease and obesity.

keep a healthy weight

The Longevity Diet recommends that overweight people eat just two meals a day, breakfast and a midday meal or dinner, plus just two low-sugar snacks. This is to try to reduce kilojoule intake to lose weight. Another important aspect of this recommendation is to reduce snacking, especially foods high in saturated fat, salt or sugar.

These are the foods that we normally refer to as discretionary foods/sometimes, or ultra-processed foods. These offer little nutritional value and, in some cases, are linked to poorer health outcomes.

Eat a rainbow of colors

The Longevity Diet recommends eating nutrient-dense foods, which are also recommended by most national dietary guidelines. This means eating a diet rich in plant foods and a variety of foods within each food group.

Each colored fruit and vegetable contains different nutrients, so eating a variety of colored fruits and vegetables is recommended. The recommendation to select a range of whole grains over refined cereals, breads, pastas and rice also reflects the best nutritional evidence.

Restrict protein intake

This diet recommends restricting protein intake to 0.68-0.80 g per kilogram of body weight per day. This is 47-56g of protein per day for a 70kg person.

For reference, each of these foods contains about 10g of protein: 2 small eggs, 30g cheese, 40g lean chicken, 250ml cow’s milk, 3/4 cup lentils, 120g tofu, 60 g of nuts or 300 ml of soy milk. This is in line with government recommendations.

Most Australians easily consume this level of protein in their diet. However, it is the elderly population, targeted by the longevity diet, that is least likely to meet their protein needs.

In the longevity diet it is recommended that most of the protein comes from vegetable sources or fish. This may require special planning to ensure a full range of all necessary nutrients if the diet lacks red meat.

Is there a problem with this diet? This diet recommends taking multivitamin and mineral supplements every three to four days. Longo says this prevents malnutrition and won’t cause any nutritional problems.

However, many health agencies, including the World Cancer Research Fund, the British Heart Foundation and the American Heart Association, do not recommend taking supplements to prevent cancer or heart disease.

Supplements should only be taken on the advice of your doctor, after a blood test shows a deficiency in a specific nutrient. This is because some vitamins and minerals can be harmful in large amounts.

If you’re eating a variety of foods from all the food groups, you’re meeting all of your nutrient requirements and shouldn’t need supplements. The verdict? This longevity diet is a compilation of many aspects of evidence-based healthy eating patterns.

We already promote them as they improve our health and reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases. All of these aspects of healthy eating could lead to increased longevity.

What is not mentioned in the longevity diet is the importance of exercise for good health and a long life.