There's No Silver Bullet For Long Life

97-year-old Stamatis Moraitis tending his vineyard and olive grove on Ikaria.

Below is the story making rounds about 97-year-old Stamatis Moraitis who was expected to die from lung cancer in his mid-60s. A move from Florida to the Greek island of Ikaria is thought to have saved his life. But there's something fishy about this story:

The Island Where People Forget To Die, New York Times Magazine, 24 October 2012

Here's a snapshot of how Ikarians live:

"Like that of almost all of Ikaria’s traditional folk, their daily routine unfolded much the way Leriadis [an Ikarian physician] had described it: Wake naturally, work in the garden, have a late lunch, take a nap. At sunset, they either visited neighbors or neighbors visited them.

Their diet was also typical: a breakfast of goat’s milk, wine, sage tea or coffee, honey and bread. Lunch was almost always beans (lentils, garbanzos), potatoes, greens (fennel, dandelion or a spinachlike green called horta) and whatever seasonal vegetables their garden produced; dinner was bread and goat’s milk."

Here's a little more about their diet:

"The Ikarians’ diet, like that of others around the Mediterranean, was rich in olive oil and vegetables, low in dairy (except goat’s milk) and meat products, and also included moderate amounts of alcohol. It emphasized homegrown potatoes, beans (garbanzo, black-eyed peas and lentils), wild greens and locally produced goat milk and honey.

[Ikarians] consumed about six times as many beans a day as Americans, ate fish twice a week and meat five times a month, drank on average two to three cups of coffee a day and took in about a quarter as much refined sugar — the elderly did not like soda. She also discovered they were consuming high levels of olive oil along with two to four glasses of wine a day."

So, If I lived in Ikaria, I would wake up late, say 11 am. I would have some wine, bread, milk, and honey then tend to my garden. I would come in for a big afternoon meal, wash it down with wine, take a long nap, have some tea, wine, bread, and socialize until late in the evening.

Do you see it? Where does the midday meal come from? Who is cooking all those beans? Who is doing the dishes? The laundry? Who is cleaning the house? Who is going to market? Who is caring for the children? (75% of the population is under 65.) Do children rise at 11? What about school? Who is running the businesses? How do you run schools and businesses without clocks (which the story said explicitly are not used)? Do Ikarians have personal assistants, maids, and cooks? I wonder what the lifestyle of women is like in Ikaria, and if it differs from men. I wonder if they are as relaxed with abundant time to sleep, socialize, and imbibe. Perhaps, but I noted that Moraitis' wife, 12 years his junior, died at the age of 85, having spent 30-plus years in this supposed idyllic existence.

This story is too romanticized. It's not realistic. It will have people longing for a utopia that doesn't exist. One other thing not mentioned in this story is healthcare. Who would pay if Moraitis needed a foot amputated? Needed eye surgery? Needed kidney dialysis? The government, because Ikaria has Universal Healthcare.

You know what helps people live a long life? I'll entertain my arrogance and tell you ... No. One. Thing. There were very likely elements of Moraitis' diet that worked against long life, but were offset by positives. Gary Taubes (who was consulted for his opinion in the story) may have said that all that bread would do him in. Drs. Esselstyn and Campbell may have said all that meat and dairy would lead to chronic ailments and early death. Ikarians drank almost enough daily alcohol to invite a label.

The story may have been romanticized, but it was also telling, especially the guts of this paragraph that began:

"If you pay careful attention to the way Ikarians have lived their lives, it appears that a dozen subtly powerful, mutually enhancing and pervasive factors are at work."

And this:

"For people to adopt a healthful lifestyle, I have become convinced, they need to live in an ecosystem, so to speak, that makes it possible. As soon as you take culture, belonging, purpose or religion out of the picture, the foundation for long healthy lives collapses. The power of such an environment lies in the mutually reinforcing relationships among lots of small nudges and default choices."

There’s no silver bullet to keep death and the diseases of old age at bay. If there’s anything close to a secret, it’s silver buckshot."

Buckshot. So, a lot of small things, done over and over, in an environment where everyone else is also doing those small things, could very well keep us sipping the mountain tea into our 90s.
________Photo from the NYTs story.

Food Is Not Food Anymore, It's A Commodity

Ben sent this link to a recent segment of The Leonard Lopate Show which discussed how changes in global food production have been commodifying the food supply (or should I say how the commodification of food has been changing global food production), with "devastating consequences:"

"In 2008, farmers grew more than enough to feed the world, yet more people starved than ever before — and most of them were farmers. Harper’s magazine contributing editor Frederick Kaufman investigates the connection between the global food system and why the food on our tables is getting less healthy and less delicious even as the world's biggest food companies and food scientists say things are better than ever."

Excerpts:

Food is not food anymore. Food has become something else. It's an equation, it's part of a spreadsheet. And this has devastating consqueunces.

I think what's going on here is that ... Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan and so many investigative writers have done a great job of really exposing the industrialization of American food and the industrialization of global food. What I've discovered here is something beyond that, which is what I call the securitization of the food system or even the financialization of the food system.

Tyson is larger than Dominoes, but Wall Street is bigger than Tyson.

There's more than double the amount of food on earth to feed to today's population. People don't starve because there is not enough food. People stave because they cannot afford the price of food. [And how is food priced? Commodity trading.] There are no laws against insider trading in commodities.

Lopate: Is industrial agriculture unsustainable the way it's currently being practiced?
Kaufman: Of course, I look at industrial agriculture ... it is obviously unsustainable. ... Sustainability has become one of the great marketing terms.

Kaufman says this about labeling GMOs:

I do not think labeling actually is the way [to get companies like Monsanto and Bayer Crop Science out of the Round-Up Ready business ... so they don't make those "monopolistic windfall profits"]. I think the way is to take the money out of their patent business.

I think a label like everything else is just going to be more consumer noise.

Kaufman's discussion of the commodification of food reminds me of Paul Roberts' discussion on the same topic in his book The End of Food, which I read when it came out about 4 years ago. I wish I could find out what Roberts has been up to in recent years. The food movement could use his kind of smarts and enthusiasm.

Here's a sample ... Roberts speaking at the Organicology Conference in 2009. Watch this guy. The gentleman knows from whence he speaks.

Part 1:


Part 2:


Here's an excerpt from Part 1 that I think is relevant today, when I apply it to the multi-state peanut butter recall for salmonella:

"Food doesn't like to be industrialized. I don't want to anthropomorphize food here, but, food resists being commodified. Past a certain point, food will push back. And it's this push-back that is the nexus of many of the problems we're dealing with today."

An example he gave of push-back was how a batch of ground beef can become contaminated with E. coli, be mixed with millions of pounds of uncontaminated beef, and be distributed all over the country in the wink of an eye ... resulting in, in the case of Topps, a 23-million-pound recall and the end of business for one of the country’s largest manufacturers of frozen hamburgers.

"This is the system we have," said Roberts. This is how much of today's food is produced and distributed. This is why the Sunland peanut butter recall is so extensive, in both quantity of product affected, and geographical reach. The system creates profit for food companies but at the cost of food safety, resource management, crop diversification. Any other costs you can think of? Taste? It's not, as Kaufman and Roberts both say, a sustainable system. ________Thanks, Ben!

Older People And Vegetarians Risk Zinc Deficiency

Click to enlarge.

A recent post addressed the challenge of getting enough zinc on a vegetarian diet. Here's an excerpt:

Is zinc difficult to get on a vegan diet? The National Institutes of Health in their Fact Sheet on Zinc say:

"The bioavailability of zinc from vegetarian diets is lower than from non-vegetarian diets because vegetarians do not eat meat, which is high in bioavailable zinc and may enhance zinc absorption. In addition, vegetarians typically eat high levels of legumes and whole grains, which contain phytates that bind zinc and inhibit its absorption."
...
"Vegetarians sometimes require as much as 50% more of the RDA for zinc than non-vegetarians."

The RDA for adult men is 11mg, women 8mg. So, vegans may want to shoot for: men 16.5mg, women 12mg.

That's vegetarianism. Below is a recent study that describes how zinc deficiency can develop with age, independant of diet. Since zinc is an integral component of the immune system, defiency or sub-optimal levels can lead to a decline of the immune response (so, increased vulnerability to infection), and increased inflammation (so, increased risk for inflammatory diseases - heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and diabetes).

Increased Inflammatory Response In Aged Mice Is Associated With Age-related Zinc Deficiency And Zinc Transporter Dysregulation, The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, September 2012

From the abstract:

"Zinc deficiency ... was associated with increased inflammation with age. ... Restoring zinc status via dietary supplementation reduced aged-associated inflammation."

The research was conducted at Oregon State University which released a press release:

Zinc Deficiency Mechanism Linked To Aging, Multiple Diseases, Oregon State University, 1 October 2012

"[The study] suggests that it’s especially important for elderly people to get adequate dietary intake of zinc, since they may need more of it at this life stage when their ability to absorb it is declining.

[The study] found that zinc transporters were significantly dysregulated in old animals. They showed signs of zinc deficiency and had an enhanced inflammatory response even though their diet supposedly contained adequate amounts of zinc.

When the animals were given about 10 times their dietary requirement for zinc, the biomarkers of inflammation were restored to those of young animals.

“We’ve previously shown in both animal and human studies that zinc deficiency can cause DNA damage, and this new work shows how it can help lead to systemic inflammation,” [study author] Ho said.

In zinc deficiency, the risk of which has been shown to increase with age, the body’s ability to repair genetic damage may be decreasing even as the amount of damage is going up."

So ... The elderly, especially if they don't eat much animal food, are vulnerable to zinc deficiency. This raises the question, again, as to the suitability of supplements for this population. Taking any single nutrient in pill form can offset the amount of other nutrients we absorb. The authors said so much:

"Levels of zinc intake above 40 milligrams per day should be avoided, researchers said, because at very high levels they can interfere with absorption of other necessary nutrients, including iron and copper."

Nonetheless, Ho advised all seniors to take a supplement that includes the full RDA for zinc (11mg for men, 8mg for women). This doesn't sound like a bad idea.
________ The map of zinc deficiency areas is from Brian Alloway's 2008 Report: Zinc In Soils And Crop Nutrition. He says, "Zinc deficiency appears to be the most widespread and frequent micronutrient deficiency problem in crop and pasture plants worldwide." I wonder if soils were richer in zinc years ago.

FDA's Flickr Stream Of Recalled Products

Here's just a snapshot of the Food and Drug Administration's hundreds of recalled products. Go to the stream, click a photo, and get a more detailed description of the product. Great use of the technology:



FDA's Flickr Stream Of Recalled Products
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Salmonella In Peanut Butter, Again

This peanut butter recall just keeps getting bigger. It now includes over 400 products, sold at, among other places, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Walmart, Kroeger, Target, and Costco. Raw and roasted shelled and in-shell peanuts were added to the recall last Friday.

Brands include Trader Joe's (the first product found to be contaminated was Trader Joe’s Valencia Creamy Salted Peanut Butter), Sunland, Archer Farms, Cadia, Naturally More, and Sun Harvest.

Below is the FDA's most recent list of products recalled by Sunland Inc. All of the illnesses are linked to peanut products from one plant, and Sunland has recalled every product it produced there since March 2010.

Complete list:
FDA Investigates Multistate Outbreak of Salmonella Bredeney Infections Linked to Peanut Butter made by Sunland Inc.

It amazes me how such a large swath of the country can be affected by one facility, and in such a short period of time.
________

Music: George Harrison "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

This is an acoustic version, not the version that appears on The Beatles' The White Album. Written by Harrison.



Here's the popular version. Eric Clapton is playing lead guitar on this one:

________

David Rose? Or Hunter Dunn?

I saw this story on The Huffington Post:
David Rose Dead: Deaf Quadriplegic Twitter Sensation Dies

According to the article, and Rose's blog, David Rose was born with cerebral palsy. In addition to it limiting his movement, it also affected the part of his brain that processes hearing. According to his blog, "He hears nothing. Not even silence."

That Rose learned and effectively communicated in English was quite a feat given his disabilities. His blog says he used a Tobii computer which tracks eye movement using infrared light. It allows his eyes to act like a computer mouse, clicking by staring at a point or blinking. Rose typed 3 or 4 words per minute this way.

Also, according to the article, when Rose learned he had pneumonia he "wrote" a post for his blog that he asked his sister to publish in the event of his passing. At 3 or 4 words per minute, I can imagine this post probably took the greater part of a day to write: (While he was in the hospital being treated for a debilitating infection?)
Three Friends And A Whole Lot More

An excerpt:

i learn in a short life that what make the world special are good people like all you. otherwise it just be boring blue rock zipping around the sun looking for trouble. you are all special. all of you unique! love each other and make each other smile. a good joke is good medicine! make sure everyone around you have a smile ok? always do what is right. always! but forgive yourself if you forget sometimes

i have to go now. i love you all. i really do. you are amazing. i will never forget you!

This is an emotional story. It seemed incredible that a young man who couldn't hear since birth, and couldn't use sign language, managed to communicate as effectively as he did. Or did he? Here's another site I saw this morning while writing this post. Look at the photo of the man named Hunter Dunn (you may have to flip through the photos by clicking "next") and compare it to the photo above of David Rose:

Lighting a Tree For Hunter

Now, I'm not sure what to believe. ________

Will The Food Movement Deliver? Michael Pollan on Proposition 37

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, and professor of journalism at the Univerisity of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine this week:
Vote for the Dinner Party; Is this the year that the food movement finally enters politics?

The NYTs subtitle was a little more blatant:
Why California's Proposition 37 Should Matter To Anyone Who Cares About Food

Pollan ponders whether the "food movement" has coalesced enough to become a political force. The movement undoubtedly exists:

"Clearly there is growing sentiment in favor of reforming American agriculture and interest in questions about where our food comes from and how it was produced. And certainly we can see an alternative food economy rising around us: local and organic agriculture is growing far faster than the food market as a whole."

But is it just peripheral and elitist?...

"Not everyone can afford to participate in the new food economy. If the food movement doesn’t move to democratize the benefits of good food, it will be — and will deserve to be — branded as elitist."

... Or an established national force? California's Proposition 37, which would require foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients be labeled as such, is challenging the food movement to deliver politically, to "democratize the benefits of good food."

Good food. No, Prop37 isn't merely about the food we fork. At its heart, it's about power. It's about leveraging power away from the monolith of industrial agriculture:

"The fight over labeling G.M. food is not foremost about food safety or environmental harm, legitimate though these questions are. The fight is about the power of Big Food. Monsanto has become the symbol of everything people dislike about industrial agriculture: corporate control of the regulatory process; lack of transparency (for consumers) and lack of choice (for farmers); an intensifying rain of pesticides on ever-expanding monocultures; and the monopolization of seeds, which is to say, of the genetic resources on which all of humanity depends."

It's not just about California either:

"If Prop 37 passes, and the polls suggest its chances are good, then that debate will most likely go national and a new political dynamic will be set in motion. ... Suddenly [food consumer groups will] find themselves with a seat at the table and a strong political hand."

In 2007, Obama made a campaign promise to label genetically engineered food. He hasn't acted on it. Why? Pollan says:

"Over the last four years I’ve had occasion to speak to several people who have personally lobbied the president on various food issues, including G.M. labeling, and from what I can gather, Obama’s attitude toward the food movement has always been: What movement? I don’t see it. Show me. On Nov. 6, the voters of California will have the opportunity to do just that."

________

"In Reality, There Is No Such Thing As Not Voting"

“If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.”
- David Foster Wallace

I'm sure there are nuances to voter theory, but there does seem to be some mathematical sense behind that. If only one person voted in an election, that vote would have more power than the votes of 2 people, which would have more power than the votes of 100 people. It seems ... the fewer people that vote, the more each vote counts.
________

Celebrities Band To Support California's Proposition 37 To Label Genetically Engineered Food

It's a shame that only the people who live in California, and of those only registered voters who actually do vote, get to choose:



But where California goes, there could go the rest of the country.

Jeremy Piven made a great argument:

"If there's nothing wrong with GMOs, why not put it on the label: "Made With GMOs!"

________

Smile

Ron Gutman on smiling:



How about that. I didn't know that smiling was linked to long life.

Here's a recent study that found that smiling, even when it's manufactured, can lower heart rate and blood pressure. (Participants held a pencil in their mouth to unknowingly mimic a smile. Looks like German Chancellor Merkel is working on it.)

Grin and Bear It: The Influence Of Manipulated Facial Expression On The Stress Response, Psychological Science, September 2012

Darwin was one of the first to write about it:

"The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it. On the other hand, the repression, as far as this is possible, of all outward signs softens our emotions. ... Even the simulation of an emotion tends to arouse it in our minds."
- Charles Darwin, 1872, in Origin of Species, discussing his Facial Feedback Hypothesis

________

Assessing Body Fat Using The New BAI (Body Adiposity Index)

To the line-up for assessing body mass (which includes weight, BMI or Body Mass Index, waist circumference, hip circumference, waist-to-hip ratio), we can now add the BAI or Body Adiposity Index, which approximates a person's body fat percentage using only hip and height measurements.

The calculation was put forth by Bergman et al.:
A Better Index of Body Adiposity, Nature: Obesity, March 2011

BAI = (hip circumference in centimeters / height in meters^1.5) − 18

It supposedly correlates well with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). DXA actually measures body fat indirectly but is considered comparable to hydrostatic or underwater weighing.

Examples using BAI calculation:

• A man with hips of 42" and height of 5'10" would have a body fat of about 27%.
• A woman with hips of 36" and height of 5'4" would have a body fat of about 26%.

You can calculate your own BAI or body fat percentage here: Texas State University BAI Body Fat Calculator



None of these metrics (BMI, BAI, etc.) give an accurate measure of body composition, but taken together they give a better indication of health than any single measure:

The Body Adiposity Index (Hip Circumference ÷ Height1.5) Is Not A More Accurate Measure Of Adiposity Than Is BMI, Waist Circumference, Or Hip Circumference, Nature: Obesity, April 2012

The image at the top is from Wikipedia: Waist-Hip Ratio. I thought it offered a good reference for where to measure hips. ________

The Year's First Kabocha Squash

Sweeter than a sweet potato!


________

77-Year-Old Bodybuilder Jim Morris: Vegan For 12 years

Bodybuilder Jim Morris gave an interview to Frugivore Magazine this week:
Black Male Vegan: 77-Year-Old Bodybuilder Jim Morris Proves Vegans Can Be Muscular & Healthy

This is what Morris looked like 2 years ago, after 10 years of being a vegan:



Some quotes from the interview:

"Prior to becoming vegan I suffered digestive problems all my life, mainly constipation. I started taking anti inflammatory medication in 1966 for my joints. At one point I was getting cortisone injections directly into both elbows every week. The arthritis kept me awake at night."

"I would get 2-3 colds yearly and allergy attacks as often. Since becoming vegan all my health problems have completely disappeared."

"Most miraculously, after wearing eyeglasses for 35 years my sight improved to where I only wear them on rare occasion for extremely small print. I no longer take any medication. I do take a weekly injection of Testosterone and vit B-12. My yearly checkups are perfect."

Morris, on his website, Jim Morris Personal Training, said:

"I decided to become a vegetarian in 1985 at age 50. In 2000 at age 65 I became a vegan."

Here are some quotes from his blog, The Art of Bodybuilding. It's an interesting read. I like that he's up-front with his steroid use. I also like what he says about animals.

"I believe every creature is born with the inalienable right of freedom. Freedom to live its life in its natural environment, with its kind, making its decisions. I believe the law should prohibit the enslavement of non humans for any reason whatever, including as pets."

"I used steroids during the entirety of my competitive career from 1966 to 1996. I have never used HGH [Human Growth Hormone] or any thing like it. I also ate meat during my competitive years. I became a vegetarian in 1985 but continued to eat fish. In 2000 I stopped eating fish. I take a testosterone injection once a week (200mg) along with 1cc of vitamin B-12. Nothing else. Like most mesomorphs I am an easy gainer and if I were taking steroids now I would be above my normal weight of 185. I attribute my current condition more to lack of fat than any unusual amount of size. And that is totally because of my eating habits and regular exercise."

"If I were building a residence where I planned to live the rest of my life, I would use the finest quality materials available to me. Because I am going to spend the rest of my life in my body, I’m using the finest quality materials available to me, unprocessed, unrefined, whole natural vegetables, beans, grains, fruits and nuts"

"My diet is very simple. I eat only from five food groups. Fruits, Vegetables, Nuts, Beans and Grains. I do not eat anything made FROM any of the foods in these food groups. I eat the fruits and nuts uncooked. I microwave some of the vegetables sometimes but mostly eat them uncooked. I cook the beans and grains as little as possible so as to destroy the least amount of nutrients. ... Every nutrient, with the possible exception of B – 12, is in those 5 food groups. Every craving can be satisfied with something in those 5 food groups."

________

Funding To Defeat California's Ballot Measure To Label GMOs

That's an awful lot of money to prevent just one state from labeling foods that contain GMOs.



Source
________

Juices And Smoothies, Think Again

Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, author of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease and proponent of a low-fat, whole-foods, plant-based diet, said this about juices and smoothies:

Juicing- Is it all right to juice?
Do not juice. You lose all the fiber and its benefits.

Fruit juice – What about fruit juice?
Drinking fruit juice is like pouring the sugar bowl down your throat. It is fine to eat the whole fruit. Do not drink the juice.

Smoothies – How about smoothies? I love them!
Avoid smoothies. The fiber is so finely pureed that its helpful properties are destroyed. The sugar is stripped from the fruit, bypasses salivary digestion and results in a surge of glucose and the accompanying fructose contributes to inflammation and hypertension.

From:
Q&A with Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD

This has been my experience working with people with diabetes - juices and smoothies are a problem. Although nutrient-dense, they are nonetheless concentrated sources of calories, mostly calories from carbohydrates, which, owing to the nature of consumption - drinking - deposit a mother lode of simple sugar into the GI tract and into the bloodstream in less time than it takes to blend and squeeze the stuff. Not good for people with prediabetes or insulin resistance either, which along with diabetes make up a third of the US population.
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