Sublime

I propose that with some unorthodox but very reasonable lifestyle changes, you can minimize the most serious threats to your lifespan and healthspan and achieve your own measure of longevity alpha.

Eliminate or reduce grains, sugar, and starch. Allowing your brain to run on fat, or more specifically ketones, may increase blood flow to the brain by as much as 39 percent.14 More on this in the next chapter.

He spent thirty-five years experimenting with simplifying his diet.

In the final analysis, I tell my patients that on the basis of the least bad, least ambiguous data available, MUFAs are probably the fat that should make up most of our dietary fat mix, which means extra virgin olive oil and high-MUFA vegetable oils.

So think of your genes as a library of potentials.

Numerous respected studies (Iowa Women’s Health Study of 40,000 women, Harvard School of Public Health’s Nurses’ Health Study of 127,000 women, and Physicians’ Health Study of 22,000 men are among the most prominent) suggest that regular consumption of nuts significantly reduces the risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Meditate, don’t medicate. Meditation can be intimidating for first-timers, but it’s worth getting comfortable with it. One small Thai study of stressed-out medical students found that four days of meditation reduced cortisol by 20 percent.23 Spend more time outdoors. We’ve lost touch with nature, but merely seeing greenery mitigates the physiologic