Category Archives: Longevity

A healthy diet has room for grapes

In The Blue Zones book, Dan Buettner discusses geographic regions where people live significantly longer than average. Sardinia, for example.

From Vox:

We’ve long been obsessed with the super-elderly. How do some people make it to 100 or even 110 years old? Why do some regions — say, Sardinia, Italy, or Okinawa, Japan — produce dozens of these “supercentenarians” while other regions produce none? Is it genetics? Diet? Environmental factors? Long walks at dawn?

A new working paper released on bioRxiv, the open access site for prepublication biology papers, appears to have cleared up the mystery once and for all: It’s none of the above.

Instead, it looks like the majority of the supercentenarians (people who’ve reached the age of 110) in the United States are engaged in — intentional or unintentional — exaggeration.

Source: Study: many of the “oldest” people in the world may not be as old as we think – Vox

Steve Parker, M.D.

PS: The Mediterranean diet has long been linked to longevity.

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Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are widely used in the U.S. to treat or prevent heartburn and ulcers. For example, omeprazole is the 6th most prescribed drug in the U.S. according to one source. PPIs reduce acid production by the stomach. But doesn’t it make sense that God or Nature gave us that stomach acid for a reason?

From the British Medical Journal:

Taking PPIs is associated with a small excess of cause specific mortality including death due to cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, and upper gastrointestinal cancer. The burden was also observed in patients without an indication for PPI use. Heightened vigilance in the use of PPI may be warranted.

Source: Estimates of all cause mortality and cause specific mortality associated with proton pump inhibitors among US veterans: cohort study | The BMJ

Click for UPI’s coverage.

If you suffer from frequent heatburn, try cutting down on carbohydrates.

Steve Parker, M.D.

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From JAMA Network:

Question:  Is the consumption of sugary beverages (ie, sugar-sweetened beverages and fruit juices) associated with an increased mortality risk?

Findings:  In this cohort study of 13 440 black and white adults 45 years and older observed for a mean of 6.0 years, each additional 12-oz serving/d of sugary beverages was associated with an 11% higher all-cause mortality risk, and each additional 12-oz serving/d of fruit juice was associated with a 24% higher all-cause mortality risk. Similar associations were not observed for sugary beverage consumption and coronary heart disease mortality.

Meaning:  These results suggest higher consumption of sugary beverages, including fruit juice, is associated with increased mortality.

Source: Association of Sugary Beverage Consumption With Mortality Risk in US Adults: A Secondary Analysis of Data From the REGARDS Study | Cardiology | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network

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…simple pine coffins are what soldiers get buried in.