Tag Archives: Disease

Dietary AGE Products Impact Insulin Resistance, Inflammation, And Lifespan

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Cooking foods at temperatures higher than boiling produces advanced glycation end (AGE) products, which induce insulin resistance and inflammation, and shorten lifespan in mice. Similar data exists in humans for the effect of dietary AGE products on insulin resistance and inflammation, and a higher dietary AGE product intake is associated with cancer in both men and women. Accordingly, reducing dietary AGE product intake may be an important strategy for improving health and increasing lifespan in people.

Blood Test Analysis: 100 – 111y (Centenarians, Semi- and Super-Centenarians)

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In order to slow aging, it’s important to know how circulating biomarkers change during aging, and how these biomarkers are associated with risk of death for all causes. In this video, I discuss blood test data for the oldest old, including centenarians (100 – 104y), semi-centenarians (105 – 109y), and super-centenarians (110y+).

 

High-Fiber Diets Are Associated With Reduced All-Cause Mortality Risk

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A meta-analysis of 10 studies, including 80,139 subjects was recently published that shows a significantly reduced risk of death for all causes in association with higher total dietary fiber intakes (35-39g/day), when compared with lower fiber (Reynolds et al. 2019):

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Should we supplement with fiber, or get it from whole food? Fiber from whole foods was significantly associated with lower levels of fasting glucose, body weight, whole body fat mass, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides. Supplementation with fiber extracts or bran was not significantly associated with the reduction of any of these variables (NS, not significant; NM, not measured:

fiber

 

Reference

Reynolds A, Mann J, Cummings J, Winter N, Mete E, Te Morenga L. Carbohydrate quality and human health: a series of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Lancet. 2019 Feb 2;393(10170):434-445. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31809-9.

 

If you’re interested, please have a look a my book!

Green Tea and Mortality Risk, Update!

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In an earlier post (https://michaellustgarten.wordpress.com/2019/09/15/drink-green-tea-reduce-and-all-cause-mortality-risk/), I reported that green tea consumption is associated with reduced risk of death for all causes. Now, there’s more recent data! Drinking more than 1 cup of green tea per day is associated with reduced all-cause mortality risk in a pooled analysis of 8 studies that included 313,381 subjects (age range, 40-103y; Abe et al. 2019).

In women (168,631 subjects), risk of death for all causes was reduced by 10%, 6%, and 18% for 1-2, 3-4, and greater than 5 cups/day, when compared with drinking less than 1 cup per day:

gt wom

In men (144,750 subjects), risk of death for all causes was reduced by 5%, 7%, and 10% for 1-2, 3-4, and greater than 5 cups/day, when compared with drinking less than 1 cup per day:

gtea men.png

Cheers to green tea, for health!

Reference

Abe SK, Saito E, Sawada N, Tsugane S, Ito H, Lin Y, Tamakoshi A, Sado J, Kitamura Y, Sugawara Y, Tsuji I, Nagata C, Sadakane A, Shimazu T, Mizoue T, Matsuo K, Naito M, Tanaka K, Inoue M; Research Group for the Development and Evaluation of Cancer Prevention Strategies in Japan. Green tea consumption and mortality in Japanese men and women: a pooled analysis of eight population-based cohort studies in Japan. Eur J Epidemiol. 2019 Oct;34(10):917-926. doi: 10.1007/s10654-019-00545-y.

If you’re interested, please have a look at my book!

Epigenetic Aging: Can It Be Slowed With Diet?

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Having a faster rate of epigenetic aging, as measured by the epigenetic age metric, AgeAccelGrim, is associated with a significantly increased risk of death for all causes in a variety of cohorts, including the Framingham Heart Study (FHS), the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study, the InChianti study, the Jackson Heart Study (JHS), and collectively, when evaluated as a meta-analysis (Lu et al. 2019):

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With the goal of minimizing disease risk and maximizing longevity, can epigenetic aging be slowed? Shown below is the correlation between dietary components with AgeAccelGrim. Dietary factors that were significantly associated  (the column labelled, “p”) with a younger epigenetic age were carbohydrate intake, dairy, whole grains, fruit, and vegetables. In contrast, dietary fat intake and red meat were associated with older epigenetic ages (Lu et al. 2019):

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Note that dietary recall data as a means for identifying nutrient intake can be unreliable-a better measure of dietary intake is circulating biomarkers. Are there associations between circulating biomarkers of nutrient intake with epigenetic aging?

Higher blood levels of carotenoids, including lycopene, alpha- and beta-carotene, lutein+zeaxanthin, and beta-cryptoxanthin were associated with a younger epigenetic age (Lu et al. 2019):

epi veg

If your goal is optimal health and longevity, eating foods that are rich in these nutrients may be an important strategy for slowing epigenetic aging. Which foods contain these nutrients? Carotenoids are found almost exclusively in vegetables and fruits. For example, lycopene is enriched in watermelon and tomatoes, alpha- and beta-carotene is high in carrots, orange vegetables (sweet potato, squash, pumpkin) and greens, lutein+zeaxanthin is prevalent in greens, and beta-cryptoxanthin’s highest levels are found in butternut squash and red bell peppers.

If you’re interested, please have a look at my book!

References

Nutrient composition data: https://reedir.arsnet.usda.gov/codesearchwebapp/(S(ujsr52ygvp0tw13m1luk0rny))/CodeSearch.aspx

Lu AT, Quach A, Wilson JG, Reiner AP, Aviv A, Raj K, Hou L, Baccarelli AA, Li Y, Stewart JD, Whitsel EA, Assimes TL, Ferrucci L, Horvath S. DNA methylation GrimAge strongly predicts lifespan and healthspan. Aging (Albany NY). 2019 Jan 21;11(2):303-327. doi: 10.18632/aging.101684.

Sarcopenia, Disease Risk, And The Neutrophil/Lymphocyte Ratio

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In an earlier post, based on data from the Baltimore Longitidunal Study on Aging (BLSA), I suggested that total white blood cell (WBCs) counts between 3500 to 6000 cells per microliter of blood may be optimal for reducing disease risk and for maximizing longevity (https://michaellustgarten.wordpress.com/2015/08/13/blood-testing-whats-optimal-for-wbc-levels/).

However, within WBCs, neutrophils increase, whereas lymphocytes decrease during aging (Ruggiero et al. 2007, Starr and Dreary 2011). As a result, the ratio between neutrophils with lymphocytes (NLR) increases during aging from ~1.5 in 20 year olds to ~1.8 in adults older than 75y (Li et al. 2015):

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An increased neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio during aging may be bad for health and disease risk. First, a higher neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio is associated with sarcopenia (defined as the age-related loss of muscle mass and physical function) in older adults (average age, 72y; Öztürk et al. 2018):

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Second, risk of death for all causes is significantly increased for older adults (average age, 66y) that had higher NLR values (60-80%, >80%, equivalent to NLR = 1.92-2.41, > 2.41), when compared with lower NLR values (< 20%, 20-40%, 40-60%, equivalent to NLR < 1.90; Fest et al. 2019):

nlr

Similarly, all-cause mortality risk was 30% increased in older adults (average age, 54y) that had NLR values > 1.77, when compared with < 1.77, and 40% increased for NLR values > 2.15, when compared with < 2.15 (Kime et al. 2018).

What are my NLR values? Over 17 blood test measurements from 2015 – 2019, my average NLR is 1.11. So far so good!

nlr

 

If you’re interested, please have a look at my book!

 

References

Fest J, Ruiter TR, Groot Koerkamp B, Rizopoulos D, Ikram MA, van Eijck CHJ, Stricker BH. The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio is associated with mortality in the general population: The Rotterdam Study. Eur J Epidemiol. 2019 May;34(5):463-470.

Kim S, Eliot M, Koestler DC, Wu WC, Kelsey KT. Association of Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio With Mortality and Cardiovascular Disease in the Jackson Heart Study and Modification by the Duffy Antigen Variant. JAMA Cardiol. 2018 Jun 1;3(6):455-462. doi: 10.1001/jamacardio.2018.1042.

Li J, Chen Q, Luo X, Hong J, Pan K, Lin X, Liu X, Zhou L, Wang H, Xu Y, Li H, Duan C. Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio Positively Correlates to Age in Healthy Population. J Clin Lab Anal. 2015 Nov;29(6):437-43. doi: 10.1002/jcla.21791.

Öztürk ZA, Kul S, Türkbeyler İH, Sayıner ZA, Abiyev A. Is increased neutrophil lymphocyte ratio remarking the inflammation in sarcopenia? Exp Gerontol. 2018 Sep;110:223-229.

Ruggiero C, Metter EJ, Cherubini A, Maggio M, Sen R, Najjar SS, Windham GB, Ble A, Senin U, Ferrucci L. White blood cell count and mortality in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2007 May 8;49(18):1841-50.

Starr JM, Deary IJ. Sex differences in blood cell counts in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921 between 79 and 87 years. Maturitas. 2011 Aug;69(4):373-6.