Max has also a website with more information on the topic.
Here are some of his YouTube videos:
Preventing Alzheimer's disease with FOOD
12 Easy and Powerful Holiday Health Hacks
By watching some of these presentations, I learned that I should eliminate the carbohydrates from my breakfast. Why? Because carbohydrates spike up the insulin levels. Insulin, combined with the daily highest levels of cortisol (these are the levels when we wake up), “re-distributes” the weight from muscle to fat. I am still thinking how to reconcile this advice with my carbohydrate-rich breakfast!
For all of us, who want to be “forever” young and die in a nearly perfect condition from a painless cause, here is what Max recommends: Can We Reverse Aging? The brief presentation is a good message, except for the statement that we can lengthen our telomeres, and therefore, reverse the aging process. In fact, the only thing we can accomplish in our normal cells is to not accelerate the telomere shortening (and therefore, speed up the aging process).
Forget about telomere lengthening! Only cancer cells lengthen their telomeres. But then, there is so much in common between the process of “keeping forever young” and cancer development! Think about it. Cancer cells are immortal; in the labs, we still grow cancer cells from individuals long dead.
By the way, if you are still unclear about what the telomeres are, I have previously written on this topic:
“Our genes are made of DNA, and this DNA forms the chromosomes in the cells ... Each of our chromosomes is protected at both ends with sequences called telomeres. As our cells duplicate (divide), the telomeres shorten. Shortening of the telomeres is equivalent to aging …, once the telomeres are of critical length, our cells stop dividing (this period is called senescence). However, changes (mutations) in a few genes may allow the cells to continue dividing. During such divisions, the chromosomes without their protective telomeres are subject to damage. The loss of chromosomal integrity may lead to the birth of cells with abnormal growth, and eventually, to cancer.”
Only our adult stem cells (which are normal cells), have an enzyme called telomerase. When functional, this enzyme counteracts to a certain extent the telomere shortening. All other normal cells seem to lack even this enzyme, therefore, the telomere length in such cells is not maintained.
There are certain conditions that may diminish the enzyme’s activity, and therefore, speed up the aging process. For instance, stress hormones slow down the activity of telomerase, making it more ineffective in preventing the telomere shortening.
The fact that psychological stress shortens the telomeres faster than expected for a particular age was demonstrated with two groups of mothers: mothers of healthy children (low-stress group) and mothers of children with chronic illnesses (high-stress group). The study established that compared to the low-stress group, the high-stress group of mothers exhibited shortening of the telomeres that was equivalent to 9 – 17 additional years of age. Therefore, high stress may bring people closer to the catastrophic event when the chromosome integrity is endangered.
Anyway, no normal cells can increase the length of its telomeres. At least, it has not been reported yet.
To learn more about longevity, watch the lecture of Peter Attia, Reverse engineered approach to human longevity.
Dr. Attia is taking a more reasonable approach to the dietary recommendations. When talking about healthy diets, he discusses the specific outcomes (biomarkers) we should aim at. He does not harp on us about any specific diets.
From all the confusing messages about diet/health I have heard, I could extract two conclusions:
1. If you already enjoy a healthy, balanced diet and your biomarkers are at the expected levels (see Attia’s talk), just go on with your current diet. If, however, you find it difficult to change your SAD (standard American diet), then try to limit your calorie intake or go on intermittent fasting (e.g., eat for eight hours a day and fast for 16 hours).
2. Do resistance training. I found this video. Probably, I may try the exercises soon.
By the way, the shortest description of a healthy diet is this: "Eat only the food that you great-grandma would have recognized as food". Well, this would exclude the majority of any supermarket offerings. And yes, it means that you need to start cooking.
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