Anti-Aging: The BEST Top 10 Foods For Longevity!

Hi friends, would you like to be 10 years younger? You can actually start reversing the damage caused by toxins in your food and environment and live 14 years longer than your friends who don't. Here's how you can start. Number one, eat these. These are called cherries, but it's not just any cherries. If you find the acerola cherries or the malpinguia emragenata cherries, they actually have 825 milligrams of vitamin C in just one cup. 40% of your fellow Americans don't meet the minimum amount of vitamin C as recommended by the RDA, a level so low that its usefulness is to prevent scurvy. Have you ever had days in which you felt like you were barely making it? When my kids were young, I often felt like that, just too busy to even go to the bathroom or feed myself. I call that survival mode. And moms often sacrifice themselves to care for their families. And by doing so, they get themselves sick. And the same thing happens to your body when you don't have enough micronutrients like vitamin C in fruits and vegetables. Your body will go into survival mode and will sacrifice critical maintenance so that you can just survive. And when you sacrifice those maintenance activities, you reduce your longevity. So many people are unaware that their body is in constant survival mode with their restrictive diets that lack vitamins like vitamin C. You know, your doctor can actually check your blood levels of vitamin C as a marker of longevity. People who eat over five servings of fruits and vegetables in a day will have vitamin C levels over 50 millimoles per liter. And if you achieve that through eating whole foods like cherries and you do a few other longevity behaviors, you can actually live 14 years longer compared to not doing them. Are you curious what those other behaviors are? I'll get to that list a little later. Now, if you don't have access to cherries, eat black raspberries, number two, which has the power of blueberries and raspberries combined. Several studies have shown that black raspberries can reverse precancerous lesions in the gastrointestinal tract. In case you haven't heard, gastrointestinal cancers are rising in young adults at an astronomical rate. Cancer is a disease of unprotected metabolism and poor immunity. And getting vitamin inadequacies are a great way to get cancers. And this is why berries are a longevity food. Now, amongst berries, cherries have always been my all-time favorite food. When I was a kid, I used to clip coupons because I basically was the only one home. And by default, I would be reading supermarket ads. And whenever they would have a cherry sale for 99 cent a pound, I would beg my dad to take me to the local Vons supermarket. And I love to carefully sift through all the cherries that they had loose to pick the darkest, reddish, firmest, sweetest bing cherries. Now, these are bing cherries, and they taste so much better because they have a lot less vitamin C. Ariceola cherries, on the other hand, are probably pretty sour, but that's okay with me. I'm just going to eat more bing cherries. And to be clear, bing cherries just have 4.9 milligrams of vitamin C per cup. And that's really why they're not that sour. Nevertheless, when you eat bing cherries, you still get lots of anti-aging compounds. They're called carotenoids, including lutein and zeaxanthin that help preserve your eyesight and prevents macular degeneration. Literally, these two carotenoids are used in the back of your retina. So if you don't eat them in food, well, you're basically going to lose your eyesight because your body can't make them. And in addition to those carotenoids, cherries are also high in vitamin A. Now, our government recently implemented a tax policy to encourage American-made goods. Well, we grow a lot of berries, so hopefully the government will reduce the price of berries so more people can have access to them. Maybe they can even subsidize berry farmers. Besides helping you live longer, berry phytonutrients can improve your skin health by strengthening your collagen and adding color to your skin tone. I've met lots of people in their nineties who look like they are in their sixties. I've also met people in their sixties who look like they're in their nineties. And big reason why a person ages are due to toxins, such as cigarette smoke. So if you smoke cigarettes, you're going to need more vitamin C than I, because I don't smoke. Vitamin C is a strong antioxidant that protects your brain, your enzymes, lipids that cover all your cells, and your DNA from being destroyed by poisons, like in cigarettes. So the goal is to expose yourself to the least amount of poisons. So smoking, whether it's cigarettes or marijuana, vaping is included, inhaling secondhand smoke from someone else, or inhaling candle fumes, cooking fumes, barbecue grills, restaurant discharge, or car exhaust are all ways you can reduce your longevity and make yourself look several decades older than you actually are. Now, when you're exposed to toxins, it accelerates inflammation and can accelerate atherosclerosis and cancers. Remember the TV show with the bionic man and the bionic woman? Today, there are so many people walking around with bionic joints due to accelerated joint aging. And it's incredible that we have the medical ability to give them new joints. It's also even more incredible that people don't think it's a big deal. Osteoarthritis is a form of aging. And if that's what it will do to your knee, what do you think will happen to the rest of your body? Your body is really like an old car. And everything that we do when it's broken is trying to salvage this old car. And you can replace certain body parts, not everything, but ultimately your car may be so damaged that it's not fixable. This week, I know three people who got into car accidents. My friend's daughter had her car totaled on the side. Luckily, she survived and was barely scraped. Another friend got rear ended. Her car was totaled in the back and she has some minor back pain. And a third person I know had their car dented, which was pretty minor. I once had my bumper dented and my husband suggested that we replace it so it wouldn't compromise the rest of the car. And that's our bodies. Whenever we're exposed to poisons, it dents our health. It dents our DNA and our genes and our chromosomes. And at the end of your chromosomes are caps called telomeres. Telomeres function to keep your chromosomes nice and neat so it can divide nice and neatly. And if you lose your telomeres, then your chromosomes will all get tangled up like a big giant ball of electrical cords. And every time your cells divide, unfortunately, those telomeres get shorter and shorter. And when the telomeres are completely gone, then that's permanent irreversible damage to your cells. That cell won't survive. To live longer and healthier, you have to save your telomeres and avoid activities that dent your telomeres. Air pollution, whether from smoking or just living in a big city, are one of those activities. However, just because you smoked in the past doesn't mean your future is doomed. If you eat antioxidant rich whole foods, these foods are the shields that prevent your cells from denting. And did you know that people who eat carotenoid rich foods, they are actually considered to be more attractive than those people who don't? This is not the same as tanning yourself in salons or laying under the sun. Now, when you do that, you can actually shorten your telomeres along with promoting more aging, such as wrinkles in your skin from damaged collagen. However, when you eat whole foods rich in carotenoids, that actually can be UB protective. And hence, if you want a healthy glow, less wrinkled skin and longer DNA telomeres, then it's important to target colorful foods in shades of orange, pink, red, and green. So number three is to add some spice in your life with chili peppers. Those who ate chili peppers appear to live longer than those who don't. Now, could it be that chili peppers have capsaicin, which helps to lower your sugars, reduce inflammation, reduce oxidative stress, reduce pain, and lower your weight? Well, nobody exactly knows why this is a longevity food, but it's been served and people who ate more chili peppers more than four times a week were about a third less likely to have fatal heart disease compared to those who didn't. Now, I never liked spice as a kid, but I'm going to train myself to eat this now. And to successfully delay aging, it's important to address longevity on multiple fronts. Now, I talked about preventing the shortening or denting of your protective telomeres. Now, let's talk about activating stem cells, which are cells that can divide into any cell in your body whenever you need it. However, like telomeres, stem cells are sensitive to oxidative stress, which can lead to stem cell dysfunction that speeds up aging. Your entire body is subjected to oxidative stress because we live in oxygen. We require oxygen to burn our fuel. You have a stove inside your cells. That stove is called the mitochondria. We have more than one in each cell, and it takes up oxygen to cook your food into energy for your cells. During that process, toxic gas called reactive oxygen species are produced. That actually damages your mitochondria. The body is so smart, it actually has a way to detoxify itself. Those are called your antioxidant defenses. And these antioxidants, they need supplies. Your most powerful antioxidant defense is called the glutathione redox system. It only works. It can quickly regenerate glutathione. Glutathione is a shield that protects your cells from getting oxidative damage. And the rate at which you need glutathione is dependent on the rate at which you're getting stress. Now, if you're physically overusing your body, let's say you're running a marathon, you're going to definitely need more glutathione. But on the other hand, if you're getting sleep deprived or you're inhaling air pollution, cooking fumes, smoking cigarettes, or taking over-the-counter medications like acetaminophen, or maybe you're sick, fighting a cold, or fighting for your life in the hospital, all these people need more glutathione. Remember that I Love Lucy episode in which she has to pack chocolates in a box, but when the conveyor belt goes too fast, she can't keep up with packing the chocolates, and many of the chocolates end up on the floor. If you think about the chocolates as toxins bombarding your body every day, and Lucy as a glutathione, then you can imagine that when you're short on glutathione, you're going to have a lot of chocolates spilling over. These toxins are just going to be all over damaging all your cells. And obviously your body has to keep up with the toxin exposure to keep your body healthy. So the more toxins you're exposed to, the more glutathione your body will need to counteract those toxins. That's just not a recipe for success. So we should all minimize our toxin exposure. Number four is another berry, blueberries, which are also rich in antioxidants, particularly anthocyanins in the skin and seeds. Anthocyanins enhance stem cell proliferation and reduce oxidative stress to promote a healthier stem cell environment. Blueberries are actually the official fruit for Major League Pickleball. I learned something new today. I never knew there was a Major League Pickleball Association. And when you're at the store, you're going to have the option to buy wild blueberries versus farm grown blueberries. Always go for wild if you can afford it. They are richer in anthocyanins because they are darker and deep blue in color. They're also smaller, so they have more skin. That's where the anthocyanins hide out. Fresh blueberries and frozen blueberries, they both are comparable when it comes to antioxidant levels. However, dry blueberries are significantly less unless you get freeze-dried blueberries. Fresh blueberries probably contain slightly higher vitamin C levels when you consume it soon after harvest. Frozen blueberries, they typically retain most of their vitamins, especially if they are flash frozen shortly after being picked. I think the fresh ones are often picked too early. And if you're a big texture person, then you should know the difference between fresh and frozen. Fresh blueberries will be firmer, will have a nice fresh fruit texture, more vibrant flavor. Frozen blueberries will be soft and juicy when thawed. They are great if you just eat them frozen or if you add to a smoothie. Now, fresh blueberries, they don't last as long. They usually will spoil within a week unless you wash them with vinegar and they definitely need to be refrigerated. Frozen blueberries, they can be stored in the freezer for quite a few months. But if you're eating your blueberries, that shouldn't happen. Now, you may be wondering, how long will it take for your telomere length to improve? It actually just takes three months if you go all in and you supplement correctly. In fact, this pilot study funded by the U.S. Department of Defense took men with a low-risk prostate cancer who were all willing to make a comprehensive lifestyle change. They actually had a PSA value that was 10 nanograms per milliliter at the time of screening and they had evidence of a low-grade prostate adenocarcinoma. So, what did they have these people do? Well, number one, they ate a low-fat diet. So, 10% of their calories were from fat. Number two, they ate whole food from plants and they were particularly focused on fruits and vegetables, unrefined grains, legumes, and in addition, they moved at least 30 minutes a day for six days. They also had to calm their stress by behavior techniques. They were taught how to stretch, breathe, meditate, imagine, and relax for 60 minutes a day for six days out of seven. But they didn't just eat food, they actually took supplements. Their diet was fortified with soy, 58 grams of soy powder as a beverage that they took a day. They had three grams of omega-3 fish oil daily and they took two grams of vitamin C. In addition, they made sure they had selenium and vitamin E. And in three months, people lost weight, they improved their blood pressure, they reduced their low-density lipoprotein cholesterol significantly, and they reduced their waist circumference and lowered their PSA and increased their telomere length. Hi, friends. I am so thrilled that you want to take charge of your health and take charge of your food. Now, I know nutrition can be complex, but it doesn't have to be and I'm here to support you in this lifelong journey. So, if you point your camera app to this QR code, it'll take you to a link for a free handout that I created just for you. And if you like it, if you want to see other handouts, please go to the link in my show notes and then you can leave me your feedback on what I could do to help you in your journey. Okay, back to the video now. Show me a carnivore or keto diet that can do all that or even just increase your telomere length. Now, when people say eat vegetables, I think a lot of people think a small cup of iceberg lettuce is good enough. Uh-uh. There are vegetables and then there are vegetables that are packed with nutrients to protect your cells. So, number five, look for sulforaphane-rich cruciferous vegetables like broccoli. I believe broccoli is America's favorite vegetable, but if you don't like broccoli and want something softer, you can actually go for broccoli sprouts, which I think is even healthier to a certain degree because it has so much more sulforaphane. So, that would be number six, broccoli sprouts can stimulate stem cell activity by modulating the expression of genes involved in cell renewal and repair. Sprouts tend to have higher concentrations of vitamins, such as vitamin C, vitamin K, and B vitamins compared to their mature counterparts. Sprouts are often rich in minerals like iron, magnesium, and potassium, and the bioavailability of some of the minerals can be higher in sprouts due to the reduction of anti-nutrients like phytic acid during sprouting. And for people with minor absorption problems, sprouts can be very helpful. Sprouting breaks down complex carbohydrates and increases the availability of protein, making sprouts easier to digest. And the amount of sulforaphane you need is dependent upon toxins that you're exposed to. So, if you're a smoker or a firefighter, you would need more sulforaphane than someone like me. I hope you're eating your sprouts. And number seven is my favorite morning drink, matcha green tea. Now, I have to be honest, I actually don't like the taste of matcha, but I drink it because it's good for me. It has epigalactocatechin gallate, EGCG, which has been shown to promote the growth of stem cells and protect them from damage by regulating various signaling pathways to reduce inflammation. I think this is one of the many reasons why the Japanese and Chinese are some of the longest living people on earth. They drink a lot of green tea. Green tea originated from China 4,000 years ago, and apparently the discovery of green tea as a drink was a fluke. A tea leaf accidentally contaminated some boiling water of the emperor Shen Nong's, and he loved it. And that's how tea started. Today, people appreciate green tea because it has anti-infective metabolism boosting properties to help with weight loss, lower cholesterol, reduce cancer risk, control blood sugar levels. There are so many things that green tea are beneficial for, including reducing uterine fibroids. Can you believe that? China is the largest producer of green tea. And did you know that black tea is just fermented green tea? Fermentation reduces its catechin content. Now, catechins have been shown to be antiviral and potentially reduce people getting sick from many germs. Studies in Japan found that young children who drank green tea during the winter months reduced their risk of getting sick. Even gargling with green tea was helpful to reduce the risk of getting sick, and it reduces cavities because it decreases cavity-causing bacteria called streptococcus mutans. Now, the problem with green tea is pollution. Certain regions of China have a substantial amount of lead pollution. But if you're not eating the tea leaf, then you won't get the lead, as the lead is trapped in the leaf. Younger leaves tend to contain less than older leaves. Younger leaves are actually used to make green tea, while older leaves are used to make black and oolong tea. Now, tea does have pesticides and trace levels that are considered too small to have adverse effects. And I think this is why Asians always blanch their tea and discard the first rinse. Yesterday, a colleague of mine asked me which green tea I would recommend. I basically look for high-polyphenol, low-contamination products. So Trader Joe's Organic Green Tea had 263 milligrams total of catechins per serving, with 118 of that being EGCG, as tested by Consumer Labs. Now, if you're at Target, Rishi Green Tea has 261 milligrams of catechin, with about 113 being EGCG. If you're at Costco, the Kirkland Signature Tea has 133 milligrams of catechin, with 44 being EGCG. Now, these are all pretty decent products. Once I saw someone online making a strawberry matcha green tea, and I actually tried that and I didn't like it. Her version was probably tastier because she added a bunch of sugar, which counteracts the benefits of your tea and strawberries. So I prefer my strawberries separate, which I eat just about every day. And that's number eight. Americans' favorite berry is a strawberry. That brilliant red color tells you that they are full of antioxidants, such as a ligand acid and quercetin, that can interact with your stem cells because they too reduce oxidative stress and promote cell longevity. The anthocyanins are the pigments that give strawberries the red color, which reduce inflammation and improve your heart health. Now, like all the other produce, strawberries also contain vitamin C, and these antioxidants are known for their anti-cancer properties to protect your stem cells from oxidative stress. In addition, strawberries have folate, which is important for DNA synthesis and repair, which you need for cell division and growth. And I like strawberries even more because they were actually tested in humans, and eating strawberries for six months reversed precancerous lesions in people who had esophageal dysplasia. If you think about it, your gut takes so much abuse from the food that you're eating every day. There's bound to be damage every time you swallow, and your body has to have a way to repair, otherwise you get in trouble. And hence, you got a lot of stem cells in your GI tract, and they're hidden in these little tiny dips called intestinal crypts in your colon. You probably have roughly 10 million intestinal crypts. Number nine is the world's most popular fruit, and that is mangoes. There's over a thousand varieties that's been around for over 4,000 years, and if you've ever been to Hawaii, you know that one mature mango tree can produce hundreds and thousands of mangoes in a single season, depending on its age, variety, and growing conditions. A healthy tree can yield 100 to 300 mangoes, but an exceptional tree can produce more than 1,000 mangoes in a good year. Mangoes are full of antioxidants that protect stem cells from oxidative damage. That yellow color is beta-carotene, a precursor molecule for vitamin A, which is a powerful antioxidant. And like all fruits and vegetables, again, mango contains vitamin C. Mangopherin is a unique polyphenolic compound in mangoes that have been found to reduce blood sugars and promote stem cell growth. Now hopefully the tariffs won't elevate mango prices too much because I really love mangoes. Notice that I've been primarily focusing on fruits and vegetables. These are longevity foods that too many people don't eat enough of. Fruits and vegetables contain micronutrients that help us all reverse aging, but I'm sure you've heard people say, don't eat fruit because they will skyrocket your blood sugars. And these people have confused the symptoms of carbohydrate metabolism to the pathophysiology of carbohydrate metabolism. It's technically not the fruit that skyrockets your blood sugar, but you do see high blood sugars after you eat fruit or any caloric carbohydrates if you have insulin resistance. Insulin resistance accelerates aging, dementia, heart disease, atherosclerosis, and it reduces your blood flow, increases your inflammation, and lowers your system. Everything I just said is anti-longevity and I keep having the same discussion over and over multiple times a day with really one friend. My friend said her daughter's overweight because she eats a ton of fruit and I've been telling her every day, no it's not the fruit that's not making her daughter gain weight. And she told me her daughter can sit there and eat two baskets of strawberries. Do you know how many calories two baskets of strawberries are? A cup of strawberries is 49 calories. How many cups is in a basket? I mean strawberries do not make anybody gain weight unless you're adding sugar and fat to your strawberries. It's usually the other stuff you're eating besides your strawberries and fruit that makes a person gain weight. And it's typically something that's highly processed with a lot of fat. And it's interesting how when it comes to recalling what you eat, people tend to block out the highly caloric foods and they focus on the brilliant color foods that they remember like fruit. And if that's you, if you only eat vegetables and fruits, you would dwindle down to a stick unless you were pouring oil and sugar on your fruit or eating sugar in the form of starches. This would be deep frying your fruit and vegetables or pouring on dressing on a salad or making stuff into a pie. So then she thought about what her daughter would eat and realized that her daughter snacked on a lot of cookies. And a lot of parents think it's okay that they eat junk food because they're eating a lot of healthy foods. And her daughter was active. She was swimming an hour every day. But you don't lose weight by exercise. You lose barely any weight through exercise. The weight loss is achieved if you lower your weight by cutting down the right calories. And if you want to lose weight, you have to reverse insulin resistance. High levels of insulin in response to eating sugar, starches, or protein tells your fat cells to pack on more fat. So excess sugar becomes fat in your love handles. This is true for excess protein. On the flip side, if you don't have enough insulin, you'll be hard pressed to gain weight. So people who have really low levels of insulin, they won't trigger their fat to gain more fat mass. And those people have to work out to be buff. And this is true whether or not you're on a carnivore, ketogenic, or whole food plant-based diet. They look buff because they do resistance exercise to stimulate their muscle growth. Eating glucose from candy, cookies, or simple sugars and starches, they'll trigger your body to secrete insulin as a very normal response. Your body secretes two phases of insulin. One's pre-stored, ready to go when you eat. And the other is dependent upon how long your sugars stay up. That's called the second phase of insulin secretion. And if you can't get that second phase out, well, your blood sugars remain persistently high. So the pre-made insulin gives your pancreas time to respond to the rest of your meal. But how high your blood sugars are is not just a reflection of how much insulin you can secrete, but it's also a reflection of how many insulin receptors that you have to respond to those insulins. And the most important insulin receptors are your muscles to lower your blood sugars. That's why if you activate your muscles after you eat, just two minutes of movement can change your trajectory of how high your blood sugars will go. However, certain ingredients in your food can actually lower your insulin receptors. And if you don't have enough insulin receptors, your body will try to secrete more insulin to compensate. But yet your muscles, they won't be able to take in more blood sugar from your snacks or meals or treats because it has less insulin receptors. And remember how my friend's daughter can't lose weight despite swimming an hour every day and eating a ton of food? So what's in her cookie that is sabotaging her weight loss? It's actually a three-letter word, fat. Saturated fat in her cookies are reducing her insulin receptors. And when she eats these cookies, she's also eating a highly refined sugar and highly refined starch. These both raise her blood sugars that have no place to go but to stay in her bloodstream. Because her muscles, they don't have enough insulin receptors to put them in. And as a result, her body will keep secreting insulin to try and try harder to get that glucose out. And those high levels of insulin talk to her fat cells, activating them to store those excess calories. And whether she's eating cookies high in fat or pasta with alfredo sauce, it becomes the same problem. And they proved this a long time ago with volunteer medical students who were separated into four nutritional camps. One camp had no food. One camp ate high-fat meals. One camp ate high-protein meals. And the last camp ate high-carbohydrate meals. Now, do you think you know who had the highest blood sugars after getting a carbohydrate tolerance test? They were people who didn't eat. So they were the fasting people. And they were also people who ate the high-fat meals. And since then, we've shown why when you increase your saturated fat, it harms your mitochondria and muscle tissue. And this is truly the hallmark of aging, damaged mitochondria and loss of muscle tissue. And there are so many ways you can damage your muscles and mitochondria and lose them. And we all know once you get insulin resistance, you accelerate atherosclerosis to reduce blood flow. There's no disease that isn't worsened by bad blood flow. And that's why I eat number 10, cocoa powder. Now, lots of people don't like cocoa powder because it's bitter. So they eat chocolate. Dark chocolate is actually my favorite chocolate to eat. I learned that good chocolate is supposed to be crispy and snappy. You're actually not supposed to chew chocolate. And instead, you're supposed to just let a little piece melt in your mouth. Now, nobody ever told me that as a kid. And maybe that's why I ate five chocolate bars all at once. Chocolate to me is very addicting because Americans like to add sugar and fat, especially milk, fat, and cream to chocolate. And unfortunately, it's full of all that stuff that there's hardly any chocolate in milk chocolate. But if you go to Switzerland and you buy milk chocolate, it has at least 25% of cocoa mass as required by their law. In America, you just need 10% cocoa solids. In Switzerland, there are dark chocolate bars, 43% cocoa solids by law, whereas in America, it's 35%. Good quality foods simply cost more money. And if we all band together and demanded better quality ingredients with our pocketbooks, the merchants will provide them. But if we all want bulk and cheap, well, don't be surprised that your food is unhealthy. To enjoy chocolate, you're actually supposed to hold your breath, let it melt in your mouth, and then taste the flavors and aromas. And by slowing down what you eat, you actually tend to eat less food. Chocolate is a fermented food. So if you're on a low histamine diet, then chocolate is not good for you. There is, however, a double standard for chocolate. People make so many exceptions. Now, I hear online people complain about how strawberries have pesticides or glyphosate on soybeans or oats or heavy metal and this or that, but they barely ever say anything bad about chocolate. And chocolate is one of the dirtiest foods, heavily contaminated with heavy metal pollutants. And these include cadmium and lead. And a popular famous brand doesn't mean it doesn't have pollution. So we all need to be very careful when we choose chocolate. And you may ask, why would I even eat cocoa if that's heavily contaminated? Well, it's because cocoa is high in flavonols, which can improve blood circulation and stimulate the release of stem cells and growth factors, promoting stem cell growth. There's ongoing research about cocoa powder's effect on injured neurons, weight loss, lower blood pressure, and increased blood flow. Topical cocoa actually has some skin UV protection damage. But finding that chocolate with low contaminants and a decent level of flavonols isn't that easy. And if you want to learn more about which chocolate is contaminated and which to eat, watch the next video.