Dr. Michael Greger

But what if the rate of aging were modifiable, too?

Yeah, so

Diet number one.

And so if you look at these blue zones, they all center their diets around whole plant foods.

So they're minimizing the intake of meat, dairy, sugar, eggs, junk, maximizing the intake of fruits, vegetables, legumes, beans, split peas, chickpeas, lentils, nuts and seeds, herbs and spices, basically real food that grows out of the ground.

These are really our healthiest choices.

That would be number one.

Number one, diet.

So number one, diet.

So that accounts alone for about half of the difference in lifespan between blue zones and the rest of the world.

It's about 12 to 14 years.

12 to 14 years difference.

Difference.

So women 14, men 12 years longer, and so have up to 10 times the rate of so-called centenarians, those that get triple digits, live to be 100 or older,

And it's not just about, you know, adding years to your life, but life to your years.

These people are active, so they're at 100, and they're enjoying their lives or participating in life.

And so what's the point of living longer if you can't do it, you know, with vibrancy, with vitality, right?

And so in this country...

I mean, even our lifespan is going down.

So actually, the peak of life expectancy, 2014, in the United States, started going down every year since, even before COVID shaved a few years off our lifespan.