Biggest regrets of the older posters here?

[ICUMD]

Being in the medical field, genetics usually has the last laugh.  Eat healthy, be active, balanced lifestyle. 

Keep your weight in check, don't smoke, don't drink daily, see your doctor for annual checkups.  Don't stress about the 5 chips you eat or the piece of pizza. Guaranteed not to be relevant to longevity.

 

Don't kill your body doing punishing workout routines or follow strict diets.   Few of those people last actually. 

 

Healthiest longest lived people?  Farmers in my experience.

 

Check out the Bluezones documentary on Netflix.

[sleepydragon]

14 hours ago, boilermaker75 said:

 

Vinod,

 

Vegetable oils contain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which are not bad for you. But they become bad when you extract them because they are very delicate. There is a significant (I believe >5%) of the vegetable oil becomes trans fats, which are essentially toxins. Also, many of the PUFAs get oxidized and become free radicals. It gets even worse if you heat these oils, such as in cooking or frying, because they are delicate and you end up with more trans fats and free radicals.

 

Surprisingly monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), such as olive oil, are much more stable than PUFAs. Going from a MUFA with one double carbon bond to a PUFA with just two double bonds results in six orders of magnitude more reactivity, which I don't actually understand.

 

Boiler

 

Edit: A fatty acid has an alpha and an omega end. An omega-3 PUFA has the first double carbon bond after the third carbon atom from the omega end. An omega-6 PUFA has the first double carbon bond after the 6 carbon atom from the omega end. You want to consume as close as possible the same number of omega-3 and omega-6 PUFAs. They play complementary regulatory roles. In the Standard American Diet (SAD) the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 PUFAs is about 25 to 1! So when I say PUFAs are not bad for you that is if you are consuming equal numbers of omega-6 to omega-3 PUFAs. Hence my mention of wild-caught fish, grass-fed beef and butter, and pasture raised chickens and eggs.

 

Curious how about avocado oil?

[sleepydragon]

38 minutes ago, ICUMD said:

Being in the medical field, genetics usually has the last laugh.  Eat healthy, be active, balanced lifestyle. 

Keep your weight in check, don't smoke, don't drink daily, see your doctor for annual checkups.  Don't stress about the 5 chips you eat or the piece of pizza. Guaranteed not to be relevant to longevity.

 

Don't kill your body doing punishing workout routines or follow strict diets.   Few of those people last actually. 

 

Healthiest longest lived people?  Farmers in my experience.

 

Check out the Bluezones documentary on Netflix.

 

Yeah, stress is the worse of all.  

[Charlie]

9 hours ago, sleepydragon said:

Yeah, stress is the worse of all.

Yeah, stress is a killer. Don't work too much. Have fun. Chose clients like you would chose friends.

Get stressful people out of your life. If you are halfway rich, so what?

You only have to get rich once.

A lot of autoimmune diseases, heart diseases, high blood pressure etc. etc. come from stress.

This is very important: Carefully chose a stressless environment. 

Health is probably 95% of success.

[boilermaker75]

1 hour ago, sleepydragon said:

 

Curious how about avocado oil?

 

About 70% of the fats in avocado oil are MUFAs, so it is a good oil.

[Malmqky]

1 hour ago, Charlie said:

Yeah, stress is a killer. Don't work too much. Have fun. Chose clients like you would chose friends.

Get stressful people out of your life. If you are halfway rich, so what?

You only have to get rich once.

A lot of autoimmune diseases, heart diseases, high blood pressure etc. etc. come from stress.

This is very important: Carefully chose a stressless environment. 

Health is probably 95% of success.

 

Truer words have not been spoken. Stress is the number one thing to eliminate in your life.

[Spekulatius]

2 hours ago, Charlie said:

Yeah, stress is a killer. Don't work too much. Have fun. Chose clients like you would chose friends.

Get stressful people out of your life. If you are halfway rich, so what?

You only have to get rich once.

A lot of autoimmune diseases, heart diseases, high blood pressure etc. etc. come from stress.

This is very important: Carefully chose a stressless environment. 

Health is probably 95% of success.

The Netflix documentary Blue Zones is worth watching. All those Blue zones combine a stress free live style with moderate physical activity and a solid social network.

 

Dont forget the latter, people die, when they lose their purpose to live. We all know old people where a spouse dies and even do they seem healthy, they join them a few month later. Lack of social interaction is a killer too, just like stress.

[LearningMachine]

4 hours ago, ICUMD said:

Being in the medical field, genetics usually has the last laugh.  Eat healthy, be active, balanced lifestyle. 

Keep your weight in check, don't smoke, don't drink daily, see your doctor for annual checkups.  Don't stress about the 5 chips you eat or the piece of pizza. Guaranteed not to be relevant to longevity.

 

Don't kill your body doing punishing workout routines or follow strict diets.   Few of those people last actually. 

 

Healthiest longest lived people?  Farmers in my experience.

 

Check out the Bluezones documentary on Netflix.

 

Bluezones documentary is an ok surface level start, and then, it is worth going deeper into this topic because your longevity is at stake.

 

Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn was a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic.   See https://my.clevelandclinic.org/staff/1181-caldwell-esselstyn-jr .  He went a lot deeper into researching than an average person in the medical field because all males in his family were dying due to heart disease, and the colleague that he had shared the locker with had come up with CABG  He felt CABG was the wrong solution.  He felt heart disease was due to a chemical deposition problem and felt that CABG was unnecessarily solving it mechanically with so much risk to a person's life. 

 

So, he went way beyond what bluezones documentary does, that is, he went and studied the cultures where there was no heart disease, and looked into what they were eating, and then he took the sickest patients that medical system had given up on with multiple heart surgeries, and put them on his diet, their angina pain went away, their angiograms started showing arteries getting cleared up, and those patients ended up living decades longer. 

 

Similarly, Dr. David Sinclair is going into it much deeper than an average person in the medical field. See https://sinclair.hms.harvard.edu/people/david-sinclair .  He first got rats to live longer using his techniques to reverse age.  He came up with a mechanism to measure biological age, and then experimented what techniques got epigenetic markers to show the biological age was going lower, and telomeres were lengthening.  

 

So, these people have dedicated their lives to what they are researching, and going much deeper than an average doctor, and I believe they will end up lasting.

Edited June 1 by LearningMachine

[Spekulatius]

@LearningMachine Sinclair claim’s are very controversial. Making rats live longer is pretty simple actually - you can do that simply by starving them basically. Some how, that idea never caught on with humans.

 

Big brains has a good podcast on the topic of aging and it does not seem like there is a simple solution:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/big-brains/id1368737097?i=1000652857359

Edited June 1 by Spekulatius

[John Hjorth]

On 5/31/2024 at 5:57 PM, boilermaker75 said:

 

You should never stop using stairs. Something we all need to do every single day of our lives. (Plus weight-lifting like cubsfan.)  I am 71 and my office is on the third floor. I love when I am with a 20 year old student walking up to my office and when we get there they need a moment to catch their breath and I don't.

 

 

 

Thanks, Mike [ @boilermaker75 ],

 

Simple, but effective advice.

[cubsfan]

On 5/31/2024 at 10:57 AM, boilermaker75 said:

 

You should never stop using stairs. Something we all need to do every single day of our lives. (Plus weight-lifting like cubsfan.)  I am 71 and my office is on the third floor. I love when I am with a 20 year old student walking up to my office and when we get there they need a moment to catch their breath and I don't.

 

 

 

@boilermaker75 When you posted this - it made me think of an article I read a while ago. Written by a 71 year old son, about his journey, and his father (who is 100 years old). Many of the same issues you have pointed out on this topic: not giving up, pushing yourself, postponing sarcopenia as we age, stress, etc.

 

https://startingstrength.com/article/science-medicine/strength-and-aging-what-my-100-year-old-father-in-law-showed-me

 

 

[LearningMachine]

2 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

@LearningMachine Sinclair claim’s are very controversial. Making rats live longer is pretty simple actually - you can do that simply by starving them basically. Some how, that idea never caught on with humans.

 

Big brains has a good podcast on the topic of aging and it does not seem like there is a simple solution:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/big-brains/id1368737097?i=1000652857359

 

Thanks @Spekulatius for sharing the podcast.  Venki Ramakrishnan's suggestions in the podcast you shared on (1) exercise, (2) good diet, and (3) sleep are good ones as well.  Also, Ramakrishnan is consistent with Sinclair on length of telomeres being one of the markers for measuring age of a cell.  Sinclair went further to find other epigenetic markers to measure biological age as well. 

 

Making rats live longer by starving was earlier research before Sinclair's time.  What Sinclair found to have an even bigger impact was intermittent fasting, that is, to give cells time to repair because he found that cells are either in repair mode or in burning energy/multiplying mode, and if you keep on eating multiple times a day, you don't give cells a chance to repair.   Intermittent fasting is really easy to incorporate in your lifestyle.  Try to not eat all day, and just have a big dinner.  You will find that your body gets used to it, and you can do things that people decades younger than you can't. You will run into people who saw you decades earlier and wouldn't believe how you haven't aged while they have.

 

Another thing that Sinclair found that is non-controversial is to cut down on sugar intake, including fruits that have high sugar content.  You can easily find produce that is botanically considered fruits, but considered vegetables culinarily, as they are full of nutrients and don't burn out your cells with sugar, e.g. eggplants, squash, beans, chickpeas, peppers, tomatoes, peas, string beans, okra, olives, cucumbers, etc.   You can also stop eating grains that can be easily converted to sugar as they have been a very recent addition to our evolutionary development.

 

You don't have to take some of the controversial supplements that Sinclair is experimenting with. 

 

You can still do the non-controversial techniques of intermittent fasting and avoiding sugar-filled foods/fruits and foods that can be easily converted to sugar like grains, and start noticing a difference. 

Edited June 1 by LearningMachine

[rranjan]

14 hours ago, vinod1 said:

 

Thank you! We use canola oil for cooking, would that be just as bad as vegetable oil? Do you recommend olive oil for cooking or something else?

 

I kind of understood what you are saying at a broad level but do not really understand it well enough.

 

Vinod

Avacado oil for high heat cooking. Olive oil for low heat. 

[boilermaker75]

5 hours ago, cubsfan said:

 

@boilermaker75 When you posted this - it made me think of an article I read a while ago. Written by a 71 year old son, about his journey, and his father (who is 100 years old). Many of the same issues you have pointed out on this topic: not giving up, pushing yourself, postponing sarcopenia as we age, stress, etc.

 

https://startingstrength.com/article/science-medicine/strength-and-aging-what-my-100-year-old-father-in-law-showed-me

 

 

 

@cubsfan  That is a great article. Thanks for posting it.

 

The father-in-law was in the 10th Mountain Division. I have cross-country skied a small part of the 10th Mountain Division trail in Colorado, but I never stayed overnight in a hut. My wife’s uncle had a great place in Pitkin Green looking out at Ajax, now called Aspen Mountain. Loved sitting in the evening looking out and seeing the lights of the snowcats grooming the ski runs having a beer instead of roughing it in a hut!

 

I recently had PT on my knee, which I think I hurt doing sprints on my Nordic Track. My PT was great and she quickly did wonders for my knee. (I am sure if I went to an orthopedist, they would have tried to talk me into a new knee!) She got me doing a lot of weight work in therapy--RDLs, leg presses, squats, etc.

 

My last day she put me on a wobble board and had me try to do squats. I was terrible. I have gotten a wobble board and doing much better. It gets all those little muscles activated you need for balance.

 

I resonate with that mention in the article of that great feeling after a weight session. There is a spring in my step, I walk faster and I feel I have more energy even though I just expended some lifting.

 

I agree there are many myths out there that are given as factual advice, such as not doing weight work as we get older because we’ll hurt ourselves. 

 

I have one myth regarding nutrition perpetuated by MDs who get very little training with regards to nutrition. (Plus you can find studies in respected medical journals to support whatever you want to claim about nutrition.)

 

I had an EKG done and the cardiologist told me I had had a heart attack. It turned out he was wrong. But I wanted to be sure if I needed a cardiologist I had a top one. After research I picked one. He was at a top medical school and at the time president of the American Heart Association. I also looked at some of his publications before contacting him. When we were going over what I ate, he told me to eat less eggs and if I did eat eggs to eat egg whites to avoid the cholesterol. I asked him, “Isn’t >80% of the cholesterol in our bodies manufactured in our livers? Cutting out foods with cholesterol maybe I could reduce my cholesterol by a few percent? An egg has all the nutrients to build a living organism so aren’t eggs excellent foods?” He looked at my lab numbers, HDL 56 mg/dL, LDL 47 mg/dL, and total cholesterol 125 mg/dL and told me I could keep eating eggs!

Edited June 2 by boilermaker75

[frommi]

I have a simple rule, anyone that has a company in the field of medical stuff that wants to sell you something for longevity (even if it is just a book) i dont trust. So advice from Sinclair or Esselstyn are out for me  . I think its pretty common sense nowadays that working out (having enough muscle mass), not smoking or drinking alcohol, good sleep (~8 hours) and not being overweight is >90% of the journey. The rest is just noise, and most of the time somebody just wants to sell you something. 

Edited June 2 by frommi

[ICUMD]

3 hours ago, frommi said:

I have a simple rule, anyone that has a company in the field of medical stuff that wants to sell you something for longevity (even if it is just a book) i dont trust. So advice from Sinclair or Esselstyn are out for me  . I think its pretty common sense nowadays that working out (having enough muscle mass), not smoking or drinking alcohol, good sleep (~8 hours) and not being overweight is >90% of the journey. The rest is just noise, and most of the time somebody just wants to sell you something. 

+1 for cardiovascular health.

No need to reach for esoteric understanding of common sense. Waste of time imo.

 

Only thing I would add is don't underestimate the role of injury in throwing a permanent wrench in your activity level.  

 

I know a few competitive bikers/ runners hit by cars now with spinal / brain injury.  Even a knee injury can be difficult to bounce back from. Shoulder injury from heavy weight training etc.

[sleepydragon]

Does anyone has a good suggestion of YouTube video for daily strength training exercise? I never do any much exercise (except swimming and walking), but now I decided I will buy some dumbbells and start doing it

[sleepydragon]

10 hours ago, boilermaker75 said:

 

@cubsfan  That is a great article. Thanks for posting it.

 

The father-in-law was in the 10th Mountain Division. I have cross-country skied a small part of the 10th Mountain Division trail in Colorado, but I never stayed overnight in a hut. My wife’s uncle had a great place in Pitkin Green looking out at Ajax, now called Aspen Mountain. Loved sitting in the evening looking out and seeing the lights of the snowcats grooming the ski runs having a beer instead of roughing it in a hut!

 

I recently had PT on my knee, which I think I hurt doing sprints on my Nordic Track. My PT was great and she quickly did wonders for my knee. (I am sure if I went to an orthopedist, they would have tried to talk me into a new knee!) She got me doing a lot of weight work in therapy--RDLs, leg presses, squats, etc.

 

My last day she put me on a wobble board and had me try to do squats. I was terrible. I have gotten a wobble board and doing much better. It gets all those little muscles activated you need for balance.

 

I resonate with that mention in the article of that great feeling after a weight session. There is a spring in my step, I walk faster and I feel I have more energy even though I just expended some lifting.

 

I agree there are many myths out there that are given as factual advice, such as not doing weight work as we get older because we’ll hurt ourselves. 

 

I have one myth regarding nutrition perpetuated by MDs who get very little training with regards to nutrition. (Plus you can find studies in respected medical journals to support whatever you want to claim about nutrition.)

 

I had an EKG done and the cardiologist told me I had had a heart attack. It turned out he was wrong. But I wanted to be sure if I needed a cardiologist I had a top one. After research I picked one. He was at a top medical school and at the time president of the American Heart Association. I also looked at some of his publications before contacting him. When we were going over what I ate, he told me to eat less eggs and if I did eat eggs to eat egg whites to avoid the cholesterol. I asked him, “Isn’t >80% of the cholesterol in our bodies manufactured in our livers? Cutting out foods with cholesterol maybe I could reduce my cholesterol by a few percent? An egg has all the nutrients to build a living organism so aren’t eggs excellent foods?” He looked at my lab numbers, HDL 56 mg/dL, LDL 47 mg/dL, and total cholesterol 125 mg/dL and told me I could keep eating eggs!

curious how many eggs do you eat per day?

recently I have been eating two fried eggs per day and I got high cholesterol levels , including higher LDL (although my LDL/HDL ratio is within range). I suspect it’s because of eating too many eggs. So now I am eating one per day 

[LearningMachine]

8 hours ago, frommi said:

I have a simple rule, anyone that has a company in the field of medical stuff that wants to sell you something for longevity (even if it is just a book) i dont trust. So advice from Sinclair or Esselstyn are out for me  .

 

4 hours ago, ICUMD said:

No need to reach for esoteric understanding of common sense. Waste of time imo.

 

I consider each person and each piece of evidence from them on whether probative value substantially outweighs prejudicial value under FRE 403, instead of ignoring all of it as being prejudicial.  I'd compare people in a field, and then try to find the best in a given field, who are more motivated by their desire to understand deeper or help humanity. 

 

For example, Berkshire selling stuff to shareholders at shareholder's meeting wouldn't put me off from reading Buffet's lifelong quest to learn & understand deeper.  Munger selling his book wouldn't put me off either.  Earnings from these are inconsequential.  Munger possibly buying BABA in a way to signal to world while possibly holding it in his private investments would put me off a little, but I'd still run each of his other statements through FRE 403.

 

Similarly, Esselstyn and Sinclair won't put me off from learning from their lifelong quest to learn & understand deeper.  I'll still run each of their statements through the wringer and look at their evidence backing up each statement to see which pieces of evidence and statements pass FRE 403.

 

To each their own in terms of how deep they want to learn & understand things, and whether they consider understanding deeper as esoteric and waste of time.

Edited June 2 by LearningMachine

[boilermaker75]

46 minutes ago, sleepydragon said:

curious how many eggs do you eat per day?

recently I have been eating two fried eggs per day and I got high cholesterol levels , including higher LDL (although my LDL/HDL ratio is within range). I suspect it’s because of eating too many eggs. So now I am eating one per day 

 

I don't have eggs everyday, so I probably average about one per day, always pasture raised as you get a much better omega-3 to omega-6 ratio.

 

Edit: Do you limit your sugar and processed food (ie. vegetable oil) intake?

Edited June 2 by boilermaker75

[frommi]

1 hour ago, sleepydragon said:

curious how many eggs do you eat per day?

recently I have been eating two fried eggs per day and I got high cholesterol levels , including higher LDL (although my LDL/HDL ratio is within range). I suspect it’s because of eating too many eggs. So now I am eating one per day 

I eat 3 eggs per day for breakfast, i doubt its the eggs. High cholesterol levels can come from being overweight, because it changes how much cholesterol your body produces. If you eat too much cholesterol your body will mostly just get rid of what it doesn't need.

If i were you i would cut carbohydrates out completly first and see how it goes. For me going low-carb was a life-changing event. I will never go back. But everybody is different in that regard, you have to test which diet works best for you. Going whole foods and avoiding processed foods as already mentioned is core. I would suggest a diary where you write down what you eat. Often that process of writing down will already change what you eat.

 

As for strength training, i would begin with push-ups, squads and sit-ups. These are "easy", effective and free.

Edited June 2 by frommi

[frommi]

39 minutes ago, LearningMachine said:

 

 

I consider each person and each piece of evidence from them on whether probative value substantially outweighs prejudicial value under FRE 403, instead of ignoring all of it as being prejudicial.  I'd compare people in a field, and then try to find the best in a given field, who are more motivated by their desire to understand deeper or help humanity. 

 

For example, Berkshire selling stuff to shareholders at shareholder's meeting wouldn't put me off from reading Buffet's lifelong quest to learn & understand deeper.  Munger selling his book wouldn't put me off either.  Earnings from these are inconsequential.  Munger possibly buying BABA in a way to signal to world while possibly holding it in his private investments would put me off a little, but I'd still run each of his other statements through FRE 403.

 

Similarly, Esselstyn and Sinclair won't put me off from learning from their lifelong quest to learn & understand deeper.  I'll still run each of their statements through the wringer to see which statements pass FRE 403.

 

To each their own in terms of how deep they want to learn & understand things, and whether they consider understanding deeper as esoteric and waste of time.

I watched a lot of interviews with Sinclair, the basic stuff is all fine. But he is deep into supplements, like Bryan Johnson. And for a reason, because they sell this stuff. You can spend millions on this with zero change on your longevity. >95% of people will not do the core stuff (like workouts/changing diet/stop smoking) and focus on the things that change little. Because the core stuff requires hard work and changing habits. Taking supplements/spending money is easy. But it will not make you live that much longer in isolation.

[Spekulatius]

@frommi - I agree on Sinclair and basic stuff. Not sure about other things.

 

On the cholesterol , I have high total  cholesterol but also high good (HDL) cholesterol and this runs in the family, so is likely genetic. My mom weighs little more than 100 pounds, eats virtually no meat and still has high total cholesterol with high HDL as well,

 

Another thing is that cholesterol rises with age as the ability of you liver to process food is diminishing. Like everything else with aging, it’s an uphill battle and what works when you are younger may not work any more 10 years later, I have found.

 

FWIW, I am in my late 50‘s.

Edited June 2 by Spekulatius

[Charlie]

The mediterranean diet is probably one of the most recommended and researched way to eat and drink very healthy. I have this image on my desktop to eat and drink this way.

Don´t forget the red wine. 

Edited June 2 by Charlie

[frommi]

As far as i understand it, high HDL is not a problem at all. And high LDL is also not always a problem or the real problem, its just an indicator. 
See https://youtu.be/sY48qLl9ZzE?si=m6xPfabrrcyp21F6
or 

 

Edited June 2 by frommi