How to live longer: Following this diet once a month could

increase your life expectancy

HOW TO live longer: Years of research on this topic has suggested that the foods
you eat can greatly impact life expectancy. Now a study lifts the lid on a
different approach to food intake and how it can impact life longevity.
What is the best diet to increase life expectancy?

The secret to long life expectancy is to follow a healthy lifestyle - regularly exercising, limiting alcohol
intake, not smoking and eating a healthy balanced diet. When it comes to eating a healthy diet, the
NHS recommends eating at least five portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables every day, basing
meals on higher fibre starchy foods like potatoes, bread, rice or pasta, having some dairy or dairy
alternatives, some protein, choosing unsaturated oils and spreads, and eating them in small amounts,
and drinking plenty of fluids. A new study also suggests a different approach to meal times and how it
could impact on your health.

Scientists tracked mice’s metabolic health through their lifespans until their natural deaths and
examined them post-mortem.

The scientists divided 292 male mice into two diet groups and looked at how changing meal times
impacted their life expectancy. The results were impressive and suggested the same to be true for
humans.

The researchers said their findings were encouraging for future studies and recommended a certain diet
to help boost life expectancy.

In the study with the National Institute of Ageing (NIA) and the National Institutes of Health, longer
daily fasting times and how it could improve health and longevity was analysed. The study noted:
“Increasing time between meals made male mice healthier overall and live longer compared to mice
who at more frequently.” Scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Pennington
Biomedical Research Centre, Baton Rouge, Louisiana , reports that health and longevity improved with
increased fasting time, regardless of what the mice ate or how many calories they consumed.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180906123305.htm

NIA director, Dr Richard J. Hodes said: “This study showed that mice who ate one meal per day and
thus had the longest fasting period, seemed to have a longer lifespan and better outcomes for common
age-related liver disease and metabolic disorders.

"These intriguing results in an animal model show that the interplay of total caloric i Lead author of the
study, Dr Rafael de Cabo, chief of the Translational Gerontology Branch of the NIA Intramural
Research Program added: “Increasing daily fasting times, without a reduction of calories and regardless
of the type of diet consumed, resulted in overall improvements in health and survival in male mice.

"Perhaps this extended daily fasting period enables repair and maintenance mechanisms that would be
absent in a continuous exposure to food.intake and the length of feeding and fasting periods deserves a
closer look.”

The study suggests that those who fast at least once a month lived longer and healthier life.

Time-restricted eating patterns might help humans to also maintain a healthy weight and reduce some
common age-related metallic disorders.

The study also suggested that eating patterns, rather than diet composition, influenced longevity
regulation.