Eggs — specifically egg yolks — and oily fish like herrings and salmon are rich sources of vitamin D, and new research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition says that this vitamin, in particular, may help slow aging.
Meanwhile, other research suggests that drinking up to 2½ regular cups of coffee a day can raise your chances of living longer and staying healthy — physically and mentally — in your senior years.
What’s not to like?
The study on vitamin D, conducted among a population of older Americans by researchers at Mass General Brigham, the University of Massachusetts and the Medical College of Georgia, found that those who took a daily vitamin D supplement of 2,000 IU, or international units, a day — meaning 50 micrograms a day — experienced a significant benefit in a key area of cellular aging known as “telomere shortening.”
Telomeres are the crucial protective caps at the ends of our DNA strands (they are sometimes compared to the plastic caps at the ends of shoelaces), and they are critical to cellular health. They typically shorten as we age and as cells divide.
“We found that vitamin D3 supplementation significantly reduced telomere attrition over a four-[year] period … suggesting that vitamin D3 daily supplementation with or without n-3 FAs might have a role in counteracting telomere erosion or cell senescence,” researchers wrote.
(This particular study found no health benefit from another prominent ingredient in oily fish, namely Omega-3 oils — but many others have done so.)
Meanwhile, research unveiled at the annual jamboree of the American Society for Nutrition, held in the scientific hot spot of Orlando, Fla., finds that drinking up to 2½ cups of regular caffeinated coffee per day may help you live longer and healthier.
Decaffeinated coffee and colas showed no benefits, they added.
The researchers did not examine whether a healthy, life-extending coffee also includes, say, one of those extra-large 500-calorie desserts, complete with caramel syrup, sprinkles and whipped cream, which some people pick up every morning (at the drive-thru, so they don’t have to walk to the counter). Hmm … what do you think?
Some headlines have emphasized that the study found a health benefit only in women, but this is a bit misleading. The researchers didn’t reveal a health benefit in men not because they couldn’t find one, but because they didn’t look. The study only involved following women — nearly 50,000 of them — over several decades.
(One caveat is that some of the researchers involved in both studies teach at Harvard — so for about half of the U.S. population, this is probably just “fake news.”)
The latest research adds to a growing accumulation of knowledge about what we should do if we want to raise our chances of living longer and healthier lives. Each individual study is open to challenges and queries, because they are always conducted in the real, outside world, where countless unmeasured factors will interfere with the results.
You cannot genetically engineer 10,000 identical humans, keep them in a laboratory for 80 years and subject them to laboratory-condition tests over that time. But overall, the real-world results have tended to point in some clear directions.
The big picture of how to lead a healthy lifestyle is best summarized by research into so-called blue zones, meaning areas of the world — from Okinawa, Japan to Sardinia, Italy — where scientists have found that people tend to live the longest and the healthiest lives.
According to the Blue Zones Institute, based on what scientists and researchers have observed about people living in these areas, there are five key areas to focus on: eating a healthy diet; staying physically active; socializing with friends and family a lot; having some sense of purpose or higher belief; and doing things that lower stress.
On the issue of food, the “Mediterranean diet” tends to get the most scientific support: lots of fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and whole grains; only small amounts of meat; and very little processed food or refined carbohydrates.
I don’t know if fish for breakfast is Mediterranean, or just old school. In Victorian England, breakfast staples in wealthier households included kippers and kedgeree. Kippers, also known back then as “red herrings,” are smoked herrings. (You can buy them in cans in U.S. supermarkets, often from Canada. The contents can be heated in a microwave in seconds.) Kedgeree, almost unknown on our side of the Atlantic, is a cold dish involving fish, egg, curry powder and rice.
Both may be acquired tastes. Personally, as I grew up with them, I find them both exquisite — and vastly superior to any sugared cereal.If these things make a comeback, as “health foods” no less, it can only be good news.
