All Videos for Lifespan

Fruits, Veggies, and Longevity: How Many Minutes Per Mouthful?

The first study to gauge how much longer we live based on the number of fruits and vegetables we eat suggests that a daily salad could add years to our lifespan.



Xenohormesis: What Doesn’t Kill Plants May Make Us Stronger

A new concept in biology tries to explain why the consumption of certain natural compounds in plants may mimic the lifespan-enhancing benefits of caloric restriction.



Debunking Egg Industry Myths

The latest meta-analysis of studies on egg consumption and heart disease risk found that even less than a single egg a day is associated with increased risk of both cardiovascular disease and diabetes.



Walnuts and Artery Function

Not eating walnuts may double our risk of dying from heart disease (compared to at least one serving a week)—perhaps because nuts appear to improve endothelial function, allowing our arteries to better relax normally.



Caloric Restriction vs. Animal-Protein Restriction

The lifespan extension associated with dietary restriction may be due less to a reduction in calories, and more to a reduction in animal protein (particularly the amino acid leucine, which may accelerate aging via the enzyme TOR).



Why Do We Age?

A bacteria discovered on Easter Island may hold the key to the proverbial fountain of youth by producing rapamycin, which inhibits the engine-of-aging enzyme TOR.



Low-Carb Diets and Coronary Blood Flow

Blood flow within the hearts of those eating low-carb diets was compared to those eating plant-based diets.



Nuts May Help Prevent Death

Just a few small servings of nuts a week may increase our lifespan and lower cancer risk.



Food Antioxidants and Cancer

Antioxidant intake from foods (not supplements) is associated with lower cancer risk.



How Much Exercise to Sustain Weight Loss?

What role has inactivity played in the obesity epidemic and how much should we be exercising?



Is Fish Oil Just Snake Oil?

Advice to eat oily fish, or take fish oil, to lower risk of heart disease, stroke, or mortality is no longer supported by the balance of available evidence.



Should We Take a Multivitamin?

What does the best available science say about the role multivitamins may play in heart disease, cancer, and longevity?



Turmeric Curcumin and Rheumatoid Arthritis

Randomized controlled trial comparing the safety and efficacy of drugs versus curcumin, the yellow pigment in the spice turmeric, for the treatment of autoimmune inflammatory rheumatoid arthritis.



Eggs and Diabetes

Even just a single egg a week may increase the risk of diabetes—the leading cause of lower-limb amputations, kidney failure, and new cases of blindness.



One in a Thousand: Ending the Heart Disease Epidemic

Many of our most common diseases found to be rare, or even nonexistent, among populations eating plant-based diets.



Phosphate Additives in Meat Purge and Cola

The consumption of phosphorus preservatives in junk food, and injected into meat, may damage blood vessels, accelerate the aging process, and contribute to osteoporosis.



Lifestyle Medicine: Treating the Causes of Disease

If doctors can eliminate some of our leading killers by treating the underlying causes of chronic disease better than nearly any other medical intervention, why don’t more doctors do it?



BRCA Breast Cancer Genes and Soy

One reason why soy consumption is associated with improved survival and lower recurrence rates in breast cancer patients may be because soy phytonutrients appear to improve the expression of tumor-suppressing BRCA genes.



Increased Lifespan from Beans

The intake of legumes—beans, chickpeas, split peas, and lentils—may be the single most important dietary predictor of a long lifespan. But what about concerns about intestinal gas?



Testing Your Diet with Pee and Purple Cabbage

Plant-based diets tend to be alkaline-forming. This may help protect muscle mass, and reduce the risk of gout and kidney stones. The pH of one’s urine can be estimated with natural pigments, using kitchen chemistry.



Heart Disease Starts in Childhood

By age 10, nearly all kids have fatty streaks in their arteries. This is the first sign of atherosclerosis, the leading cause of death in the United States. So the question for most of us is not whether we should eat healthy to prevent heart disease, but whether we want to reverse the heart disease we may already have.



Methionine Restriction as a Life-Extension Strategy

Plant-based diets may prove to be a useful nutrition strategy in both cancer growth control as well as lifespan extension, because these diets are naturally lower in methionine.



Pistachio Nuts for Erectile Dysfunction

Men eating pistachio nuts experienced a significant improvement in blood flow through the penis accompanied by significantly firmer erections in just three weeks—perhaps due to pistachios’ antioxidant, arginine, and phytosterol content.



Survival of the Firmest: Erectile Dysfunction and Death

Because penile arteries are only about half the size of the coronary arteries in the heart, erectile dysfunction can be a powerful predictor of cardiac events—such as sudden death.



Preventing Exercise-Induced Oxidative Stress with Watercress

Those eating a more plant-based diet may naturally have an enhanced antioxidant defense system to counter the DNA damage caused by free radicals produced by high-intensity exercise.



Kiwifruit for Insomnia

Two kiwi fruit an hour before bedtime may improve sleep quality and duration, without the side effects associated with sleeping pills.



Breast Cancer and Alcohol: How Much Is Safe?

Nearly 5,000 breast cancer deaths a year may be attributable to just light drinking (up to one drink a day).



The McGovern Report

The story behind the first U.S. dietary recommendations report explains why, to this day, the decades of science supporting a more plant-based diet have yet to fully translate into public policy.



Flaxseeds & Breast Cancer Survival: Epidemiological Evidence

Lignan intake is associated with improved breast cancer survival in three recent population studies following a total of thousands of women after diagnosis.



Fiber vs. Breast Cancer

Inadequate fiber intake appears to be a risk factor for breast cancer, which can explain why women eating plant-based diets may be at lower risk.



Eggs vs. Cigarettes in Atherosclerosis

A similar exponential increase in carotid artery plaque buildup was found for smokers and egg eaters.



Protein, Puberty, and Pollutants

The early onset of puberty in girls associated with animal protein consumption may be due to endocrine-disrupting chemical pollutants in the meat supply.



Is Vitamin D3 Better Than D2?

Vitamin D3—sourced from sunlight exposure, animal, and plant sources—may be preferable to vitamin D2 sourced from fungi.



Standing Up for Your Health

Prolonged daily sitting is associated with a shorter lifespan, even in those who exercise regularly. Standing and treadmill desks are two potential solutions for office workers.



Cancer-Proofing Mutation

Congenital IGF-1 deficiency can lead to Laron Syndrome (a type of dwarfism); but with such low growth hormone levels, those with the condition have dramatically lower cancer rates. This raises the question of whether one can achieve the best of both worlds—by ensuring adequate IGF-1 levels during childhood, while then suppressing excess growth promotion in adulthood.



IGF-1 as One-Stop Cancer Shop

Insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) is a natural human growth hormone instrumental in normal growth during childhood, but in adulthood can promote abnormal growth—the proliferation, spread (metastasis), and invasion of cancer.



Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death

Death in America is largely a foodborne illness. Focusing on studies published just over the last year in peer-reviewed scientific medical journals, Dr. Greger offers practical advice on how best to feed ourselves and our families to prevent, treat, and even reverse many of the top 15 killers in the United States.



The Benefits of Caloric Restriction Without the Actual Restricting

One mechanism by which caloric restriction may extend one’s lifespan is by upregulating dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), the most abundant steroid hormone in the human body. DHEA supplements are discouraged, but there may be a natural way to conserve levels as we age.



Americans Are Living Longer but Sicker Lives

Though our life expectancy is improving, our health expectancy is not. In fact we are living fewer years without serious disease and disability.



What Women Should Eat to Live Longer

A competing risks analysis of the Harvard Nurses’ Health Study compares the danger of smoking cigarettes to the danger of animal product consumption (cholesterol), and the benefits of plant foods (fiber) to the benefits of exercise.