Coffee and longevity

A September 2022 study by Baker Heart and Diabetes Research Institute, Melbourne said, 

• “In this large, observational study, ground, instant and decaffeinated coffee were associated with equivalent reductions in the incidence of cardiovascular disease and death from cardiovascular disease or any cause,” 

• “The results suggest that mild to moderate intake of ground, instant and decaffeinated coffee should be considered part of a healthy lifestyle.”

• “Caffeine is the most well-known constituent in coffee, but the beverage contains more than 100 biologically active components. It is likely that the non-caffeinated compounds were responsible for the positive relationships observed between coffee drinking, cardiovascular disease and survival. Our findings indicate that drinking modest amounts of coffee of all types should not be discouraged but can be enjoyed as a heart healthy behaviour.”

Overweight -v- Obese

An intriguing March 2021 study by The Ohio State University found that,

• "The impact of weight gain on mortality is complex. It depends on both the timing and the magnitude of weight gain and where BMI started.”

• "The main message is that for those who start at a normal weight in early adulthood, gaining a modest amount of weight throughout life and entering the overweight category in later adulthood can actually increase the probability of survival."

Walnuts for Longevity

A February 2020 study funded by the California Walnut Commission found that eating two portions of walnuts a week had positive health and longevity benefits for mature women.

Sugar, Longevity, Uric Acid, Gout and Stones

A March 2020 study by the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences and Kiel University said,

• "Just like humans, flies fed a high-sugar diet show many hallmarks of metabolic disease - for instance, they become fat and insulin resistant."

• "Obesity and diabetes are known to increase mortality in humans, and so people always assumed that this was how excess sugar is damaging for survival in flies".

• "Water is vital for our health, yet its importance is often overlooked in metabolic studies. Therefore, we were surprised that flies fed a high-sugar diet did not show a reduced lifespan, simply by providing them with an extra source of water to drink. Unexpectedly, we found that these flies still exhibited the typical metabolic defects associated with high dietary sugar".

The researchers found that the excess sugar is related to a build up of uric acid but that,

• "the sugar-fed flies may live longer when we give them access to water, but they are still unhealthy. And in humans, for instance, obesity increases the risk of heart disease. But our study suggests that disruption of the purine pathway is the limiting factor for survival in high-sugar-fed flies. This means that early death by sugar is not necessarily a direct consequence of obesity itself".

• "Strikingly, just like flies, we found that dietary sugar intake in humans was associated with worse kidney function and higher purine levels in the blood."

• "It will be very interesting to explore how our results from the fly translate to humans, and whether the purine pathway also contributes to regulating human survival."

• "There is substantial evidence that what we eat influences our life expectancy and our risk for age-related diseases. By focusing on the purine pathway, our group hopes to find new therapeutic targets and strategies that promote healthy ageing".

Walnuts Might Slow Cognitive Decline for Ageing At Risk Population

A January 2020 study by Loma Linda University said, “Further investigation is definitely warranted based on our findings, especially for disadvantaged populations, who may have the most to gain from incorporating walnuts and other nuts into their diet." 

Ginseng

Radix Ginseng (the root) is Ren Shen in Chinese Traditional Medicine (TCM).

Dan Bensky and Andrew Gamble in “Materia Medica” in an extensive listing, say it is,

“sweet, slightly bitter, slightly warm” and is one of the “herbs that tonify the Qi”.  It is contraindicated “in cases of yin deficiency with heat signs, heat excess, or in the absence of significant qi deficiency … also contraindicated for hypertensive patients with ascendant liver yang and in cases of very high blood pressure.”

Siberian ginseng is classified as an “Adaptogen and Tonic”(Menzies-Trull in "The Herbalist's Prescriber").

“Anti-depressive, increases resistance and improves both physical and mental performance… it will raise lowered blood pressure to a normal level… it can be used in general for exhaustion states and weakness.” (David Hoffman in “The New Holistic Herbal”).

Unani Tibb: For, amongst other things, “digestion, stimulate malfunctioning endocrine glands and is a powerful antispasmodic in diseases such as asthma” (Robert Thomson, in “The Grosset Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine” (1980).

Tea Drinking and Longevity

In a January 2020 study by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences it was said that,

• “Habitual tea consumption is associated with lower risks of cardiovascular disease and all-cause death"

• "The favourable health effects are the most robust for green tea and for long-term habitual tea drinkers."

• "The protective effects of tea were most pronounced among the consistent habitual tea drinking group. Mechanism studies have suggested that the main bioactive compounds in tea, namely polyphenols, are not stored in the body long-term. Thus, frequent tea intake over an extended period may be necessary for the cardioprotective effect."

Fluid Intelligence, Age, Fat & Muscle

A December 2017 study by Iowa State University said,

"Chronological age doesn't seem to be a factor in fluid intelligence decreasing over time … It appears to be biological age, which here is the amount of fat and muscle."

"Further studies would be needed to see if people with less muscle mass and more fat mass are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease, and what the role of the immune system is,"

."If you eat alright and do at least brisk walking some of the time, it might help you with mentally staying quick on your feet,"

Chromatin Stress and Longevity

A July 2019 study by Baylor College of Medicine and the Houston Methodist Research Institute found that, “moderate chromatin stress [chromatin architectural defect] levels set off a stress response in yeast, the tiny laboratory worm C. elegans, the fruit fly and mouse embryonic stem cells, and in yeast and C. elegans the response promotes longevity.”

Professor Weiwei Dang said, "Chromatin stress refers to disruptions in the way DNA is packed within the nucleus of the cell …One of the factors that influences chromatin structure is proteins called histones. 

Ruofan Yu, first author, said, “Unexpectedly, we found that yeast with fewer copies of histone genes lived longer than the controls…We have identified a previously unrecognized and unexpected form of stress that triggers a response that benefits the organism,"

Professor Dang said, “Our findings suggest that the chromatin stress response may also be present in other organisms. If present in humans, it would offer new possibilities to intervene in the aging process."