12 replies to this topic

[Priscilla]

PSA:

 

 

 

 

Edited by Priscilla, 15 October 2016 - 03:37 AM.

[resveratrol_guy]

This sounds like yet another case of good science done by researchers oblivious to other advances in their field. There is something seriously wrong here: eggs are a staple of the ketogenic diet. If choline is so instrumental to cancer metastasis, then high consumption should cause premature deaths by cancer across the board, not just with prostate cancer. But the most common food among supercentenarians, based on my own survery of Wikipedia, is eggs!

I think I know what's going on here. Yes, there is more choline in poultry than eggs, and as the presenter said, poultry consumption causes cancer to spread even faster. But there's something else more abundant in poultry than eggs: methionine. In a strict ketogenic diet, which many supercentenarians followed (most notably Jean Calment), carbohydrate intake is kept to a minimum. Empirically, methionine is relatively benign under such circumstances. But even the presence of a "healthy" diet containing whole grains, let alone refined grains and fast food, it enhances morbidity.

Look, there are some people who consume fantastic amounts of sugar in the form of fruit and vegetable juices, yet are still alive and stable in their 90s, e.g. Charlotte Gerson. And there are the ketogenic elders who shun carbs but don't seem to care about their methionine intake. Neither group seems particularly prone to cancer. But it's not much of an oversimplification to say that protein and carbs together are synergistically morbid.

The egg industry will probably lambast this report as flawed science, but the truth is that it's good science, so long as we're talking about the Med diet or the SAD diet. But this is a longevity forum, so we're smart enough to know that both of those options suck. So if you're not following one of the supercentenarian diets, maybe this is your wakeup call to get with the program.

Personally, I tend to stick more on the juice side, but I also consume lots of fat from time to time. However, I try to limit my protein intake, particularly from animal sources, all of which being rich in methionine. Generally, the only exception is that I try to eat an egg yolk everyday, because frankly I need the choline, DHA, and cholesterol; but I discard the white because its only valuable nutrient is selenium, which is easily obtained elsewhere, and it just provides more unwanted methionine.

I'm operating on the hypothesis that carbs rich in phytochemicals and sugar, plus healthy fats like coconut oil with a little fish oil, is a stable longevity diet so long as protein intake is kept to an absolute minimum. The whole point is really to avoid the deadly interaction between sugar and protein (glucosapane crosslinks, etc.) and the aggravation of IGF1. If the human Laron syndrome data is accurate, then it would seem that IGF1 is vastly more important than carb intake with respect to cancer: those people smoke, eat what they want, and generally appear to be in poor cardiovascular shape, yet their cancer rate is nearly zero.

I would even go out on a limb, based on the caloric restriction data I've seen, that "caloric restriction" is a misnomer; it's actually protein restriction by proxy. And it's not just about IGF1, which is aggravated by both protein and carb intake. It's about FGF21 activation in mice, which is more effective than caloric restriction at extending lifespan, even in the absence of the former! (FGF21 is upregulated in the late stages of fasting in response to... protein restriction. Slamming it in the "on" position from birth does wonders in mice.)

So choose what works best for you. Just don't mix methionine and sugar, lest you end up like these poor souls!
 

[sthira]

Regarding centenarians, do you really believe their diets have much of anything to do with their long lives? I've tried to eat as healthy as possible -- even documenting my food intake nearly daily on cronometer -- and yet I'm aging right on schedule.

To be a centenarian seems to me just the luck of the genetic draw. They chose their parents well. Congratulations. Following the diets and lifestyles of them probably won't add much to your years. Maybe I'm wrong.

Personally I avoid eggs because I don't trust the industries that produce them. So nearly everyday I come up short on choline according to cronimeter. But I doubt it matters very much. Look, without advanced repair interventions precious few of us will be permitted by biology to live into our hundreds. The odds are stacked against us (maybe you're lucky) and I doubt getting adequate daily choline matters very much.

[sthira]

PSA:


https://www.youtube....G1H5tEs5jPiVjgJ

Also, I personally love and respect Greger very much. I'm a vegan, too, and I follow much of his advice ("How Not To Die" his latest book). But Greger often sees the evidence from the myopic vegan perspective, and while I share that perspective, no one really knows the blanket answer for all if eggs are healthy or unhealthy. The science is just too twisted up and perverted by the industries that fund it. The egg board and their companies publish the favorable studies and don't publish the unfavorable studies. This is the unfortunate position we find ourselves here in 2016. One day in the future maybe more honest participants in this game will emerge; but I doubt that'll happen until food science divorces itself from the financial markets. Just my (probably flawed) opinion.

[resveratrol_guy]

Regarding centenarians, do you really believe their diets have much of anything to do with their long lives? I've tried to eat as healthy as possible -- even documenting my food intake nearly daily on cronometer -- and yet I'm aging right on schedule.

To be a centenarian seems to me just the luck of the genetic draw. They chose their parents well. Congratulations. Following the diets and lifestyles of them probably won't add much to your years. Maybe I'm wrong.

Personally I avoid eggs because I don't trust the industries that produce them. So nearly everyday I come up short on choline according to cronimeter. But I doubt it matters very much. Look, without advanced repair interventions precious few of us will be permitted by biology to live into our hundreds. The odds are stacked against us (maybe you're lucky) and I doubt getting adequate daily choline matters very much.

 

Well, in human aging, there isn't all that much wiggle room. But living longer is self-perpetuating to some extent thanks to the advancement in technology. It also pays to feel better, regardless of lifespan.

 

That said, I think the statistics are overwhelmingly clear: supercentenarians live as long as they do, in part, due to their diets. Otherwise, while they would all have excellent genes, we'd find plenty of them eating fast food and hanging out at the pizza place. This is patently not the case in the literature. Now, I'm not saying that eating the best diet known to science is going to get you to 110. But it will certainly get you farther, all else being equal.

 

Your point about the food industry is an important one. I wonder what the study would tell us, had they asked participants whether they eat free range or industrially produced eggs.

 

Just from personal experience, it seems to me that egg yolks are the single most effective nootropic one can consume, so I'm not willing to give them up. Although I might give up choline supplementation because it doesn't seem to carry the same effect, for some reason (niacin? DHA?).

 

Hopefully you will benefit from telomere extension therapy in the next few years.

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 15 October 2016 - 08:37 PM.

[sthira]

PSA:


https://www.youtube....G1H5tEs5jPiVjgJ

Greger says "...through the Freedom of Information Act I was able to obtain an email that read..." and this is where we find ourselves. Who do we trust, not just about eggs and whether the promote prostate cancer, but about anything at all that these food companies tell us?

[sthira]

Regarding centenarians, do you really believe their diets have much of anything to do with their long lives? I've tried to eat as healthy as possible -- even documenting my food intake nearly daily on cronometer -- and yet I'm aging right on schedule.

To be a centenarian seems to me just the luck of the genetic draw. They chose their parents well. Congratulations. Following the diets and lifestyles of them probably won't add much to your years. Maybe I'm wrong.

Personally I avoid eggs because I don't trust the industries that produce them. So nearly everyday I come up short on choline according to cronimeter. But I doubt it matters very much. Look, without advanced repair interventions precious few of us will be permitted by biology to live into our hundreds. The odds are stacked against us (maybe you're lucky) and I doubt getting adequate daily choline matters very much.

Well, in human aging, there isn't all that much wiggle room. But living longer is self-perpetuating to some extent thanks to the advancement in technology. It also pays to feel better, regardless of lifespan.

Sorry, I don't mean to quibble, and I'm not an argumentative person, but exactly what advancements in technology do you mean? Most of what I see are more and more mouse and rat studies, and more "More study is required..."

That said, I think the statistics are overwhelmingly clear: supercentenarians live as long as they do, in part, due to their diets. Otherwise, while they would all have excellent genes, we'd find plenty of them eating fast food and hanging out at the pizza place. This is patently not the case in the literature. Now, I'm not saying that eating the best diet known to science is going to get you to 110. But it will certainly get you farther, all else being equal.

Again not to quibble, but I'd like to see those overwhelming statistics that show dietary habits have much of anything to do with increased longevity. Of course we agree that junk food won't extend human life, but some of these centenarians lead terribly unhealthy lives (smoked cigarettes, ate nothing special, weren't vegetarians, didn't exercise...) and yet still lived very long lives.

Hopefully you will benefit from telomere extension therapy in the next few years.

Somehow I think regenerative technologies that will lead us all to live longer healthier lives will be far more complicated than simply longer telomeres. And remember, too, that longer telomeres are sometimes implicated in increased risks of cancer.

Aging is a bitch. And I once thought regenerative technologies would be imminent (how could they possibly not be imminent) but it now appears to me that "most people" simply don't care. Or if they do care about aging to death, then they certainly don't care enough to help fund and promote the very tech that proposes to save our lives.

Sorry if I've strayed off topic -- that seems to be one of my bad habits.

[Priscilla]

Come on guys, telomeres.... this is over inflated nonsense for the unaware general public... 

 

 

I don't know if it's just me, but following up news on gerontology, or any molecular biology oriented researched aimed at curing one aspect of aging seems backwards , and counter productive to actually achieving the goal.... We will all die way before, any significant progress is done.

They follow diets, or test some random molecular compound to see if it does anything of valuable...basically shooting in the dark, and hoping to hit on something relevant.  There isn't any true understanding of the chemistry/biology.... The whole political/economical aspect of modern day research and science is a complete tragedy.  Everything is governed by short term profit mentality, it isn't about science, or progressing human knowledge anymore, it's about pleasing the shareholders.

 

 

Aging, needs to be treated as mathematical problem. Discovering/Witting a new branch of mathematical principles to describe molecular motion is what we need to do , we don't need understand every single expression of the problem and solve it individually, we just need to understand the fundamental principles that govern those expressions. 

 

 

 

We as individuals are so empowered by the exponential growth of technology/computing power.  In a decade or two, we might have commercially available 3D printers , capable of  doing the same type of work as chemical manufacturing factories today. I will not be surprised, that the key breakthroughs will not come from academia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BlueCloud]

To be a centenarian seems to me just the luck of the genetic draw. They chose their parents well. Congratulations. Following the diets and lifestyles of them probably won't add much to your years. Maybe I'm wrong.
 

 

Lucky genes certainly help, yes. But when you have entire populations  that seems to be less prone to certain diseases, or have a higher than average longevity, then you can be sure that there are other factors than genes at play. Diet mostly , and lifestyle characteristics often ( the way they handle stress, physical activity, etc..)

[Priscilla]

 

To be a centenarian seems to me just the luck of the genetic draw. They chose their parents well. Congratulations. Following the diets and lifestyles of them probably won't add much to your years. Maybe I'm wrong.
 

 

Lucky genes certainly help, yes. But when you have entire populations  that seems to be less prone to certain diseases, or have a higher than average longevity, then you can be sure that there are other factors than genes at play. Diet mostly , and lifestyle characteristics often ( the way they handle stress, physical activity, etc..)

 

Genetics are more like a cake recipe, versus a "blueprint" model, that most people perceive genetics to be.

 

To bake a delicious cake, you need good ingredients.  It is really irrelevant if you have a better cake recipe, if you end up using inferior ingredients.

 

-Of course, if both cake recipes use the very best ingredients...then the cake with the better recipe will be more delicious.

[resveratrol_guy]

"what advancements in technology do you mean?" First of all, I agree that all researchers say "more study is needed". They always say that because they're motivated by ass covering and project funding, not by some nonexistent bonus payment they'll receive for each person cured. So what I mean by this, in practical terms, is chiefly gene therapy in banana republics, as opposed to pharmaceutical therapy in the first world. It's not the holy grail, but it might buy enough years for the average bear to live until the next great discovery. Aubrey DeGray takes this concept to its logical conclusion in his theory of "Longevity Escape Velocity". I will be the first to admit, nonetheless, that medicine is being treated as a Moore's Law problem by optimists such as Ray Kurzweil, which means we'll all live to infinity starting sometime in the next few decades. That's emphatically the wrong model because progress is encumbered by fundamental gaps in our understanding, and above all by legal impediments to research.

"Again not to quibble, but I'd like to see those overwhelming statistics that show dietary habits have much of anything to do with increased longevity. Of course we agree that junk food won't extend human life, but some of these centenarians lead terribly unhealthy lives (smoked cigarettes, ate nothing special, weren't vegetarians, didn't exercise...) and yet still lived very long lives." That's exactly what I meant: they don't eat junk food. I didn't actually mean they all eat X, but rather that none of them eat Y as a staple part of their diet. None of the habits you mention are inherently unhealthy: (1) Smoking very lightly extends life by hormesis, as compared to not smoking or moderate smoking. (2) "Ate nothing special" also means "ate nothing industrial", which is a healthy policy. Yes, junk food should also cause hormesis, but only in tiny quantities; perhaps this is why eating a small amount of candy is associated with more longevity than avoiding it entirely. (3) "Weren't vegetarians". The vegetarian diet is less effective than the ketogenic diet at life extension, if the actuarial data is any clue. Many vegetarian scientists try to make the ethical fallacy that eating meat is inherently unhealthy, i.e. it's morally unacceptable so it must be false. While I'm no fan of meat either, Sarah Mushatt-Jones just died at 116 after a lifetime of crispy bacon consumption. (4) "Didn't exercise". I'm not sure this is true. Many supercentenarian reports say this, but the statement is in reference to their senescent years, not necessarily their entire lives. OTOH, exercise is in theory unnecessary if one follows a very healthy diet such as intermittant fasting.

 

http://www.longecity...iet-vs-dementia

"Somehow I think regenerative technologies that will lead us all to live longer healthier lives will be far more complicated than simply longer telomeres. And remember, too, that longer telomeres are sometimes implicated in increased risks of cancer." Well, the first point might still extend lives a decade or more, if the animal studies are informative. The latter point appears to be wrong, even though it's intuitively appealing. Extending telomeres usually seems to thwart cancer, which is one requirement for life extension. The reason seems to be that, although it would help metastasis, it helps cell function even more, suppressing cancer at its source.

"Or if they do care about aging to death, then they certainly don't care enough to help fund and promote the very tech that proposes to save our lives." You're right. They don't. People are truly lazy and/or complacent about this magnificiant gift called "life". It has amazed me over the years how few people even ask for more information when I tell them that "hey there's this group online who is aware of cutting edge research that could help with your disease X...". At best, the few who do care seem to be so risk-averse that they'll never beat the averages. As to actually funding the research that they don't care about, forget it. Most people can't even afford insurance so they can go to the doctor and treat their symptoms.

"Aging, needs to be treated as mathematical problem. Discovering/Witting a new branch of mathematical principles to describe molecular motion is what we need to do , we don't need understand every single expression of the problem and solve it individually, we just need to understand the fundamental principles that govern those expressions." Priscilla, this isn't going to happen until we can rapidly compute the shapes of all the proteins after they fold. This is notoriously difficult to compute efficiently, and will probably require quantum computing. We know the math we need, which is Shroedinger's equation. It may be that there's some fantastically efficient shortcut to find the folded shape, but so far, it's still very difficult to perform on simple proteins, let alone the entire proteome. The reason is that the folded shape usually lives in a tiny valley in a landscape of energy mountains and billions of other misleading valleys. Which is to say that randomly flipping genes is likely to be more productive for the next several decades.

[thomasanderson2]

Soy Milk?

Have your cake and eat it too. Maybe you can get a sufficient amount of choline - to complement your racetam regimen - from just a cup or two of Soy milk per day.

And it's pretty well-established that Soy lowers the risk of cancers - at least for certain cancers.

 

Note. The more I read about this stuff - the more my head hurts (and NOT from a choline deficiency).

The vast majority of information being disseminated about dietary habits, supplements, nutrients etc. - and correlations to diseases and longevity, is conflicting and impossible to fully reconcile into a coherent model for health management.

 

[ta5]

Here's one of the studies from the video:

 

Am J Clin Nutr. 2012 Oct;96(4):855-63.
Choline intake and risk of lethal prostate cancer: incidence and survival.

Richman EL1, Kenfield SA, Stampfer MJ, Giovannucci EL, Zeisel SH, Willett WC, Chan JM.
Meat, milk, and eggs have been inconsistently associated with the risk of advanced prostate cancer. These foods are sources of choline-a nutrient that may affect prostate cancer progression through cell membrane function and one-carbon metabolism. No study has examined dietary choline and the risk of lethal prostate cancer.
Our objective was to examine whether dietary choline, choline-containing compounds, and betaine (a choline metabolite) increase the risk of lethal prostate cancer.
We prospectively examined the intake of these nutrients and the risk of lethal prostate cancer among 47,896 men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. In a case-only survival analysis, we examined the postdiagnostic intake of these nutrients and the risk of lethal prostate cancer among 4282 men with an initial diagnosis of nonmetastatic disease during follow-up. Diet was assessed with a validated questionnaire 6 times during 22 y of follow-up.
In the incidence analysis, we observed 695 lethal prostate cancers during 879,627 person-years. Men in the highest quintile of choline intake had a 70% increased risk of lethal prostate cancer (HR: 1.70; 95% CI: 1.18, 2.45; P-trend = 0.005). In the case-only survival analysis, we observed 271 lethal cases during 33,679 person-years. Postdiagnostic choline intake was not statistically significantly associated with the risk of lethal prostate cancer (HR for quintile 5 compared with quintile 1: 1.69; 95% CI: 0.93, 3.09; P-trend = 0.20).
Of the 47,896 men in our study population, choline intake was associated with an increased risk of lethal prostate cancer.
PMID: 22952174

 

This more recent meta analysis references the study above:

 

Sci Rep. 2016 Oct 19;6:35547.
Choline and betaine consumption lowers cancer risk: a meta-analysis of epidemiologic studies.
Sun S1, Li X2, Ren A1, Du M3,4, Du H5, Shu Y1, Zhu L1, Wang W6.
A number of human and animal in vitro or in vivo studies have investigated the relationship between dietary choline and betaine and cancer risk, suggesting that choline and betaine consumption may be protective for cancer. There are also a few epidemiologic studies exploring this relationship, however, with inconsistent conclusions. The PubMed and Embase were searched, from their inception to March 2016, to identify relevant studies and we brought 11 articles into this meta-analysis eventually. The pooled relative risks (RRs) of cancer for the highest versus the lowest range were 0.82 (95% CI, 0.70 to 0.97) for choline consumption only, 0.86 (95%CI, 0.76 to 0.97) for betaine consumption only and 0.60 (95%CI, 0.40 to 0.90) for choline plus betaine consumption, respectively. Significant protective effect of dietary choline and betaine for cancer was observed when stratified by study design, location, cancer type, publication year, sex and quality score of study. An increment of 100 mg/day of choline plus betaine intake helped reduce cancer incidence by 11% (0.89, 95% CI, 0.87 to 0.92) through a dose-response analysis. To conclude, choline and betaine consumption lowers cancer incidence in this meta-analysis, but further studies are warranted to verify the results.
PMID: 27759060

 

This 2nd study does not include the 1st study in the full analysis, but only in this passage (reference 17):

 

We also analyzed the sensitivity, attempting to explain the heterogeneity, examine whether varying in the criteria of inclusion had influence over the overall results and confirm the robustness of our results by omitting 1 comparison at every turn and recalculating the pooled relative risks for the remaining. Inclusion of another 3 articles17,18,19 that reported the hazard ratio (HR) with the corresponding 95% CI yielded similar results: a RR of 0.86 (95% CI, 0.74 to 0.99) with substantial evidence of heterogeneity (P < 0.001, I2 = 80.0%) for choline consumption only and a RR of 0.87 (95% CI, 0.77 to 0.97) with substantial evidence of heterogeneity (P = 0.001, I2 = 61.9%) for betaine consumption only.