This year, I connected with several longevity experts to talk and learn more about how to live a longer, healthier life. their own personal practices,
“Almost everything I recommend to my patients, I do myself,” said Dr. Frank LipmanA doctor of functional medicine who researches longevity.
Many of Lippman’s suggestions for good health match what I heard Dr. Andrea MairA health and longevity expert with nearly 25 years of experience at Geroscience, Walter Longowho has been studying longevity in Italy for nearly 20 years, and popular researcher Dan Buettner.
This is what I learned from some of these leading experts in 2024.
3 things I learned from longevity experts in 2024
1. Most longevity experts follow a time-restricted diet
In my conversations with doctors and researchers who study how to live longer, almost all of them recommended or practiced time-restricted eating—commonly known as intermittent fasting. Most people eat all their food within eight hours, and fast for about 12 to 16 hours a day.
“I always skip breakfast, or skip it often,” Mair said. “I actually start eating at two o’clock (afternoon), three o’clock. Sometimes my first meal is in the evening, and I’m fine.”
Longo developed his own eating pattern called the fasting-miming diet. According to the , this includes a diet “high in unsaturated fat and low in overall calories, protein and carbohydrates” USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology,
The diet also involves fasting for 12 hours a day, and it was linked to a lower risk of developing diseases such as diabetes, cancer and heart conditions in rats. Study Published earlier this year in the journal Nature Communications.
2. They have cheat meals and non-negotiables
As serious as longevity experts are about their health, they still allow themselves a little indulgence. Sometimes this means enjoying things that aren’t exactly healthy. They don’t plan to change those behaviors.
“I’m 46 years old and still drinking Diet Coke,” Maier told CNBC Make It in October.
Similarly, Longo “has a big dinner, quite late at night, and it’s probably not ideal, but (it) makes my life a lot easier by not having to eat lunch,” he said. “Probably it would be better to have a big lunch and a small dinner. (But) that’s the way my life is built.”
BuettnerThe man who helped coin the term “Blue Zones” likes going out to dinner with his friends and admits it probably doesn’t align with a longevity diet.
“It’s really hard to eat healthy when you go out, no matter where you go,” Buettner said.
3. Connecting with others is really important to them
The importance of maintaining positive relationships was a common theme among longevity experts, and it shows what Decades-old Harvard study about happiness Came to know about its importance for longevity.
For Lipman, spending quality time with her grandchildren is her current primary goal for social fitness. “When he gets older, he probably won’t want to spend as much time there, so I’m taking advantage of that. He’ll be five soon, but he’s still at the age where he wants to be around his grandparents. Wants.”
And Buettner said he “spent a fortune to buy a place where I could invite people over,” and he had three guests staying at his home when I interviewed him.
“I plan on being with people every night, and that’s when I get a lot of opportunity for social interaction,” he said.
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