The Dr. Hyman Show - What the World's Longest-Lived People Eat

Episode Date: October 4, 2019

We all want to know what it takes to live a long, healthy, and happy life. In this mini-episode of the podcast, Dr. Hyman speaks with longevity expert and bestselling author of, “Blue Zones,” Dan Buettner, about the commonalities amongst several geographic regions around the world where high percentages of centenarians are enjoying remarkably long, full lives. Specifically, Dan shares the pillars of all longevity diets in the world and how Americans can apply this information to their own diets.. Dan Buettner is an explorer, National Geographic Fellow, award-winning journalist and producer, and New York Times bestselling author. He discovered the five places in the world –dubbed Blue Zones – where people live the longest, healthiest lives. Buettner now works in partnership with municipal governments, large employers, and health insurance companies to implement Blue Zones Projects in communities, workplaces, and universities. Blue Zones Projects are well-being initiatives that apply lessons from the BlueZones to entire communities by focusing on changes to the local environment, public policy, and social networks. The program has dramatically improved the health of more than 5 million Americans to date. Buettner also holds three Guinness World Records in distance cycling. Listen to Dr. Hyman’s full-length conversation with Dan Buettner https://drmarkhyman.lnk.to/DanBuettner

Coming up on this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. The pillars of all longevity diets in the world, I mentioned before, greens, grains, whole grains, nuts, beans, and tubers. So no matter where you go, those five things make up the daily diet. Hi, I'm Kea Perot at one of the producers of The Doctor's Pharmacy podcast. In this mini episode, Dr. Hyman sits down with National Geographic fellow and author of The Blue Zones, Dan Buettner. Blue Zones is a term Dan coined to designate the geographic regions where high percentages of centenarians are enjoying remarkably long and full lives. Let's listen in as Dan shares the commonalities in diet as well as lifestyle among the longest lived populations in the world.

In 2000, my team came across an interesting fact, the World Health Organization named Okinawa as the place in the world with the longest disability-free life expectancy in the world. So they have what we want. They live a long time, manage to elude most chronic disease, and then die fairly quickly. Yeah, we call that the rectangularization of the survival curve. You don't die a long, painful, slow death. Yeah, you live a long time, healthy, well, and boom, you're dead. Yeah, so that's kind of what you want to do. And really, that was kind of the founding of Blue Zones in 2000.

And that expedition was hugely successful. And I had the idea that if there's a blue zone area, an area where people live a long time in Asia, there must be other areas in Europe and Latin America and the United States. And I got funding from the National Institutes on Aging to hire demographers to do the science of populations of find statistically longest lived, and then recruited a team of experts to help me distill the sort of common denominators. The big aha in these blue zones areas around the world is that longevity was not something that was pursued.

It's something that ensued from the right environment. So the healthiest foods, beans and greens and nuts and tubers and grains, they're the cheapest and most accessible. Curiously, no matter where you go and you see people living a long time, they're doing the same nine things. And they're clustered in four areas. Number one, they're moving naturally as opposed to exercise. So nudge into movement.

They tend to have a sense of purpose and they can identify, they articulate that sense of purpose. They're downshifting. There's things, sacred daily rituals to downshift them. So stopping and being as opposed to doing. Yes. But it's, it's less conscious and more rote. For example, Okinawan women or older Okinawans will always stop what they're doing. Before they eat, they'll say three words, hara hachi bu, which reminds them to stop eating when their stomachs are 80% full. Adventists, who are the longest-lived Americans, they'll say a prayer. So there's some punctuation between their busy life and their food. So they're slow down and eat slower. Costa Rica and Ecaria,

they take a nap. Sardinia, they do happy hour. But everybody does it. So it's not like you're the outlier by, you know, having a couple of glasses of wine after work or taking a nap at three in the afternoon. And then when it comes to what they eat, 95% to 100% of their dietary intake comes from plants. The pillars of all longevity diets in the world, I mentioned before, greens, grains, whole grains, nuts, beans, and tubers. So no matter where you go, those five things make up the daily diet eat meat about five times a month fish maybe two times a week not less than you'd think a lot of

these communities are coastal communities right they look coastal so they're sardinia uh italy Italy, Ikaria, Greece, Okinawa, Japan, the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica, and Loma Linda. Three of those fives are kind of island. One is peninsula. But the blue zone areas are always inland. They're always up in the highlands. They tend to live on a slope. In fact, one of the biggest correlates to living a long time is the slope of the land on which you live.

So live on a hill. Exactly. Yes. I live on a hill. Exactly. Yes. I live on a hill. I got a place up here. Well, yeah. Is that because you have to walk a lot up and down? Yeah.

I mean, that makes sense to me. But that was studied very carefully in Sardinia. And the steeper the village, the longer the people lived. And then the foundation, the Power9 Foundation, was investing in your family, being part of a faith, no matter what faith it was, and then really paying attention to the people you hang out with. So I started out with blues.

I was talking about purpose and the importance of the family and downshifting. But at the end of the day, you realize that the runway for health for most Americans is what we eat. It's through our mouth. We eat three times a day. There are networks. People love to eat.

So in the last year or two, I've been really focusing on food and trying to really think through what the longest lived people ate and how to translate it for American populations. So, you know, there's some interesting data on like, you know, meat and whether it's harmful or helpful. And a lot of it has to do with like what the context of the overall diet is.

You know, my view on meat eating, I mean, in all honesty, in Blue Zones, people did eat meat. It was, you know, they typically knew the name of the animal and they took care of the animal for a long time. And then it was time for the wedding. But it was infrequent, often as a condiment. I would argue that most Americans, our disease comes from overeating

and overeating the wrong kind of the food, which is usually meat. Not always. I mean, there's a few, 1% meat is you know grass-fed and if we ate it once or twice a week there'd be no problem but the reality is yeah to send the message that it's okay to eat meat or the longest lived people in the world eat meat people take it the wrong way if you really want to eat healthy the one of the keys is um having the skills to make a few, I would say, plant-based meals. Beans, I would say, should be the main ingredient because they're hearty

and they give you the protein you need. You've got to cook them. You probably know the plant paradox. So the bean thing is interesting because, you know, you talk about how a lot of these cultures consume a lot of beans. And there's been a lot of popular books out there lately saying that lectins are an issue and beans are concerning and that they can cause autoimmunity and inflammation. And when you look at these traditional cultures, they had very sophisticated ways of actually combining different foods, of cooking them, of breaking down these things that actually may be problematic. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, I think that was unfortunate propaganda about that bean. About the lectins, you mean? Yeah. I mean, yes, if you eat them raw, they're a problem. But I mean, here we have 70% of Americans who are obese, a third who are pre-diabetic, dropping dead of heart disease, and we're worried about lectin for crying out loud. It's silly. I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt

the the five cultures who are living the longest were eating beans almost every day and probably a cup of beans and i would say that i mean as long as you soak them cook them to a boil the lectins aren't an issue the reality of the gas problem is this you're if you're eating meat, cheese, and eggs all the time, your gut bacteria is going to proliferate to optimally digest meat, eggs, and cheese. Sure. When you shift, and all of a sudden, if that's all you're eating, egg McMuffins, and then all of a sudden you shift to a healthy bean-based food, your gut bacteria is going to say, what the hell is going on here? It's going to be a war.

Yeah. But that war only lasts for about a week or a week and a half. And then all of a sudden your gut bacteria shifts so it can break down those long chain carbohydrates that are in beans to digestible carbohydrate. And you don't have that issue. I eat beans every single day. I have zero issue. And you talk about how to start out with these smaller beans like rather than kidney beans or lima beans

or phaba be started with lentils and beans that are easier to phaba are the phaba are the gaseous if you're not eating them regularly but again if after two weeks if you start lentils or peas and move your way and that's an important thing that people don't realize about the microbiome and the role it plays in all chronic disease including obesity and diabetes and so your way. And that's an important thing that people don't realize about the microbiome and the role it plays in all chronic disease, including obesity and diabetes. And so the way to cultivate your inner garden is by eating a lot of plants, by eating a lot of fiber-rich foods. I like that, inner garden. Yeah. I mean, we got to tend our inner garden. We got a lot of weeds growing in there that are causing disease. And the way you get the weeds out is you put in the good stuff and it crowds it out. So, you know, when you look at these traditional cultures, and I've done this, you know, in Burkina Faso in Africa,

they looked at the microbiome of these people eating more traditional diets and then compared to Western diets and what the microbiome is in there, and they're completely different. And, you know, this is really an important thing that I think probably is happening in these cultures where they all have much healthier digestions, much less autoimmune disease, much more anti-inflammatory diets,

which is really what's driving their longevity. Because we know the longevity is really related to two things. One is inflammation or lack of it. And two is your ability to handle sugar and insulin. So insulin sensitivity is another huge driver of longevity. So all the things that you're talking about help those properties. We all want to live long, healthy, and happy lives. By designing a life where health is an automatic side effect of your environment, default choices

become healthy choices. Here are some strategies Dr. Hyman recommends for designing your environment to create health. First, organize your kitchen for healthy meal preparation. Next, stock your kitchen with the right stuff. Arrange the food so that the healthiest ones are the most accessible and appealing. Also, plant healthy snacks in your environment. Put raw nuts or other healthy snacks in your glove compartment, desk drawer, purse, or backpack so they are within easy reach and allow you to safely bypass the vending machine or drive-thru when you're hungry. Finally, surround yourself with people who inspire you and support your health goals. The key to success is to intentionally design your environment to make it easy to do the

right thing to create health. Thanks for tuning into this mini episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with your friends and family. Until next time. Hi, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit

ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.