As I was watching a Netflix documentary, I came across a very interesting topic of a city in Italy called Trieste (Italy), that has one of the largest community of centenarians. What exactly is a centenarian? Someone who is able to live to the age of a hundred years is considered a centenarian. The city of Trieste has a total of 163 centenarians that are currently alive, and the shocking part is that they’re able to walk, perform cognitive tasks, and are very healthy. Florence, Milan, Bologna, and Sardinia are being heavily studied to inspect the key aspects that lead to longevity. Longevity was tested through biofluids that can be paralleled with the currently investigated mechanistic routes of the mTOR, AMPK, inflammation, and changes in the gut microbiota, underlining the expression of human longevity phenotype (Collino et. Al, 2013). One of the key findings was that centenarians had a really low concentration of lipidome change and this is an indication that reflects centenarians' unique capability to adapt/respond to the accumulating oxidative and chronic inflammatory processes characteristics of their extreme aging phenotype (Collino et. Al, 2013). The answer was actually quite simple, when the centenarians were asked what they ate, it was a very low protein diet (50g for the whole day) that was compared to large amounts of vegetables. They would rarely eat fatty meats, sugar, and their culture rarely uses any fatty substances. The U.S. has a clear indication of praising protein both in the fitness world and in the culture itself, but a study showed that people who prioritized proteins were four-folds more likely to have a disease associated with cancer (Delimaris, 2013). So, what ought to be done about the consumption of too much protein in the U.S.?
One of the things that the documentary discussed was that it’s never too late to make a change to someone’s diet. The most harmful protein in meat is mTOR which is a mechanistic target of rapamycin and is a regulator of cellular growth. This is something that’s beneficial when you’re young and growing, but harmful when you’re older. The only way to slow this down in your body is to consume less meat, which sounds simple, yet very hard. Now, the answer is clear, you know what you have to do, but do you think you can give up consuming less meat?
Delimaris I. (2013). Adverse Effects Associated with Protein Intake above the Recommended Dietary Allowance for Adults. ISRN nutrition, 2013, 126929. https://doi.org/10.5402/2013/126929
Collino, S., Montoliu, I., Martin, F. P., Scherer, M., Mari, D., Salvioli, S., Bucci, L., Ostan, R., Monti, D., Biagi, E., Brigidi, P., Franceschi, C., & Rezzi, S. (2013). Metabolic signatures of extreme longevity in northern Italian centenarians reveal a complex remodeling of lipids, amino acids, and gut microbiota metabolism. PloS one, 8(3), e56564. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0056564
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