Finding the perfect diet isn’t as simple as you may think.
When it comes to nutrition, there’s no shortage of dietary strategies for healthier aging — to the point that sifting through all this “advice” can feel a little bit overwhelming, and sometimes even disingenuous. After all, when you see one expert on Instagram swear by a diet that cuts out meat, and another expert on a podcast swear just as vehemently by a diet that prioritizes meat, it’s hard to know who’s telling the “truth,” and which diet will work best for your specific circumstances.
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), the only hard and fast truth to take from nutritional advice is that there is no hard and fast truth. Nutrition is a highly personal part of your life, and it might take years to nail down the eating habits that meet your needs.
With that said, we’re always looking for ways to make our lives longer, healthier, and happier, so we spoke to four leading experts who have spent years researching longevity about how you can use nutrition to achieve those goals — and the realistic limitations of doing so. As you’ll notice, each expert has a different approach to this topic, and we think that’s a good thing. By getting four different viewpoints, you can pick and choose the suggestions that fit best into your life.
What is the best diet for living longer — or is there one, to begin with?
Peter Attia, M.D., a Canadian-American physician and author of Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity, is quick to acknowledge the basic facts of nutrition. “Eating too much food is bad for you, and eating too little is bad for you, too,” he says. “It’s also true that certain vitamins and minerals are essential, certain amino acids are essential, and certain fatty acids are essential.”
But beyond those fundamentals, Dr. Attia notes, there’s really no one-size-fits-all answer for the best way to approach nutrition for aging — besides one essential truth in America.
“Most people are overnourished in this country,” Dr. Attia says. “There’s no judgment in that statement. It’s simply a matter of fact.” Attia explains that it comes down to a basic, yet challenging, predicament: Humans are operating with ancient genes during a modern time period.
“We have genes that literally spent millions of years optimizing for energy storage,” Dr. Attia says, “and up until about 150 years ago, there was no problem associated with that. But then the abundance of food became so great…and when you pair such food availability along with all the other things that came with it, like less movement, less sleep, more stress, then we have this epidemic [of unhealthiness].”
Countless diet fads have come and gone in an effort to address these issues, but Dr. Attia says every single one of them involves some combination of three things: dietary restriction, time restriction, and caloric restriction. “These are just technical ways to describe what people already know and have been doing,” Dr. Attia says.
If you take Dr. Attia’s approach, then you want to focus on nourishment levels overall. Think of any diet you use as the means to an end (which is your overall health), rather than the end itself. Consider using all three strategies of restriction, and find the one that works best for you. Maybe you prefer to keep an eye on daily calories. Maybe you prefer to think less about calories and instead focus on a plant-based diet. Maybe you want to experiment with intermittent fasting or other forms of time-related nutritional structuring.
Whatever path you choose, remember not to worry too much about the next nutritional headline when you see it. “There’s always a new fad, there’s always a new diet, there’s always a new trend,” Dr. Attia says. “It’s sort of embarrassing.”
What vitamins should you look for in food to boost longevity?
For Dilip Jeste, M.D., an American geriatric neuropsychiatrist who studies the process of successful aging, nutrition is not always about what specific piece of food you put into your mouth. It’s about monitoring the vitamins and nutrients you’re taking in.
“In general, taking a trustworthy multivitamin pill daily is good,” Dr. Jeste says. “One does need to pay special attention to calcium, iron, and lots of fiber.”
Dr. Jeste notes that omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin E are often useful for brain health, though the exact amounts recommended vary — and not everything you hear about vitamins is necessarily ironclad. “Vitamin D has received a lot of publicity, but some of the claims are not fact-based,” he pointed out. “For years, it has been viewed as a popular supplement to address everything from mood disorders to heart disease prevention. New research suggests, however, that it may not be as useful for a number of these ailments as it was initially thought to be.”
This doesn’t mean that you should ignore Vitamin D altogether, Dr. Jeste says, so much as it should be a reminder that a single vitamin can’t be a catch-all solution for your health.
How eating can help you live longer — and where the limits are on nutrition and aging
Laura Carstensen, Ph.D., is the founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity and the principal investigator for the Stanford Life-Span Development Laboratory, and if you ask her what diet is the “best,” she’s quick to argue that most studies on the topic are not worth taking seriously to begin with.
“Right now, we only know a couple things for sure in the field of nutrition,” Dr. Carstensen says. “We know it matters, of course,” she adds with a laugh, “but not much beyond that. Most of our studies of diets are inherently really flawed.”
So why are these studies so flawed? Dr. Carstensen explains, “We’re not very good at reporting the size and the amounts of what we eat, and virtually all nutrition studies rely on self-reported information. So you should always keep that in mind: Unless the study researchers lock participants in a hospital and keep them there for six months and monitor everything they eat, you’re not going to have a very accurate nutrition study.”
Still, Dr. Carstensen acknowledges, there are certain diets she would recommend over others, based on admittedly imperfect research.
“Right now it looks like eating a Mediterranean diet sounds really good,” she says. “I don’t know anybody who thinks that’s a bad idea.”
Why the Mediterranean diet is your best bet for living longer through nutrition
When it comes to eating for longevity, “the most effective advice is the simplest,” says Elissa Epel, Ph.D., an American health psychologist and director of the University of California, San Francisco’s Aging, Metabolism, and Emotion Center. “Try to eat whole foods and aim for the Mediterranean diet. This is the diet linked to longevity in most studies.”
People talk a lot about the Mediterranean diet — but what does it entail, exactly? A major emphasis on fish, healthy fats, and more (we have a full list below).
If you prefer a simple, straightforward approach to nutrition, this diet could definitely be the one for you. One of its perks is that most Mediterranean dishes are extremely easy to prepare (is there anything easier than dropping a slice of salmon on a baking dish and shoving it in the oven?), and it doesn’t make dining at restaurants a non-starter. After all, plenty of eateries have veggie or seafood-forward options that don’t sacrifice flavor.
If you want to get started, this Mediterranean chickpea salad recipe is sure to make your tastebuds smile.
Foods to eat to live longer
We understand all this expert insight might be a lot to digest (pun intended), so while we remind you once more that there’s no surefire strategy for eating your way to a longer life, here’s a recap of the foods our researchers most highly recommend.
Prioritize food rich in the vitamins mentioned above.
As for omega-3’s, here’s a list of foods that are rich in fatty acids:
- Fatty fish like salmon
- Walnuts
- Chia seeds
- Flaxseeds
For vitamin E, try these foods:
- Peanut butter
- Pumpkin
- Red bell peppers
- Almonds
- Other plant-based oils and nuts
For the Mediterranean diet, prioritize plant-based foods and healthy fats:
- A lot of fish (especially those rich in omega-3 fatty acids)
- A healthy daily dose of nuts
- Whole grains
- Veggies
- Olive oil
At the end of the day, don’t be afraid to personalize your approach to eating. Dr. Jeste has spent decades studying people as they grow older, with a goal of learning what it takes to “successfully age” — and what he’s learned is that personalization is everything.
“There have been lots of diet books that say that those diets will help everyone to live to 100 years,” he says. “Unfortunately, this is not true. The type of diet to choose depends on each person’s health needs as well as practical reality, such as cost and availability.”
“The single most important principle is to consult your own doctor,” Dr. Jeste emphasizes. “Something that worked wonders for one person can be toxic to another.”
Want more wisdom about living your longest life? Catch up on our full longevity series right here, featuring advice on nutrition, fitness, mental health, and more — and subscribe to Wake-Up Call to stay in the loop as our reporting continues.
