Some researchers attempted to assign set amounts of time to certain foods that could help hack your diet and prolong your life.
The idea that some foods can extend your life expectancy goes back millennia, but there's no silver bullet when it comes to our diet.
Our diet is far more complex than single foods, and it's a combination of many different foods, each of which have thousands of chemicals in each food, which interact with the other foods and other chemicals in the meal to really modulate their health effects.
Processed meat and sodium in a standard hot dog can reduce life expectancy by 36 minutes. Other harmful foods include bacon, pizza, and cheeseburgers.
Seafood and nut butter can add to life expectancy due to healthy fats and protein. Food quality, not calories, is crucial for health effects.
Vegetable pizza has a near neutral effect on life expectancy. A typical Western diet is high in processed foods, red meats, and low in fruits and vegetables.
An optimized diet includes more legumes, pulses, whole grains, and less meat. A feasibility approach diet offers a middle ground for a better diet.
Transitioning to an optimal diet may depend on age and feasibility, considering cost, taste, and cultural preferences.
According to Dr. Sarah Berry, adopting a healthy diet at any age can significantly improve life expectancy, with potential gains of 10 years if adopted at 20 and 8 years if adopted at 60.
Dr. Sarah Berry emphasizes that it's never too late to make a change to one's diet, and this applies to various lifestyle factors like exercise and smoking as well.
Jonathan Wolff expresses skepticism about research on individual foods' impact on lifespan, while Dr. Sarah Berry highlights the empowering aspect of ranking foods based on their health effects for personalized dietary choices.
Dr. Sarah Berry explains that switching to healthier foods can have immediate impacts on energy, hunger, and alertness, and can also affect blood physiology within hours.
She further explains that improvements in blood cholesterol can be seen in as little as two weeks, while changes in blood pressure and insulin sensitivity can be observed in about six weeks when transitioning to a healthier diet.
In conclusion, both Jonathan Wolff and Dr. Sarah Berry affirm that it's possible to reverse the damage caused by previous dietary habits by making small, sustainable changes to one's diet.