Saul Justin Newman
Appearances
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
So I think this probably goes back to the dawn of our species. Throughout the centuries, there have always been diet and health gurus and doctors who promoted different foods. And so human beings have always known instinctively that there's some connection between what we eat and how we feel and how healthy we are. That goes back at least thousands of years, if not longer.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
We know in the United States that certainly throughout the past century, there have been diet gurus who promoted things like the low carb diet and the paleo diet and the South Beach diet, the low fat diet. These often start with people, sometimes doctors, sometimes just everyday people who decide that they know the foods or the diet that are going to help us live a longer, healthier life.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
And the interesting thing is that I started researching this years ago, and I noticed that a lot of these diet gurus actually tend to die prematurely. So you look, for example, there was a famous guy named Jerome Rodale, and you might recognize that last name. He helped to pioneer
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
the organic food movement in the United States in the 50s, 60s and 70s and promoted the idea that organic foods are going to make you healthier, help you live longer. He famously went on the Dick Cavett show in the early 70s and was bragging about how healthy he was because of his diet and told Dick Cavett he was going to live to be 100 and was
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
you know, saying that he had just fallen down a flight of stairs and he laughed all the way down as he was falling down the steps. You know, he was 72 at the time and he said, I'm going to live to be 100 unless I'm quote unquote run down by some sugar crazed taxi driver. And Cabot was really enamored of this. And then they go to break and then they heard
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Jerome Rodale, who's sitting on the couch next to him, make a sort of snoring sound. It turns out he had had a heart attack right there on the couch moments after bragging about how he was going to live to 100 and died, sadly. But that show never aired for obvious reasons.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
So there are so many nowadays, and I think there's something special about this idea that your diet can improve your health because people find it very empowering. And we know there's this connection between food and your health. And if you just make the right choices, then you will hit the longevity lottery.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
And so the popular diets today would be certainly the keto diet, which is the diet that Atkins famously promoted.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
It's very low carb, tends to be very high in fat and also protein.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
There's the vegan diet, which of course is no animal-based foods. It's all plant-based foods. There is the paleo diet, which supposedly is a diet that our ancestors ate. And so people who follow this diet think, well, these are the foods that we evolved to eat. So if you just eat these foods and avoid the processed foods and the packaged foods that there are today, then you'll be healthier.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Get in touch with the caveman inside. A paleolithic diet seriously reduces your risk for diabetes. Intermittent fasting has been a very big diet trend, very buzzy, something that a lot of people here in the tech community in the Bay Area love to follow.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
A big buzzword in the diet space today is ultra-processed foods, and these are the packaged foods with lots of additives and, you know, sugar and fat.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
I tend to follow a diet where I get a lot of whole foods. I try to avoid ultra-processed foods, but not always. I also have two little kids, so they tend to dictate our shopping and purchasing patterns. But I try to eat foods that are high in protein because I know that promotes satiety, also helps to promote weight loss. generally good for your health.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Avoid the ultra-processed foods with lots of additives and high in sugar and fat and salt. And try to eat sort of a Mediterranean kind of diet, a diet that has a lot of unsaturated fats. So things like olive oil, nuts, seeds, seafood. I like fermented foods like yogurt and kimchi and sauerkraut because these foods have probiotics, which are the friendly bacteria that help your gut microbiome.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Absolutely. Blue zones have been very influential in the nutrition and lifestyle medicine space. So the idea behind blue zones is that these are sort of pockets around the world where people have food. an unusually long lifespan compared to others. And it's thought that this is because of the different lifestyle habits they follow.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
The diets they follow, which are supposedly plant-based with lots of fiber, lots of unsaturated fats, very little red meat, supposedly, according to the Blue Zones book. But this idea has become really controversial lately. And there's some accusations that it's basically a mirage.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
Gosh, it's because nutrition science is so hard to do. Because if you want to do a study, for example, to answer this question, what is the diet that is going to help people live the longest? To do that study, you would have to recruit a large group of people, probably at least 1,000, 2,000 people, split them into groups. Ideally,
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
from a very young age and have them strictly follow different diets, a vegan diet, a Mediterranean diet, a low carb diet, and just make sure they're eating all those specific foods. But we eat several times a day and we get cravings and we live in a world where there's so much food marketing and advertising and
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
We go to grocery stores where there are literally thousands and thousands of different food items we can buy. And so to do this study rigorously, you'd have to, you know, ideally actually give people the meals they're supposed to eat. You have to follow these people closely, make sure they're eating the foods. You have to look at their medical records.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
You have to follow them for years, if not decades, and see how these diets are impacting, you know, their lifespan. And that's just almost impossible.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
It's really hard to predict what's going to be next. There's always something new and people are so tantalized by these diet gurus and health gurus who say, aha, I have found the secret. I know the magic sauce. You know, if you just eat these foods, you'll be healthier. You'll live a longer life. I think people like having access to that special knowledge. It's very empowering.
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
And oftentimes they will go on these new diets and feel better and think, aha, you know, they start writing about it on Twitter and on social media and putting out TikTok videos. Oh, I'm just eating this food and look, I've lost weight. It's been amazing. But part of the reality is that almost any diet
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
is going to be better than the standard american diet so diet gurus are always pointing to say look these studies found that people lost this much weight on a vegan diet these studies show that low carb diet was better or these studies show that a paleo diet was so great for diabetes well yeah that's oftentimes because they're comparing this particular diet to the standard american diet that people are eating which we know is terrible for you because
Today, Explained
A live-forever diet?
We can see what's happened to obesity and chronic disease rates in the past, you know, four or five decades. So almost any diet you follow that's not the standard American diet is going to be better for you.