{"id":426292,"date":"2026-01-20T21:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T21:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/426292\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T21:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T21:32:12","slug":"whats-the-best-diet-for-longevity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/426292\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s the Best Diet for Longevity?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story is from Manual, GQ\u2019s flagship newsletter offering useful advice on style, health, and more, four days a week. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.<\/a><\/p>\n

Hacking one\u2019s health in the name of longevity can often lead to an unyielding assortment of trends, takes, and tips each one more unaligned with each other. Do a cold plunge. Sit in a sauna. Walk 10,000 steps a day. Bryan Johnson, leader of the Don\u2019t Die regime<\/a>, pops supplements like candy\u2014but, of course, he\u2019s not eating any candy.<\/p>\n

When it comes to eating, and specifically how what we eat affects how long we live, the information out there regarding any links between diet and longevity can be equally conflicting. Some people will tell you to eat lots of meat. Others are on record saying that isn\u2019t exactly the case. (\u201cMeat is like radiation,\u201d Walter Willett, a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health nutrition researcher, once said<\/a>. \u201cWe don\u2019t know the safe level.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Walter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California, even spells out precisely what to do if you want to live a long time. It\u2019s right there on his website<\/a>, where the first line reads, \u201cEat mostly vegan.\u201d Protein intake<\/a>? Low. When to eat<\/a>? Stick to a fasting diet<\/a>, confining all meals between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.<\/p>\n

What, you might ask, are we supposed to do then, if the idea is to optimize a diet in the name of our health so that we can live a long, healthy life?<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly there is no one-size-fits-all diet that\u2019s best for everyone,\u201d says Dr. Frank Hu, Harvard professor of nutrition and epidemiology. \u201cThe good news is there are different patterns that can help prevent chronic disease and improve longevity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keep It Real<\/p>\n

By far, the overarching principle across all diets, if you\u2019re looking to live a long life mostly free of disease, should be the elimination of ultraprocessed foods<\/a>. Packaged snacks, cookies, fast-food burgers, soda\u2014all are examples of the sort of food that will do more harm to your body, regardless of how good a sleeve of chocolate chip cookies might taste in the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cNowadays ultraprocessed foods are everywhere and ubiquitous in our food supply, but they\u2019re very high in sugar, sodium, and unhealthy fats,\u201d says Hu.<\/p>\n

Visit the Old Country<\/p>\n

The Mediterranean Diet<\/a> is commonly promoted as one of the best diets out there for preventing chronic disease and preserving cardiac health. Limiting the intake of dairy products while upping the amount of fish and foods high in omega-3s, are two guidelines of the diet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the diet\u2019s other key feature is paying attention to the types of fats and carbs you eat as opposed to eliminating them entirely. Consuming extra virgin olive oil is a big part of eating like you\u2019re in Italy. \u201cIt\u2019s not just beneficial in terms of lowering your cholesterol,\u201d Hu says. \u201cIt may prevent other chronic diseases, like dementia or Alzheimer\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Red meat doesn\u2019t need to be totally eliminated<\/a>. If you\u2019re a person who likes cooking up a steak every now and then, keep it to something like a strip or a flank, which are both lean cuts that contain key nutrients like zinc, heme iron, and B vitamins.<\/p>\n

Go Blue<\/p>\n

Blue Zones around the world\u2014Okinawa and Sardinia, for instance\u2014are famed for the exceptionally long lives of their inhabitants. People there, who tend to get regular physical exercise and lead rich social lives, are known for living well past 80. Their diets are generally a 95-5 split. That is, just 5 percent of their meals contain any animal protein, while 95 percent of their diets<\/a> are composed of plant-based foods. In Loma Linda, California, where more people 100-plus years old live than anywhere else in the world, vegetarian diets are in<\/a>, and alcohol is out<\/a>. So is caffeine<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story is from Manual, GQ\u2019s flagship newsletter offering useful advice on style, health, and more, four days…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[64,63,1295,137,532,1671,1672,537],"class_list":{"0":"post-426292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-food","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-nutrition","13":"tag-textbelowcenterfullbleed","14":"tag-web","15":"tag-wellness"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}