Is it possible to get healthier as you get older? Dr. Michael Greger knows how and why that’s possible. He visits with us to discuss his new book How Not to Age: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier as You Get Older.

Dr. Greger joins us from Maryland.

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Michael Greger, M.D. FACLM is a physician, New York Times best-selling author, and internationally recognized professional speaker on a number of important public health issues. Dr. Greger has lectured at the Conference on World Affairs, the National Institutes of Health, and the International Bird Flu Summit, among countless other symposia and institutions; testified before Congress; has appeared on shows such as The Colbert Report; and was invited as an expert witness in defense of Oprah Winfrey at the infamous “meat defamation” trial. In 2017, he was honored with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine with its Lifestyle Medicine Trailblazer Award.

Dr. Greger’s most recent scientific publications in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Critical Reviews in Microbiology, Family and Community Health, and the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition, and Public Health explore the public health implications of industrialized animal agriculture.

Dr. Greger is also licensed as a general practitioner specializing in clinical nutrition and is a founding member and Fellow of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. He was featured on the Healthy Living Channel promoting his latest nutrition DVDs and honored to teach part of Dr. T. Colin Campbell’s esteemed nutrition course at Cornell University. Dr. Greger’s nutrition work can be found at NutritionFacts.org, which is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit charity.

Four of his books — How Not to Die, The How Not to Die Cookbook, How Not to Diet, and How Not to Age — became instant New York Times Best Sellers. He is also the author of Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching and Carbophobia: The Scary Truth Behind America’s Low Carb Craze. Dr. Greger is a graduate of the Cornell University School of Agriculture and the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Dr. Greger is proud to be a Council of Directors member of the global voice for lifestyle as medicine, the True Health Initiative (THI). This is a growing coalition of more than 360 world experts representing 35 countries. It is an unprecedented assembly that includes physicians, university Deans, former Surgeon Generals, Olympic athletes, chefs, environmental professionals and a diverse group of nutritionists. Together they offer clarity over confusion and support the foundational principles of healthy eating and healthy living.

All speaking fees and proceeds Dr. Greger receives from the sale of his books and DVDs are donated to charity.

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For More on Michael Greger, M.D.

How Not to Age: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier as You Get Older

How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease

NutritionFacts.org

The Daily Dozen

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Wise Quotes

On What Motivates Him

“NutritionFacts.org is a free nonprofit science-based public service providing daily updates on latest in nutrition research via bite-sized videos, about 2000 videos on the every aspect of healthy eating with new videos and articles uploaded to every day. And the latest in evidence-based nutrition. What a concept. No ads, no corporate sponsorship, not selling anything. Just put it up as a public service. Nutrition facts.org actually put it up as a really as tribute to my grandmother, which is how I got involved in the first place. I was just a kid when my grandma was sent home in a wheelchair to die. She had end-state heart disease, already had so many bypass surgeries. She basically run out of plumbing at some point, could find a wheelchair crushing chest pain. Her life was over at age 65. Then she heard about this guy, Nathan Pritikin, one of our early lifestyle medicine pioneers.

And what happened next is actually detailed in Pritikin’s biography. They talk about Francis Greger, my grandmother. They wheeled her in and she walked out. Though she was given her medical death sense at age 65, thanks to a healthy diet, was able to enjoy another 31 years on this planet until age 96 to continue to enjoy six grandkids, including me. That’s why I went into medicine. That’s why I practiced lifestyle medicine, why I started nutrition facts.org, why I wrote the book, how Not to Die, why all the proceeds from all the sales of my books are donated directly to charity. I just want to do for everyone’s family what Pritikin did for my family.

On Aging

“Well, it turns out that age is a significant risk factor for many of our chronic disease killers. Not just Alzheimer’s, but also heart disease and stroke, etc. So instead of just playing whack-a-mole, by treating each of these diseases separately, by slowing down aging, we may be able to slow down the occurrence of all these diseases. If all of cancer was eliminated tomorrow, it would really only add a few years to the average lifespan. In terms of lifespan, eating a burger appears to cut one’s life as short as smoking two cigarettes. So if it wouldn’t even occur to us to light up before and after lunch, maybe we should choose the bean burrito instead. If you didn’t die of a heart attack is because you died of cancer a month before. If you hadn’t died of cancer, you would have just dropped dead of a heart attack. So that’s why it’s important to slow the aging process, to slow the appearance of these age -related diseases across the board.

On Lifestyle Choices

According to studies of identical twins, only about 25% of the difference in lifespan between individuals is due to genetics, so for what we can do over the majority, we may have some control. We can turn to the Blue Zones, these areas of exceptional longevity around the world where they may have up to 10 times the rate of those reaching triple digits. And what do they share in common? They have healthy lifestyle behaviors such as daily exercise and not smoking. But the most important component appears to be their diet. And so the series of Blue Zone dietary guidelines that have been recommended, basically they center the diets are on whole plant foods. And so they are minimizing the intake of processed foods, meat, dairy, sugar, eggs, and salt, while maximizing fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, which are beans, peas, chickpeas and lentils, nuts and seeds and spices, mushrooms, basically real foods that grows out of the ground. These are our healthiest choices.”

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