LiveLongAgeWell

Today I’m posting a chapter from my  book-in-progress: How To Drop Dead Dancing In Your 90s….here is Part I of GREENS!

Kale. Collards. Mustard Greens. Beet Greens. Dandelion Greens. Swiss Chard. Spinach. All “greens”, and, except for spinach, they are foreign to most American diets. Despite having a taste that many might also regard as foreign—too strong, even bitter—to increase your odds of dancing into your 90s you should move beyond salad and the more conventional vegetables and start adding these more exotic  “greens” into your routine.

Taste bud research suggests some people are genetically programmed to despise the taste of greens, and if that includes you, try making an extra effort, because these are the vegetable superstars. Some nutritionists feel they have more value per calorie than any other food.
Perhaps greens have such a distinctive taste because they are so primitive. Unchanged for thousands of years, originally from Asia and Africa, hearty and easy-to-grow kale was among the first vegetables brought by the colonists to the New World. Later, American slaves popularized collards, and greens became part of “soul food”. Unfortunately they were often considered throwaways—vegetables for poor people—until scientists discovered that they were actually so nutritionally rich, and now greens are enjoying a renaissance.

They are full of fiber and low in calories, bursting with vitamins A and C, iron, calcium and various other minerals, and those mysterious “phytochemicals” such as lutein and the more impressively named zeaxanthin; these are the most exciting components in greens, the substances that protect our cells from cancer, age-related vision problems, and maybe dementia. An extra benefit: many American diets are deficient in vitamin K, and greens are the absolute best natural source for this vitamin.

Like most vegetables, adding greens to your diet will help keep your cardiovascular system healthy, and lower your risk of stroke. But greens are much more potent—studies suggest that a green-rich diet is associated with a significantly lower risk of lung, breast, ovary, colon, and bladder cancer. Most research indicates about a 20 to 50 percent lower risk of these cancers in people who eat lots of greens. The mechanism seems to be that the phytochemicals trigger a genetic signal that stimulates the activity of detoxifying enzymes in our liver, so carcinogens are neutralized before doing damage.

Scientists (and drug companies) are working furiously to treat osteoporosis, and along with the importance of calcium and vitamin D, vitamin K is a new star for keeping our bones strong. The Framingham Heart Study showed that those with the highest vitamin K intake had a 65% decreased risk of hip fractures! If true, eating a good amount of greens certainly is a much cheaper and safer and perhaps a more effective way, compared with medications, to lower your risk of disabling bone fractures. And, as we will discuss further in the PROTECT chapter, greens intake probably dramatically cut the risk of cataracts and macular degeneration (the most common form of age-related vision loss).

Next: Greens, Part II

When a new patient walked into my office I would occasionally test myself, and try to guess just by looking at her face if she was a smoker or not. Usually I was right, and I could tell by looking for vertical wrinkles around the mouth, typically much more pronounced in a smoker. Why is that? Why should smokers have more wrinkles?

For skin to look good and alive, it needs to be nourished by the blood vessels that feed it. These vessels are the pipes that send fresh blood, oxygen, and nutrients to the skin, and then carry away the bad stuff. But in a smoker, the small blood vessels that feed the skin get irritated and inflamed from the cigarette toxins, and when the vessel walls get irritated, cholesterol can more easily stick to the inflamed surface. So like a pipe filled with any sort of crud, the flow of oxygen and nutrients decreases, and the skin basically loses its elasticity and slowly dies.

The same thing is happening to the smoker’s blood vessels that feed the heart and the brain, and everywhere else in the body. We just don’t see the pipe build-up problem like we do in the skin. In the heart the smoker can experience angina (heart pain) or a heart attack. In the brain, the smoker loses brain cells faster, and are more prone to a stroke. In the penis, since a firm erection depends on good blood flow to your organ, even if you aren’t impotent, your erections won’t be as good.

Besides wrinkles, a few more reasons smokers tend to age much faster:

•    The smoke slowly kills your lung capacity, so if you DO manage to get to an old age as a smoker (note that smokers live an average of 13 to 14 years less than non-smokers), you won’t be able to handle athletic activities well; even climbing stairs might become a chore. Bad lungs severely limit your ability for fun, and there’s no cure at all. Carrying an oxygen tank is a big hassle.

•    Smoking ruins your breath, stains and loosens your teeth.

•    Smokers have a much higher rate of osteoporosis and bone fracture.

•    The risk of that much advertised affliction, ED, or erectile dysfunction, is about 50% greater in smokers.

•    Smokers are twice as likely to get macular degeneration, a common form of blindness, as well as cataracts.

•    Many plastic surgeons will refuse to operate on smokers, because they heal from surgery so much worse, and have a much higher complication rate.

•    Yes, smoking can keep your weight down somewhat, but there are better ways, and is being a little thinner worth all the negatives, and let us include: a higher risk of baldness for men and for women, increased breast cancer and a two times higher risk of cervical cancer?

Last post I gave some background information on coffee, and today I am offering some practical pointers on how to maximize the health benefits of coffee. This is from my upcoming book How To Drop Dead Dancing In Your 90s: Live Long Age Well. If you have any thoughts or comments about coffee drinking and health, please leave a comment! In the meantime, I suggest you grab a cup and read on…

• Choose caffeinated coffee if you can, because it has greater health benefits as far as decreasing your risk of Parkinson’s disease and diabetes, and caffeine tends to increase your HDL (good) cholesterol. Decaffeinated coffee can raise your cholesterol level. If you cannot tolerate much caffeine, try caffeinated in the morning, and decaf later in the day. If that’s still too much caffeine, at least limit your decaf to one to two cups per day. If you drink decaf, buy high-quality, water-processed decaf that has been prepared through a filter (not the espresso style).

• The ideal healthy amount of caffeinated coffee is one to four cups per day, ideally two to three, spaced throughout the day to avoid caffeine rebound when the coffee jolt wears off.  If coffee keeps you up at night, try drinking earlier in the day before resorting to decaf. When you consider “bad health behaviors”, drinking more than four cups a day is not so bad, but if you drink a lot, you are more likely to become caffeine addicted (one of the easier addictions to beat if needed), and you need to keep an eye on your blood pressure. If you get jittery or notice heart palpitations, cut back.

• If you often drink “fancy” coffee drinks, think about the calories. If you order one of the über-marketed (whatever)-ccinos, you could ingesting over 500 calories in that one tasty drink. (Hint: be suspicious of any drink that has the ® symbol…it’s probably full of unhealthy calories.)  If you drink a ® coffee regularly, probably you have moved coffee from something healthy to something that could make you fat and harm your heart.

• Filtered coffee or percolated or instant is the healthiest. Less healthy is French press, boiled, and (unfortunately) the espresso types, because those styles, taken as an espresso, or mixed into a latte or cappuccino and into any number of other chic-ccinos, can increase your cholesterol. A coffee filter removes harmful chemicals that naturally are found in coffee (such as kahweol and cafestol), and espresso drinks are not filtered.  Of course once in a while it’s fine to drink espresso or lattes or cappuccinos, but for your basic coffee, remember that regular filtered coffee is healthiest. If you want to be both chic and healthy when you order, ask for a “Caffé Misto” or “Café au Lait” (filtered coffee with steamed milk). You can still use the French name, but the barista should make your drink with filtered coffee rather than the less-healthy espresso type.

• Coffee and osteoporosis: if you take enough calcium in your diet, 1000 to 1200 mg. per day, you probably don’t have to worry about coffee lowering your calcium level. But if you have a concern about bone thinning, take your coffee with milk or better, soy or skim milk, and if you have a serious issue, talk to your doctor. If you are pregnant or lactating, many doctors feel a cup of coffee is probably OK, but discuss with your physician.

• If you have high or borderline blood pressure, occasionally check your pressure after coffee. If you have coronary artery disease (narrowed blood vessels in the arteries of your heart), you should wait an hour after drinking coffee before doing significant exercise.

• For some reason I don’t understand, anti-oxidants have the nasty tendency to stain your teeth... nothing is perfect.  But be careful—coffee can ruin your smile, so swish water after drinking to avoid the un-sexy dark teeth look. Or chew a stick of sugar-free gum (especially good is gum with xylitol) after coffee to freshen your breath and keep your teeth white.