Athena, Holding Your Hair, Whispering In Your Ear

For me a few are enough, one is enough, none is enough. This is not for the many, but for you. We are audience enough for each other.

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The book is packaged in a way that makes it look like yet another unnecessary diet book, which is regrettable because it's actually a nicely written overview of the relationship between diet and longevity drawing on a wide variety of available scientific information, including some of the author's original research. While the book does include some dietary recommendations, they're relatively free-form (although there is a sample menu in the back).

Marketing problems aside, the book does a good job of collating a lot of disparate information, which is nice because it's hard to do scientific studies on diet and lifespan because of the timescales involved. As a result, the book picks its way through the available studies and basic research, but supplements with epidemiological data and studies of centenarians.

The ultimate recommendations are, in some respects, not particularly surprising: in terms of food choices, the "Longevity Diet" is very similar to the "Mediterranean Diet" already recommended for treatment of heart disease. It's a mostly vegetarian diet supplemented with seafood a few times a week, focusing on good fats, and avoiding overconsumption of protein.

Much more novel is the discussion of the author's scientific research into the effects of fasting. Through trials, the author discovered that periodic fasting has a variety of health and longevity benefits that can, for example, improve metabolic syndrome and help mitigate the side effects of chemotherapy for cancer patients. Even more interesting, was that the author's trials suggest that the same health benefits can be achieved by eating a specially formulated diet¹ that provides less than half of your normal calories for five days in a row, a few times a year (the so-called "fasting mimicking diet" or FMD).

The idea of a potentially beneficial diet intervention that can be done a few times a year and that isn't intended to be sustained (or sustainable) struck me as an interesting idea. I was interested enough to give the FMD a try earlier this year, although I "homebrewed" the food instead of ordering a kit. It was challenging at first, but not so bad by the end. After it ended, I initially felt pretty great, and I definitely saw improvements in the metrics I track (reduced blood pressure, weight, etc.)

But two months later--eating normally again--I can't say I feel much differently than I did pre-FMD. On most of the measures that I track things are about back to where they were pre-FMD, although surprisingly, I am still consistently down about two or three pounds. In fairness, the clinical protocol wasn't one and done like I did. He had folks do it three times, one month apart and then twice a year thereafter, so I didn't exactly do it "by the book." I may give it a try again later this year and see how I feel after a second round. If nothing else, should the weight loss proves durable, it might be worth doing once a year just to help counteract the normal age-related weight gain.

The book is an interesting read in any case, and approaches dietary questions from a pretty different lens. The author is generally relatively sober in his commentary, although he occasionally seems to overreach his evidence. To his credit, he also acknowledges when he's out on a limb. Recommended to anyone interested in diet or longevity.