A diet that reverses your age

  • Proof at last that you really can reverse your biological age – and in just eight weeks, too
  • Eat these ten things this week to make it happen 
  • Why you need to eat more than one kind of mushroom

How old are you?

I don’t mean your chronological age.

That’s just a number!

Far more important is your biological age – that’s the one that really counts when it all comes down to it.

And those numbers could be significantly different.

For instance, you could have two 40-year-olds, one with a biological age of 30 and another with a biological age of 50.

That’s quite a disparity!

And by the way, biological age is not an estimation – it’s actually very measurable, using a process called DNA methylation.

But unlike chronological age, which marches upwards at a steady rate, regardless of what you do…

Your biological age can be manipulated.

In fact, you can even make it go backwards.

This is something that naturopaths and nutritionists have been claiming for years – sometimes to sneers and scepticism.

But in June this year, there was ground-breaking research that went a good way towards proving it.

It was published in the journal Aging and authored by Dr Kara Fitzgerald from the Institute for Functional Medicine in Washington, USA.

They took a group of men between 50 and 72, then put them on a mainly plant-based diet, without processed foods or alcohol, for two months.

The key ingredients in the diet were leafy green vegetables, cruciferous vegetables and berries.

The result was a 3.23 year reduction in biological age over 2 months – not bad!

She acknowledges that hers is “the first and only randomised, controlled and peer-reviewed clinical trial to show that diet and lifestyle changes can bring immediate and rapid reduction in biological age.”

Of course, you KNOW that fruit and veg are healthy.

But how precisely can you tailor your diet to start reversing your biological age?

Well, Dr Kara Fitzgerald has some specific tips that I thought I’d pass on.

A nutritional scientist’s age-reversal diet

Each week, try and eat these ten things…

  • 2 daily portions of dark leafy greens (kale, spinach, Swiss chard)
  • 2 servings of cruciferous vegetables per day (broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy)
  • Half a teaspoon of turmeric every day, ideally mixed with black pepper (piperine) for absorption – we have a supplement that makes this really easy – take a look here or find out even more about using spices for good health in my book The Spice Healer, which you can get from here
  • 2 cups of green tea per day – this helps with DNA methylation regulation
  • Half a teaspoon of rosemary regularly added to meals (rosmarinic acid can have gene-balancing effects)
  • 2 garlic cloves per day, raw or cooked – this acts as a prebiotic, helping your gut health – there are also a huge number of other benefits which you can read about in my book The Honey, Garlic and Vinegar Miracle
  • 1 apple a day (or you could try avocados, clementines and tangerines)
  • 1 handful of berries, rich in anthocyanins and antioxidants
  • 5-10 eggs per week (helps keep your cells healthy)
  • 4 tablespoons worth of seeds every day (pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds)

I think this is actually pretty achievable – the only difficulty for most people being the four portions of veg (two portions of dark leafy veg plus two cruciferous).

Reason being is that in the UK diet we tend to have vegetables with our evening meal and usually that’s often two or three types of veg at most (if you don’t include potatoes).

One solution is to create a lunchtime regime when you eat a green soup rich in green veg, which can count as two or your daily portions.

The fruit is something you could have for breakfast every morning – berries and an apple, for instance, with some yoghurt and a handful of seeds as a topping would tick off two major ingredients in one fell swoop.

There’s one more food that Dr Fitzgerald recommends you eat more of…

The power of mushrooms

She thinks that one of the most powerful age reversal foods is the mushroom.

These are what she calls “rock star methyl donors” which are packed with nutrients and can massively help prevent biological ageing.

But importantly, we should eat a variety of them, she says, to get a good spread of nutrients.

Here are five that I recommend:

  • Maitake mushroom – helps your immune system respond better to stress. It can also help ease chronic fatigue, lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
  • Reishi mushroom – the most effective mushroom for managing inflammation.
  • Shiitake mushrooms – known to lower cholesterol levels and can help fight infection.
  • Lion’s Mane mushroom – this boosts the immune system by encouraging beneficial gut bacteria. It can improve your digestion but also your memory, focus and concentration.
  • Chaga mushroom – helps reduce inflammation and has antioxidant and immune supporting properties.

These are all included in our mushroom complex supplement, which makes it very easy and convenient to get a variety of mushrooms into your weekly diet – you can order some from our shop here while stocks last: Multi-Mushroom Complex

Anyway, if you give this age reversal diet a go, make sure you stick with it for at least eight weeks to get significant results!

And as always, the more you can cut out processed foods and sugars, the more effective it will be.

Cutting down alcohol and doing some walking, swimming or gentle workouts will help too.

You might not be able to measure your actual biological age at the end of it (unless you have advanced knowledge of DNA methylation) but you can at least know that you’re turning the tide in the right direction!