We all know someone with a fast metabolism. Or at least we think we do.

They have a voracious appetite and yet never seem to put on weight. Is it that some people genetically are predisposed to be fatter than others? Perhaps our hormones are to blame, the type of foods we eat, even our gut health.

There are certainly lots of competing theories for why some of us pile on the pounds, with corresponding diet advice.

And all of them are a distraction, at least according to Prof Keith Frayn, one of the world’s leading experts on metabolism. Having spent over 50 years studying metabolic health, he thinks we’ve made it all more complicated than it needs to be.

Instead of cutting out carbs, drinking kefir, or avoiding low-fat/full-fat (depending on which influencer guru you prefer), he wants us to strip our thinking right back to basics: calories in, calories out.

“Arguments against this energy balance model are simply distracting us from what must be done,” says the emeritus professor of human metabolism at the University of Oxford.

“I’m not denying there are genetic effects on body weight, but as far as we can tell they act by changing how much you eat. Not how much you burn off. I think people have to understand that.”

Are all proteins created equally? Doctor weighs in

His book, A Calorie is a Calorie: The Inescapable Science that Controls our Body Weight is a rigorous account of the science of energy balance, in which he dispels the myth that some people have faster metabolism than others.

If it’s an excuse you’ve ever used yourself, then that probably isn’t what you want to hear. As Prof Frayn adds: “I know this is probably an unpopular view, but I’ve come at it as a scientist. Not as a celebrity influencer.”

Why we really do need to eat less and move more

The energy balance model asserts that if we take in more energy than we expend, we will store the rest. Conversely if we expend more than we take in, our energy stores will be depleted, and hence our weight will fall.

However the theory has become unpopular. “People say it can’t be that simple, or else we wouldn’t be where we are,” says Prof Frayn.

This suspicion that the cause of the obesity epidemic must be more complicated than calories in and calories out has led scientists – and a host of social media influencers – to posit alternative theories.

Other weight loss theories

Cut carbs to lose weight

We’re often told to ditch the white bread and give rice a wide berth if we want to lose weight. The reasoning being that they quickly convert to sugar, which is then stored as fat. This so-called carbohydrate-insulin model has been widely promoted in recent years. Hence many of us worry about blood sugar spikes and follow-low carb diets.

However, Prof Frayn says: “I’m not convinced that spikes of blood sugar are bad for you. I don’t think there’s a lot of evidence for that, other than they make you hungry again more quickly. Whereas if you eat more unrefined fruit and vegetables they’re going to take longer to be processed and keep you full for longer.”

So it is not that carbohydrates are more likely to be laid down as fat, but rather they encourage you to eat more calories overall, affecting energy balance.

“A review of published studies has confirmed that low-carbohydrate diets help with weight loss because of reduced calorie intake rather than any specific effects of the lowering of carbohydrates,” he says.

Intermittent fasting makes you slimmer

Popularised by the late Dr Michael Mosley whose 5:2 diet proved immensely popular as a method for losing weight, the suggestion being that it would encourage a period of fat burn.

However research suggests that alternate-day fasting is about as effective as a typical low-calorie diet for weight loss.

“Time-restricted eating, intermittent fasting – so many of these ideas are just ways of altering energy intake: they do not change the underlying principle of energy balance,” says Prof Frayn.

Related to the concept of intermittent fasting is the idea that our gut microbiome influences our weight. Prof Tim Spector has also popularised the idea of giving your gut a rest so that it can work more efficiently.

There are clear observations to be made when you compare obese and lean people by looking at the microorganisms in their faeces, they have rather different populations. If obese people lose weight, it changes towards what we see in lean people.

“You can interpret that to say that the bacteria are causing them to become obese, but there is no proof of that,” says Prof Frayn. “We don’t have any experiment that would show that it is the different families of bacteria causing changes in body weight. It probably is so in mice, but mice are very different from humans.”

Dieting makes you fat

Can dieting damage your metabolism? If you believe in weight set point theory then you might believe that it does.

The theory suggests that when we diet after a time, our bodies will fight reduced calorie intake by dialling up hunger pangs and slowing down your metabolism to bring us back to our weight set point.

Prof Frayn does not find it a credible theory in the long term. “When you are on a restricted calorie intake, your energy expenditure does go down, that’s clear in starvation studies, and the question is how long that persists,” he says.

The evidence, he suggests, shows this slowing is only temporary. Prof Frayn cites data from the National Weight Control Registry database, an ongoing, observational study of individuals who have lost weight and kept it off. Analyses of the post-obese women found their body composition and energy expenditure was, in fact, very similar to those women who had never been overweight. This would not be the case if set-point theory was accurate.

“What people say is that it was hard, but the longer they are at a low weight, the easier it becomes. That’s partly because they get used to a different way of eating and they exercise more.”

UPFs are the devil

Barely a week goes by without a headline alerting us to the dangers of ultra-processed foods. Dr Chris van Tulleken, an author, NHS doctor and health broadcaster, is one such voice who believes they are driving obesity, thanks to their hyper-palatability.

Others suggest they might somehow be tricking us into eating more with their clever combinations of chemicals that override our satiety centres.

But is this really the case?

“My belief is that we don’t have evidence that it is anything other than they are high in calories and low in fibre, and therefore not filling enough,” says Prof Frayn. “The problem is that they are tasty and make you want to eat more.” Hence we eat more calories.

Getting back to calories in, calories out...

So how is it that some people can eat what they like, while the rest of us only have to look at a croissant before our thighs start expanding?

This, says Prof Frayn, is a fundamental mistruth. He cites the example of his two friends Bobby and Alex (names have been changed). Alex is large-framed and muscular, while Bobby is petite. When they talk about food, it seems that Bobby is the one who is continuously eating. Does it mean he has a fast metabolism? The answer, says Prof Frayn is, no. The truth is that Alex is under-reporting his true calorie intake.

‘So many of these ideas... do not change the underlying principle of energy balance,’ says Prof Frayn of popular weight loss methods - John Lawrence for The Telegraph

This is a problem that has confounded generations of scientists trying to study energy. Recent studies are finally showing just how unreliable we are at recording our own diets.

“You can find people who appear to eat very different amounts and yet they weigh the same. But when you bring them into the lab and study them it all disappears. It has to come down to the fact we’re not getting the information right about what they’re eating.”

...but not all foods are equal

When it comes to calories, some foods are denser than others. In 1992 when British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes and his companion Dr Mike Stroud attempted to reach the North Pole, they needed food that packed a calorific punch for its weight.

“They knew they would spend months pulling these heavy sledges and they knew they’d be expending a lot of energy and that they had to carry what they were taking. So it was ‘how do we maximise the amount of energy in those rations?’”

They did it by adding butter. To everything.

“If you add fat to things you will add energy to things without much weight. It creates very calorific foods,” explains Prof Frayn.

It means that if you want to lose weight, clearly trying to cut fat out of your diet might be useful.

Take the example of muesli, which Prof Frayn has for his breakfast. “If you look at the nutrition label on muesli and compare it to granola, you’ve added a good 50 calories with the latter [because of the added oils]. You’re just adding calories in the form of fat.”

One might argue it makes it tastier. And certainly if you don’t have a weight problem, go ahead and enjoy your granola. But in the Prof Frayn household, “it’s not worth the calories” is a well-used phrase.

Can fibre help cut calories?

Caloric density is not the only reason that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables is a sensible one.

There is strong evidence from observational studies, as well as clinical trials, that high dietary fibre intake is associated with lower body weight.

There may be several reasons for this, says Prof Frayn: “One is simply that dietary fibre is ‘filling’. It’s difficult to overeat when your plate is full of fibre-rich foods. Another effect of dietary fibre is that it interferes with our ability to digest nutrients. Adding fibre reduces the absorption of carbohydrates, fat and proteins.”

However, while you will excrete more calories in your faeces on a very high fibre diet, Prof Frayn says it should not be overstated: “I think there’s a lot of good reasons that we should increase our fibre intake but that’s probably because it fills you up. It probably does good things to your gut microflora but the effect on reducing the digestibility of the calories that you’re eating is really small.”

Protein advantage

Consuming one macronutrient does present an advantage in the energy balance model; protein.

“When we eat protein, the body will use what it needs to replenish its protein stores because we’re turning over proteins all the time. Anything else will be oxidised,” explains Prof Frayn.

“We don’t have a way of storing protein other than laying it down in our muscles and so on. And some people would describe it as a hierarchy of oxidation. Protein oxidises before carbohydrates and fat if you eat in excess.”

It also has this thermic effect. “When you eat a meal for a short while, your metabolic rate will be elevated as you process the food and digest it. And that’s slightly bigger for protein than it is for carbohydrates or fat. So you do burn off a few more calories.”

Although again, Prof Frayn says the effects should not be overstated. “It isn’t a huge effect”.

However if you are trying to lose weight you should opt for lean cuts. “Not burgers and fatty bacon. Protein sources like beans are even better because they’ve got more fibre.”

Exercise IS important

If that’s the ‘in’ taken care of, what of the ‘out’?

The role of exercise in weight loss has been underplayed in recent years, with diet doing most of the heavy lifting. Prof Frayn thinks that has been a big mistake.

Not only has our food environment dramatically changed, but so has our physical one.

“There are wonderful photographs from Oxford in the 1950s at the end of the working day at the big car factory, and the roads are just full of bicycles.”

Nowadays most people drive to work and they spend many more hours sitting, either at work or in front of the TV.

And we’re over-reporting our activity rates, too; adults in Britain think that they watch an average of less than 20 hours of television a week, or around three hours a day, but official statistics collected by the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB) show that the true average in 2010 was more than 30 hours a week, or over four hours a day.

“There’s been much downplaying of exercise, with people saying, ‘Oh you’ve got to exercise two hours to burn a biscuit off,’ but I don’t think that’s logical,” says Prof Frayn. “It is almost impossible to maintain your calorie balance unless you do some exercise.”

People who have more muscle burn more calories. But if you’re trying to lose weight by just restricting calories, then you will lose muscle mass as well.

Building up muscle might mean the rate of weight loss is a bit slower but it will help in the longer term. “It will help you keep it off once you’ve got it down,” notes Prof Frayn.

So why has exercise fallen out of favour amongst diet gurus?

“If I’m really honest I think there are people who don’t want to exercise and want to find reasons to say that it’s not really helpful.”

How to get your energy in balance

If there is one thing that Prof Frayn would like us all to be, it is to be more cynical, both about advice we read from celebrity influencers, and also about what others say they eat.

“You can’t judge somebody’s metabolism by a chat about what they tend to eat, or by watching them having their lunch,” he says.

As well as thinking about what we eat, Prof Frayn wants us to think about how we move. “Exercise is something special. We need to all do it if we possibly can. It does something to our calorie balance in a way that we might not even yet understand.”

Far from being daunting, remembering the energy balance model can be empowering. “There’s nothing wrong with having a treat now and then. It’s ultimately all about balance.”

Since 1989, Valter Longo has dedicated his research to understanding the factors that contribute to overall health and longevity. About 20 years ago, Longo returned to Italy where he grew up, seeking to better study the practices that have helped regions like Sardinia become home to some of the world's longest-living people.

Longo is the director of the Longevity and Cancer Laboratory at the IFOM Institute of Molecular Oncology in Milan, Italy. He is also the director of the Longevity Institute of the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California-Los Angeles.

"I do everything that I preach. I don't know if I [hit the target] all the way, but I certainly think it's good to try," Longo told CNBC Make It in 2024.

"I'd like to make it to 120. But whatever I get, it's okay. At least I'll have no regrets saying, 'Well, I didn't do all the right things.'"

Here are the key habits Longo recommends to his patients for staying healthy and living long, and that he also practices in his own life.

Italian longevity expert's 4 daily habits for a long, healthy life

1. Eat mostly plant-based foods

"I recommend what I call the longevity diet, which takes from lots of different things," Longo says. "Both the Okinawa diet and the Mediterranean diet."

To follow Longo's longevity diet, you should aim to eat in a way that aligns with these guidelines:

• Mainly vegan

• High vegetable intake, and a relatively low fruit intake

• Tree nuts

• Legumes

• Whole grains

• Fish three to four times a week

If you're between the ages of 20 and 70, he suggests eating "no red meat, no white meat, maybe two, three eggs a week, at most, very little cheese [and] very little animal-based products."

Studies show that eating in accordance with the Mediterranean diet (or as close to it as possible) may lower your likelihood of developing health conditions like Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

2. Fast for 12 hours a day

"I recommended 12 hours of fasting daily. Let's say you eat between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. or 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.," Longo says.

He also adheres to the fasting-mimicking diet, which was created by researchers, including Longo, at UCLA. The diet entails eating foods "high in unsaturated fats and low in overall calories, protein, and carbohydrates, and is designed to mimic the effects of a water-only fast while still providing necessary nutrients," according to the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

After fasting for five days, you should return to your normal diet for the rest of the month. The researchers tested the effects of the diet on participants who followed the fasting-mimicking diet every three to four months.

A 2024 study found an association between the fasting mimicking diet and a lower risk of cancer, heart conditions and diabetes in mice. Longo was the leading author of the paper.

3. Get 150 minutes of exercise a week, and walk often

Exercising for at least 150 minutes a week (2 hours and 30 minutes) can have a positive impact on your overall health, Longo says. This aligns with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' 2018 physical activity guidelines.

Having at least 50 minutes of that physical activity be strenuous exercise that challenges you, can lead to even more health benefits, he adds. Vigorous physical exercise includes running, jogging or going to a fitness class, according to HHS.

"On top of that, I add an hour a day of walking. Going up and down stairs. Be active in addition to the 150 minutes," Longo says.

"If you're going to the store, and the store is not too far away, walk. Some of these things have been abandoned, but they were very normal for the people that made it to 100 years of age."

4. Prioritize good sleep and positive mental health

"It's very important to sleep well," Longo says. Though he notes sleep medicine is not his area of expertise, he highlighted the importance of getting adequate sleep for overall wellness.

Some practices sleep experts recommend for a good night's rest include:

• Sticking to the same sleep time and wake time

• Developing a bedtime routine that helps your body wind down

• Scheduling naps before 2 p.m., and limit them to between 20 and 30 minutes long (if you enjoy napping)

• Keeping your bedroom between 60 and 68 degrees at night

Maintaining positive mental health is vital for longevity, too, Longo says. To stay positive, happiness expert Arthur C. Brooks suggests treating your happiness like an investment portfolio by prioritizing four areas: faith, family, friends and meaningful work.

"None of these things can make up happiness all on their own," Brooks said during his Harvard happiness course online. "They complement each other and exist in harmony."

We’d all like to live longer; at least, I would. But what about enjoying the time we have while we’re here and living healthier?

Over the past century, human life expectancy has dramatically increased for a variety of reasons. Chief among these are our advances in sanitation, public health, nutrition and medicine that have reduced mortality, especially in young people. As a result, many more people are able to reach older age.

According to Statistics Canada, in 2021, Canadians had a life expectancy of 81.6 years, which is a astonishing increase of 24.5 years since 1921. By the year 2050, it is projected that the number of people aged 85 years and older will triple.

The extension of life expectancy in the 20th century and beyond is one of humanity’s greatest achievements. However, it is crucial to draw a distinction between lifespan — the amount of time between birth and death — and healthspan, which is the amount of time during which a person is healthy within their lifespan. Older people are spending more time in poor health, and this represents a major individual and public health burden.

At an advanced age, the ability to maintain an independent lifestyle largely defines a person’s quality of life. As such, it’s not enough to merely extend life without a sufficiently long healthspan to accompany it. Our goals should therefore be to bring lifespan and healthspan as close together as possible.

The idea of extending healthspan is important because it challenges the idea that age-associated diseases are inevitable and can’t be mitigated or ablated.

Why muscle is important for extending healthspan

Beginning at around the fifth decade of life, muscle mass is lost at a rate of about one per cent per year, and strength at about three per cent per year. Exercise and optimal nutrition are two of our most important countermeasures against this.© (Shutterstock)

One major health challenge in the aging population is the decline in muscle mass, strength and function (otherwise known as sarcopenia), which can lead to functional impairment, loss of autonomy, metabolic disease and a greater risk of falls and fractures.

Alongside its role in posture and locomotion, muscle is a major contributor to resting metabolism, serving as an important reservoir of glucose (sugar) and lipids (fats). It also represents an important “buffer” of amino acids during periods of catabolic stress, such as that seen in critical illness. Markers of muscle health on admission to intensive care units are predictive of important outcomes like the number of ventilator-free days and mortality, and being older compounds this risk.

Beginning at around the fifth decade of life, muscle mass is lost at a rate of about one per cent per year, and strength at about three per cent per year. These reductions in mass and strength are typically interspersed with periods of muscle disuse (hospitalization and/or illness, for example) that accelerate losses in muscle mass and strength.

Even a relative reduction in walking activity (measured by a decline in daily step count) for as little as two or three weeks can bring about negative changes in body composition, reduced muscle strength and quality, anabolic resistance (an impaired ability to use dietary protein for muscle building), and disrupted blood glucose control in older people.

Given the fundamental role of muscle tissue in metabolic and general health, the maintenance of adequate muscle mass and quality has particular relevance for extending healthspan.

Skeletal muscle tissue is highly plastic: it remodels in accordance with the physical stresses placed upon it. It grows (termed “hypertrophy”) in response to the application of external loads and is rapidly lost (termed “atrophy”) when these loads are withdrawn — if you’ve ever had your arm or leg in a cast, you know what I mean. The good news is that we can leverage the plasticity of muscle tissue to our advantage.

In kinesiology professor Stuart Phillips’s research group at McMaster University, we study the impact of exercise and nutrition on human skeletal muscle health, with a particular interest in aging.

The lab’s work has shown that resistance exercise (strength training), even when performed sporadically and with lighter loads, can be an effective strategy to offset muscle losses during periods of reduced activity and disuse in older people. What’s more, this type of training can enhance the sensitivity of muscle tissue to dietary protein and help overcome anabolic resistance. It can also make your muscle more ready to take up glucose and reduce your risk of diseases like Type 2 diabetes.

Research now indicates that older people require more dietary protein (the source of “building blocks” for muscle) than the established guidelines suggest. Recent work from our lab has shown that higher-quality protein sources can improve muscle growth in older people. The optimal strategy appears to be consuming 1.2 – 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight of protein daily (50 to 100 per cent greater than what is currently recommended), from a mixture of animal (e.g., meat, fish, dairy) and plant-based (e.g., legumes) sources.

No matter what age you start, you can build the metabolic equivalent of a retirement savings plan by repeatedly engaging in physical exercise and consuming adequate high-quality protein. In doing so, you can effectively close the gap between healthspan and lifespan, maintain independence and maximize quality of life in older age.

Matthew Lees is supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Postdoctoral Fellowship award (Funding Reference Number 187773).

At the turn of the 20th Century, one could expect to live until 47 in the U.S. Now, medical advancements, like vaccines and antibiotics, and public health initiatives have increased life expectancy in the U.S. to 77 years old and 73 globally. 

While health conditions and systemic barriers like socioeconomic inequities and environmental conditions play a role in how long you live, researchers are finding that through individual lifestyle modifications and precision medicine, there are ways to counter the mechanisms behind aging to potentially help people live even longer and healthier. 

“Healthy longevity medicine is not science fiction anymore,” Dr. Andrea Maier, a professor in medicine and functional aging at the National University of Singapore and the founding president of the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society, told Fortune at the Longevity Investors Conference in Gstaad, Switzerland last month. “We understand why we age. We understand, especially through life interventions, how to intervene.” 

The idea that we play a role in how well we age has led to a proliferation of biohackers or longevity optimists confident they will live to 150—and even beyond—because they are willing to experiment with the latest interventions to optimize health. Kayla Barnes, CEO of LYV Wellness, an LA-based longevity clinic, previously told Fortune she hopes to live 150 healthy years alongside her husband. At the same time, the entrepreneur turned biohacker Bryan Johnson doesn’t have a goal age but is preaching his motto “Don’t die” for as long as possible. 

But how long will it really be possible to live, according to available science? 

How long can we expect to live? 

Those under 50, who will have the most time to take advantage of emerging research, therapeutics, and interventions, can likely expect to live up to 100, says Dr. Evelyne Bischof, an internal medicine physician, oncologist, and vice president of the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society. 

Alina Su, an aging researcher at The Conboy Laboratory at UC Berkeley and a biomedical PhD candidate at Harvard, is even more hopeful. 

“Living well beyond 100—potentially up to 120 or more—isn’t just a dream. It can be a reality for those who are serious about optimizing their health,” says Su, cofounder of Generation Lab, a precision medicine company. “With the rapid pace of innovation in anti-aging research, we’re seeing new therapies, gene editing, personalized medicine, and other things that will push the upper limits of human lifespan.”

The world’s leading geneticist, Dr. Nir Barzilai, who is the director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, tells Fortune that while he cannot predict society’s potential longevity, the maximum human life span is around 115 years today (the woman thought to be the oldest person in the world died at 122 in 1997). Barzilai says how much longer we can live depends on the efficacy of the evolving aging research coming to light in the next few decades. 

“Aging drives age-related disease. Therefore, you want to stop aging, and so we want to spend our time treating our health, rather than spend our time treating a disease,” says Barzilai, who also holds titles as a board member at the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) and investigator of the AFAR SuperAgers Family Study. “We know we can target aging … depends how fast funding can accelerate it.” He emphasizes that educating the public on ways to intervene will make a difference in meaningfully extending liTo live past 100 today, Barzilai says it’s about following basic guidelines around exercise, nutrition, and managing stress while also keeping an eye on the next frontier of longevity science—which he believes to be a combination of precision medicine, AI interventions, and gerotherapeutics or drugs to target the underlying processes of aging. 

Still, Barzilai, Bischof, and Maier, who are working to create standards in the field of longevity medicine, say it’s much more about how well you live than how long you live. 

“The question is, will they live up to 100 in good health, or will the last usually 20% see a significant decline in function?” says Bischof, who also spoke at the Longevity Investors Conference. Closing the healthspan-lifespan gap is the most imperative, she adds. 

The health optimizers 

Those who will substantially extend life and close the healthspan-lifespan gap will treat their body like a “top sport,” Maier says. “I really think that we should not treat our body as a snapshot, but a story and the story can only be written if you have more words, which means that you should test the body continuously,” she says, touting the growing field of precision geromedicine (therapeutics to tackle aging depending on a person’s biomarkers and genetic makeup), which requires testing and tracking to influence habits. The most common types of tracking include wearing a glucose monitor, sleep tracker, and activity monitor. 

Right now, partaking in the craze to extend life is reserved for those with the time and financial resources to pay out of pocket for additional testing, wearables, and subscription-based longevity clinics.

“For today's under-50 population, the key lies in how much they're willing to invest in their health now. The more proactive individuals are, the more years they're likely to add to their lives,” Su says. “In essence, we're entering an era where personal health choices could lead to dramatically different outcomes. The decision to optimize one's health today could mean the difference between a standard lifespan and an extended, vibrant life well past the century mark.” 

Dr. Matthew Pywell, who founded the Apex Medical Academy, which educates health professionals on preventative health care and healthy aging, says that while we know that it’s possible to hit that 120 mark as a species, the question will be how to deliver longevity interventions to the masses and not merely the 1%. 

Those at the forefront of longevity equity are looking to put healthy aging innovations into health care systems and meet people where they are—although it’s clear there is a long way to go to ensure that longevity medicine doesn’t exacerbate existing inequalities.  

“There are lots of private clinics. We now understand that we have to educate not only physicians but also all other healthcare professionals. We have to educate laymen and then really bring this new model of medicine into clinical care to really change the health trajectory [of more people],” Maier says.

Dr Jenna Macciochi says that ‘our immune system is the single greatest arbiter of both how long we live and the quality of those years’ - Christopher Pledger

We know what our immune system is about. It’s what fends off bugs and determines how long it takes us to recover from illnesses. We may have attempted to boost it by popping a multivitamin, eating an orange or even trying an overpriced ginger shot when we feel a cold brewing.But this narrow view barely scratches the surface of its wide-ranging impact not only on our health but also our longevity, says immunologist Dr Jenna Macciochi. “Our immune system is the single greatest arbiter of both how long we live and the quality of those years,” she writes.

At a time when longevity has become the latest obsession of millionaire tech bros (Bryan Johnson spends up to $2 million a year to extend his life expectancy through hit 40-a-day supplement habit, morning oxygen therapy and regular plasma transfusions from his teenage son), Dr Macciochi’s focus is on improving the simple things – mainly our diet and exercise levels – to harness the power of our immune system to keep us in better health for the 80 years we’re likely to live for.

“The longevity space has become dominated by male voices, ‘hack your way to the perfect protocol’, ‘20 things to do before you leave your house in the morning’,” she says. “I wanted to be the anti-Bryan Johnson.” There’s no evidence that living this way will extend your lifespan or make your latter years any healthier, Dr Macciochi notes.

Five common habits that age your brain revealed by doctor

And she would know – she’s a bona fide scientist. After growing up on a farm in rural Scotland, which kickstarted her fascination with health and disease, she studied immunology at the University of Glasgow before securing her PhD at Imperial College London. She went on to work for biotech companies and research institutes before lecturing at the University of Sussex. She is now a consultant and author based in Brighton, where she lives with her two children.

‘I’m trying to get people to stop just thinking about their immune system for colds and flus’: Immunologist Dr Jenna Macciochi

What is our immune system?

“Most people will be able to tell you where their digestive system is, where the brain is, where their lungs are,” Dr Macciochi notes.

The immune system, meanwhile, is a harder concept to grasp. It’s made up of hundreds of different types of cells and signalling molecules, controlled by around 8,000 genes – making it the second-most complicated system in our body, after our brains.

Rather than being in one place, it’s located throughout our bodies. Around 70 per cent of the immune system is found in our digestive tract while the rest ranges from the skin’s surface to our bone marrow, as well as from brain to big toe. “It’s a testament to how important it is,” she says.

How has it been misunderstood?

“I’m trying to get people to stop just thinking about their immune system for colds and flus,” Dr Macciochi says. Protecting us from bugs is one of its key roles, however. It’s why immune cells line the entry points to our bodies – the eyes, nose and mouth – which are coated in a defensive mucus that aims to catch viruses and bacteria before they can travel deeper into our bodies.

“We’ve always looked at the immune system through the lens of infection, which became less relevant in a country like the UK in the last 50 years because we have antibiotics, we have vaccines and we have public health measures that means we’re not dying from antibiotics, diphtheria and measles,” Dr Macciochi notes.

However, our immune system is also working in other ways to keep us well, Dr Macciochi notes. It monitors and eliminates potential cancer cells, protects against autoimmune disorders and manages our response to allergens.

It even plays a role in chronic diseases, as inflammation, which is triggered by the immune system, is thought to be a driving force in heart disease, diabetes, cancer and dementia, she notes.

How is our immune system linked with longevity?

The immune system is what has kept the human species alive for hundreds of thousands of years by triggering an inflammatory response when we become infected with a virus or bacteria. “It makes the body a hostile environment for a germ, so you can kill the germ and get rid of it,” Dr Macciochi explains.

However, this inflammatory response is being triggered too often as a result of our modern lifestyles that typically consists of a poor quality diet, frequent exposure to pollutants and mental stress, she says.

“It’s sending danger signals to our immune system but the danger isn’t a real danger and it’s not acute, it’s like constant, tiny hits,” Dr Macciochi says. The result is “inflammageing” which is the low-level, unwanted inflammation that builds up over time. “It’s like rust on a car” and fuels the onset of non-communicable diseases.

“Inflammation will happen anyway – there’ll be a gradual increase with age, just like everything wears out with time,” she notes. “I don’t think we can make ourselves invincible to that but we can definitely push back on this slow burn of chronic inflammation.”

Research into the hallmarks of ageing has shown that inflammation accelerates them all, Dr Macciochi says. “The telomeres on the end of our chromosomes, which are protective tips, inflammation accelerates wearing that down. The mitochondria in our cells, which are these little energy battery packs, the inflammation makes them less efficient.” It also contributes to DNA damage, which can drive the growth of cancer, she says.

“In all of these systems, inflammation puts this extra burden on top of them, so they have to work harder and then over time you get the wear and tear effect.”

Four habits to boost your immune system and increase your lifespan

“In the UK, we live on average to 80, which is amazing, compared to 150 years ago when you’d be lucky to get to 50,” Dr Macciochi says. “We’ve had an amazing longevity revolution already.”

However, the average Brit has a health span of 60, meaning there are “20 years where, medically, we can keep you alive and functioning but your quality of life might not be very good”, she says. “You might be on multiple medications and then medications to treat the side effects of those medications.”

While our body’s system will decline with age, unhealthy lifestyles preclude us from engaging in the activities that keep us young, she says. Setting up good habits that support our immune system now can elongate the number of years we spend free from illness – these are the habits Dr Macciochi recommends.

Do more exercise

One study found that regular exercisers live up to seven years longer, and have more years in good health - Halfpoint Images

It’s not news that exercise is good for us but its ability to improve immune health and life expectancy really are second to none, according to Dr Macciochi.

One study found that regular exercisers live up to seven years longer but also have more years in good health. “There are very few, if any, things medicine can offer that come anywhere close to that magnitude of benefit,” she notes.

Surprisingly, the benefits of exercise stems from the fact that it triggers inflammation – but the good kind. “I liken it to a dirty kitchen table,” Dr Macciochi says. “If I spill some coffee on it, and then I clean it, I’m going to end up with a table that’s cleaner than it was before I spilled the coffee. That’s how exercise works as an anti-inflammatory.”

“You exercise and get a rise in inflammation, but in a very controlled way that then gives this super rise in anti-inflammatory kind of clean-up, which doesn’t just clean up the muscles that you’ve been working in the gym but works across the whole body,” she says. “It’s one of the best anti-inflammatory tools we have.”

Exercise also keeps the thymus gland healthier for longer. This is located in our necks and produces T cells, which are the master controllers of the immune system, but its performance declines with age and it has deteriorated significantly by the age of 70, which is why older adults become more vulnerable to infections like pneumonia and shingles, Dr Macciochi says.

“There’s some lovely research showing that physical activity offsets that decline,” she says. “It’s not going to stop it, it will still have this change but it’s going to be happening much slower.”

Ideally, we should all be doing some cardiovascular exercise and resistance-based exercise, Dr Macciochi says but most people will benefit simply from breaking up long periods of sitting, she says.

“Don’t defer until the perfect week when you can get to the gym five times,” she says. “Take your baseline activity level and make an increment, make it sustainable and then build it up again.”

Eat fewer calories and stop snacking

Avoid eating between meals to let your body digest the food and return inflammation to baseline levels - Getty

“As a nation, we are eating almost all the time,” Dr Macciochi says. Research shows that people are in a “fed state” for 18 hours a day. “Our digestion was never designed to cope with this,” she says. In the time after eating a meal, our bodies need a break to digest the food and return postprandial (post-eating) inflammation to baseline levels, she explains.

“If you’re snacking from 7am to 9pm, your body is never getting that nice rhythm,” Dr Macciochi says. Unwanted inflammation will build up and contribute to inflammageing, she says.

Meanwhile, studies have shown that eating less – reducing calories by 20 to 30 per cent while still meeting all nutritional needs – reduces inflammatory markers and inflammageing, she notes. While this approach may be recommended for younger people, especially below the age of 40, Dr Macciochi advises older groups against calorie restriction, so that they don’t lose muscle mass.

However, people should focus on consolidating their food into three meals, she says. “Make those meals really nourishing to prevent grazing all the time because we know that’s really not helpful for inflammation.”

Add anti-inflammatory foods to your meals

A Mediterranean diet has an anti-inflammatory effect.

Olive oil is one of the most-researched anti-inflammatory food, Dr Macciochi says. “It contains oleocanthal which has a molecular structure similar to the well-known anti-inflammatory ibuprofen,” she notes.

“It’s thought that people in the Mediterranean are living so long and so well because they’re getting this tiny anti-inflammatory effect every day through the olive oil that they use,” Dr Macciochi says. “If people want to invest in a longevity supplement, I would say start with olive oil.”

The wider Mediterranean diet is made up of minimally processed grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, fresh seasonal produce, olive oil and oily fish, she notes. “These dietary patterns don’t just prevent chronic disease – they actively mitigate the mechanisms driving inflammageing,” according to Dr Macciochi.

Research also shows that adopting the MIND diet, made up of antioxidant-rich leafy greens, berries, wholegrain, nuts beans and fish, will reduce inflammation and protect against Alzheimer’s. “It has been designed to take elements that are good for brain health,” Dr Macciochi explains. “It’s high in polyphenols, antioxidants and it’s good for the gut and it’s anti-inflammatory.”

“People don’t make the link between cognitive function and inflammation but that’s a growing area,” she says. “If we have raised inflammation in the body, that will be affecting what happens in the brain. We have immune cells in the brain called microglia and when they sense danger, they start spitting out inflammation which we know is then linked to cognitive decline.”

Eat more fibre to improve gut health

High-fibre foods like carrots are key for good immune health - robynmac

“Around 70 per cent of our immune cells are located along the digestive tract,” Dr Macciochi notes. “The main reason for that is because the digestive tract is an obvious route for infection. We also have a collection of microbes that live in there and make up the microbiome.”

Our microbiome is essential for producing immune-modulating cells, such as T cells which prevent the immune system from overreacting to harmless substances or underperforming when we do encounter a bug, she explains.

Fibre is the forgotten key for good gut health and good immune health. “When your microbes break it down, they produce short-chain fatty acids which are anti-inflammatory,” Dr Macciochi says. “They keep the gut barrier really tight. They help seal up postprandial gut leakiness.

Vegetables, fruit and legumes are all rich sources of fibre but it’s important to increase how many you’re eating slowly to reduce the risk of uncomfortable bloating, she adds.

Story by Robert McLister - Source: msn.com

It’s a common tale across Canada.

People see rates coming down; they want to buy a home — perhaps because they don’t think prices will stay down for long — but they can’t prove enough income to get a mortgage.

What to do? Well, unless you’re a new professional like a doctor or dentist, or you qualify for rigid niche lending programs, or you can get approved based on a significant net worth, major banks will likely show you the door.

Fortunately, big banks don’t completely monopolize Canada’s mortgage market. Alternative lenders will often lend you more based on your overall ability to pay. And that ability doesn’t just rest on your income today.

Here are four ways non-Big-Six-Bank lenders can qualify you when your current income doesn’t cut it.

1. Contributory income

Family members often chip in on bills — think of grandma living in the guest room or your folks in an in-law suite. These family members may not be on title to the property, but alternative lenders will consider their payments when helping you qualify for a mortgage.

Some lenders will also include well-documented part-time or gig income (handyman, Uber driver, etc.) without demanding the usual two-year income history.

“Canadians are great at finding creative ways to earn more money for their family,” says Grant Armstrong, head of mortgage originations at Questrade Financial Group’s Community Trust Company. “As a lender in these cases, we’re looking for reasonable income that shows a consistent pattern and can be documented for the last three, six, nine or 12 months.”

For some borrowers with new cash businesses on the side, bank statements or reference letters might be all the documentation needed. Try getting that approved at a big bank, especially if you have a lower credit score.

2. Future income

For professionals such as doctors, dentists or lawyers, an income spike down the road is almost a given, and many lenders are willing to bet on that.

Non-professional borrowers may also have qualifying future income, including those expecting child support, alimony, rental or pension income in the near-term.

3. Liquid assets

Some lenders calculate how much you can afford with the assumption you could turn your assets into cash. “If you have significant assets, we have programs that can leverage that for the next few years,” says Armstrong.

Cash, or anything that can be readily converted to cash, can help a lender justify exceptions to its debt ratio limits (i.e., the maximum percentage of gross income a lender allows for housing and debt payments). Some lenders will even consider RRSPs as a way to justify a bigger loan amount.

4. Future assets

Borrowers who’ve listed another property for sale, have a trust fund coming available or expect an inheritance during the mortgage term all have future cash availability . Alternative lenders will often count a percentage of those assets as a means of debt servicing or paying off the mortgage.

Some will even consider retained cash that’s sitting in a business account, as long as it’s unencumbered and you have unfettered access to the money at any time.

The tradeoff

In life and in mortgage finance, flexibility often comes with a price tag. Alternative lenders charge higher rates due to their increased cost of securing funds and the greater risk involved.

Typically, borrowers who are otherwise qualified will pay non-prime lenders a rate that’s at least one to one and a half percentage points higher, plus a one per cent fee — provided they have a solid credit profile, at least 20 per cent equity and a marketable home. Less equity might push your interest rate up by at least another 30 to 50 basis points, if the lender even agrees to the deal.

If you’ve missed multiple payments in the last few years, or your home isn’t in the city or ‘burbs, or the mortgage amount is well over $1 million, or it’s an investment property, expect to pay materially more.

And about that equity — it’s crucial for non-prime lenders. They demand a hefty equity buffer as insurance against the higher default rates typical of non-prime borrowers. That’s the only way they can ensure they’ll recover their funds if things go south and the borrower doesn’t pay.

In general, the sketchier your credit or wonkier your income situation, the more equity you’ll need, sometimes up to 35 per cent or more. Some lenders allow second mortgages behind their first so you can borrow more, but you won’t like the interest rate on that second.

The takeaway is that there are plenty of tools in a mortgage broker’s toolbox to get a borrower approved. If you can’t get it done at a bank but still want a mortgage, it essentially boils down to one question, “Exactly how are you planning on making your mortgage payments today, tomorrow and a year from now?”

Even so, just because someone can get approved for a mortgage doesn’t mean they should. All these workarounds are meant for people who can pay their mortgage without question. If you have even a hint of worry about that, keep on renting.

Call/Text Realtor Bernie 778-881-0025 for any questions you might have.

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