Seven Keys to Long Life with 100 Year Old Dr. John Scharffenberg & Doug Batchelor

Hi friends, Pastor Doug Batchelor. We want to welcome you to this special feature where we're going to be interviewing a very special guest. And I'm delighted today to have here in the Amazing Facts Studios, Dr. John Scharfenberg. Dr. John, welcome. Now he's a friend, but I need to, in full disclosure, admit he is also a one of the newer members of our Granite Bay Hilltop Church. And I was just so intrigued with his life work and testimony that we invited him here in the studio and he's going to share some life-changing information about some of the seven keys to a longer life. Now, Dr. John's got an abundance of experience. He's a physician, nutritionist, and professor of nutrition for years at Loma Linda University, a graduate of Harvard University School of Public Health. You were director of the Pacific Health Education Center in Bakersfield. I'd been there before. You've got a special interest in health and longevity. Now, I didn't mention you were also with San Bernardino. I was in charge of the San Bernardino County Health Department. That's one of the biggest counties in California. Geographically, it's the biggest. It's the biggest county. Amazing. I was on the secretariat of the Interdepartmental Committee on Nutrition for National Defense. That was the top nutritionist in the country. And we did surveys of all of our allies around the world. And you're also, I think, eminently qualified to talk to us about longevity because you said according to the Chinese calculations, you're 100, but the American calculations, you're 99 years young. And if I'm not mistaken, you're still driving as well. Oh yes, of course. I need my car. So that's wonderful. Now, if you were going to share seven of the high point secrets to people's longevity, what they might do or what they might avoid, where would you begin? I think I would talk about exercise. I think that's extremely important. In fact, if a woman is obese, but she exercises every day, she will outlive the normal weight woman who doesn't exercise. If a man smokes and he has high blood cholesterol, has high hypertension, but he exercises, he will outlive a man who doesn't have any of those problems who doesn't exercise. That's why some of the early settlers, they may have smoked and they ate a lot of dairy and meat, but they didn't have some of the diseases because they were working on the farms back then. What else would you add as far as some of the most important features? There's been a major breakthrough here in the world of health. We had this Pasteur man who did the flash studies. Louis Pasteur, yeah. We discovered the germ theory. Tremendous advance. Then Fleming discovered penicillin. Another tremendous advance. One of the greatest advances. Now, since 2010, we have another tremendous advance just equal to those which people don't know about. But if you avoid seven risk factors, you can decrease by 80% your cardiovascular disease, your strokes and your heart attack, 80%. You could decrease it. Now, that's one of the biggest killers, isn't it? That kills more people than the next five leading causes of death combined. You see, they put all these people on drugs, statins, based on their cholesterol level. They've checked it out. Only 93% of the people, it doesn't help them one bit, but 7% it does because they have heart disease. Our problem is we don't know who has it and who doesn't. They're going by cholesterol level and it's a poor indicator of atherosclerosis. So all of this could be remedied by lifestyle changes. Now, we should summarize these, what they are. Tobacco, alcohol, inactivity, overweight, too much meat and sugar. Then they added to it hypertension and high cholesterol in the blood. You wouldn't have to worry about those if you did the first five because those all help to decrease the thing. One of the most important things you could also do is you exercise and then be careful what you eat and stay away from what? Animal products. Well, the vegetarians are living much longer than other people. They did a study in California of the general population. For the men, what percent of them live to be 85 or older? Well, it's 48.6% for the vegetarians, but for the general population, it's 19.5%. So 48% of vegetarians live longer, but only 19% of the non-vegetarians. That's right. Now, the women live longer than the men. So the women, the general population, 39.3% live to be 85 or older, but for the vegetarian women, it was 60.1%. So the jury is in, if you're a vegetarian, you're going to have less disease and you're going to live longer. That's right. Now, if I remember right, the Bible says that was the original diet for man, a vegetarian diet. So it's like we were designed for that diet and if we cooperate with that design, we're going to live longer. Yeah, that's right. So we've talked about the importance of exercise and I agree with you that we certainly should stay away from, I always say, I don't like to eat anything that had a mother. And so I've been a vegetarian for 35, 40 years, 40 years now probably. And I hope I feel and look as good as you do at 99. Now, it's interesting that when the Heart Association said, cut down on the meat, cut out all that meat, you know, they said the vegetarian diet was the best diet in optimum diet in 2015. They said that, but the world, the population, the U.S., we've bailed against it. So they changed it. They said, eat more fruits and vegetables. Yeah. They didn't talk about meat or vegetarian diet, but here's what they substituted. They said, cut down on saturated fat. Yeah. No more than five to 6% of your calories should be saturated fat. But let me tell you the secret, that means vegetarian diet. Exactly. I think it's funny, you get on the airplane and they hand you a package of nuts and it says cholesterol-free. Well, all nuts are cholesterol-free, aren't they? Yes. So it's a good idea that don't eat anything that used to walk, swim, or fly, and you'll be safer, right? Yes. Now, I have a little chart here I want to show you. Sure. This is very exciting. Show you where the saturated fat is. Okay. The red represents the saturated fat. Okay. What has the most? Coconut. But fortunately, we don't grow coconuts here, so we aren't getting too much. But the other things are the meat fat and the dairy fat, the animal fat. And there's another one I don't have listed here, it's chocolate. Yeah. That's pretty high in saturated fat too. Yeah. But the butter we shouldn't be using, and the meat fats, the lard, the bacon, and that kind of thing we should avoid. That's what we need to avoid. Yeah. We should get two essential fatty acids here, the blue and the green. The blue is linoleic acid. That's in most plant fats, so that's good. But the green is the alpha-linolenic acid. That's not in many places. You'll find it in flax seed. Oh, okay. But you have to grind it up, because otherwise it'll go right through you, you don't get any oil. But these, the body doesn't make, and we have to have them to live. So eating lots of greens, fruits, and you'll get these fats that are the helpful fats. Yeah, the helpful fats. Soybean, of course. Yeah. That will give you your linoleic acid. And for the flax seed, that's the alpha-linolenic acid. Okay. And chia seed. So some of the major things is not just what you eat, but you said we can greatly prolong our lives by staying away from tobacco in all of its forms. Yes. Of course, there's no nutritional value in tobacco in any way. I guess if a person drinks wine, they might get some vitamins, but alcohol's not good. Let me tell you about the latest study on alcohol. Okay. Dr. Max Griswold at the University of Washington did this study in 195 countries. The biggest study ever done. Funded by a man who has a home just behind the university there, Bill Gates. Okay. He funded this study. Now, Max Griswold wanted to find out how much alcohol is safe. We've been saying one drink a day for women and two for men might be okay. Yeah. But his study showed zero. There's no level of which is safe. Now, he was a social drinker himself. Yeah. So he was wanting to find out how much is safe. It's not a biased study. He's being objective. That's right. And he's got to review his old lifestyle now because of it. But he found out that there's a zero level. And they said if there was any vitamin value, the negatives of alcohol offset that. And so all of it is dangerous and it increases your risk of cancer. Yeah. You know, they were trying for years to argue a little bit of alcohol might help your circulation, but they saw the downside of cancer, not to mention, you know, the problems that alcohol caused with addiction, that it outweighs that. You know, alcohol is a big problem in causing breast cancer. Okay. Middle-aged women and so on. That's very important. They need to get rid of the alcohol. On a more positive note, since we're talking about drinking, what should we be drinking? We should be drinking water. Not at mealtime, but between meals. Yeah. Water should be the main thing. Yeah. There's a committee now, a panel, a group that gets together to see what solutions are the best to use. And they say water is the best drink. And of course, in North America, you go to the typical fast food restaurant or you go to a convenience store and they got like 90 different things you could drink. And not only they have a lot of sugar, but a lot of them now have a lot of caffeine. Yeah. And a lot of Americans in the soda pop, the tea and the coffee, industrial strength coffee. Yeah. Folks are sort of hyper-stimulated. Now, we should be careful of pushing some things too far. Yeah. Because too much is bad and too little is bad. Now, for example, water. Yeah. It's good. But you can get so much, it drops your blood sodium level and that swells the brain up. It can kill you. Yeah. It can kill you. Yeah. Because your brain is swollen. We had that happen here in Sacramento. A lady was part of a show, a radio program, and they were seeing who could drink the most water and hold it the longest. And this lady died. Yeah, that's right. She drank too much water. Yeah. Now, again, exercise is another exciting thing. Exercise. If you don't exercise, you're going to die sooner. For every hour you exercise, you will live three hours longer. For every hour you exercise, you'll live three hours longer. Yes. That's the Harvard alumni story. I want to get up right now. But you know, if you get too much exercise, you decrease your life expectancy the same way. Oh, really? You can overdo it. You can overdo it. And a lot of people don't know that. And I hate to tell anybody that because most people are not getting any. Yeah. So now walking is a good exercise, right? Walking is a good exercise. Yeah, it is. Do you go downhill skiing or do you do a lot of walking? Walking. Now, I believe in useful exercise. That's the word I'm using. Gardening, farming. Gardening, yes. Useful exercise, you see. But I think it's very important in mid-age to get that exercise. Not so much to young people and old people. It's middle age. Studies with Alzheimer's have shown that middle age exercise can help reduce the risk. That's very important. So am I still middle age or am I old now? Well, I want to reduce my Alzheimer's risk. 40 to 70. Okay. I'm still there. There's still hope. So we talked about the importance of a good diet, vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts, the right kind of fats, avoiding meat in all forms, I'm hearing. Now, you mentioned butter. Would margarine or some vegetable butter imitation is better? Yes, it's much better. The way they did it before was hydrogenated, made trans fatty acids, which were not good. But now they're having an emulsification process of mixing the oils together without hydrogenation. So get the non-hydrogenated. Yeah, because the hydrogenation produced trans fatty acids and you have to put it on the label now. You know, I have an addiction to peanut butter, and I know a lot of the peanut butter is hydrogenated. And so I always buy the natural peanut butter now. And I just find your body handles it a lot better. And how important is rest in longevity? Rest is important. Breslow did a study of four factors, mainly. Rest was one of them. Getting the proper amount of sleep. And you go to bed with the chickens at night, is that right? Yeah, I do. Eight or nine o'clock, I'm in bed. Yeah, but I get up at four o'clock. So you have a good night's rest? Yes. Okay, well, that's good. Now we're talking about the practical things of food and exercise and water. How important is it to have a good attitude? Well, you know, stress is a factor. But we haven't listed it much because we don't know how to measure it. So we don't know whether it's one stress or 10 stress or what it is. It's hard to quantify stress. We don't know how to do that yet. Now people have stressful situations, but when you have trust in God, you can kind of unload the stress and find peace. It's not so much stress as a factor. It's your reaction to the stress. There you go. Is the factor. So having a good attitude and having a faith. And if you've got faith and you can have peace, even though there's trials in life, that can help with your longevity. Yes, that's right. Very important. What else do you have to share about some of the keys for longevity? Well, one of the things that people don't hear about is childhood problems. Aces. Adverse childhood experiences. If you have a six of those, you might lower your life expectancy 20 years. What would be an example of one of those? Not taking care of your kids. Emotionally. Yeah. You know, you're above this of them in the house. You aren't spending any time. They need love and attention. Yes. Yeah. Not getting enough to eat. Yeah. They're poor. If they're malnourished when they're young, that can shorten their long term. Or somebody in the family is mentally off. Or somebody in the family has gone to jail. See, those are all adverse childhood experiences. Creates stress when they're young that affects their longevity. It affects their diseases later in life. Yeah. It's very exciting how most diseases that you have in adulthood have started in childhood. So it's very important for parents to try and create a healthy environment when kids are young for their longevity. Now, there are some young people who are resilient and can overcome the bad effects. Yeah. If they have good mentors. Yeah. Religious people. Yeah. Or people who take them out into the country more. Outdoor exercise and things. That's great. It's a challenge for us then to become friends with kids that might be in these high-risk situations. Be good mentors to them. Help them get in healthy environments and you can prolong their lives. That's right. Understanding how the brain operates in early childhood is extremely important. That's where public health needs to put its money to make sure these kids have good mentors. Well, so we've talked about some things to do to lengthen your life and avoiding tobacco and alcohol, obesity, and of course one of the big killers in the world is diabetes right now and it seems like it's an epidemic. But see with these seven risk factors. Yeah. Diabetes is decreased 88 percent. By simply addressing the diet issues and the lifestyle. The lifestyle. Yeah. So some people can reverse their diabetes, certain types. We know we can reverse it. We can even reverse atherosclerosis. Really? Yes. There's a doctor in San Francisco. He took patients who were clogged up coronary arteries and he fed them proper diet. He put sacks of food on their doorstep. So for a year he checked them out and it decreased the atherosclerosis in the coronary arteries tremendously. By changing their diets. By changing their diet. Well, I know people that have been diagnosed with that and they got on a healthy exercise diet regime and their arteries cleared out. So I've heard testimonies of people that have had that experience. You know, I understand that many people have heard of the blue zones and they did a study of different spots in the world where people seem to have better longevity and they came up with three or four. I heard of Sardinia in the Mediterranean diet. Okinawa. Okinawa, Japan. But then they said that in North America it wasn't so much the location as the faith of the people that live in Loma Linda. And that's where you're from before moving here to Sacramento. Yes. That they have just an extraordinarily high number of old people. That's right. That not only they live long but they've got a high quality of life and they're active for a long time. Exercise is extremely important. You know, we think religion has something to do with this too. But it's hard to measure it. They have a questionnaire that they went out to a lot of people. Yeah. And they say put down zero to ten. Yeah. Okay. Do you believe in God? Well, for most of us it's either ten or zero. Yeah. There's not any between half away. Yeah. So a lot of those questions I didn't think were applicable to me. Yeah. I think we know that having a good social network and relationships is an important factor in health. And they say married people live a little longer than unmarried typically. The question to ask about social relationships, do you have one or two friends that you can borrow money from? If you can, that's a good social relationship. I also like you because I know you've got a sense of humor. And I think that, what do they say, a merry heart does good like medicine. That's right. So I'm going to make your friend and you'll lend me money. So if in concluding, anything else you want to share that you think that you'd like to say to the viewers you think is an important factor in longevity? Well, as a nutritionist, my job is to make things concise and simple. So I will give you a university course in nutrition in one sentence. All right. Here it is. Eat at the proper time. That means no snacking. Eat at the proper time. A variety, not one meal, but over ten days to make sure you get all the nutrients you need. Eat at the proper time. A variety of natural, non-processed foods in quantities for ideal weight. That's all you need to know. Now we're going to have to put that sentence on the screen because that, I think, that summarizes, I think, an important lesson in health. But you're going to tell me something else maybe about cholesterol. Yes. When you go see a doctor, you ask him, how's my cholesterol? He says, you're okay. Don't worry about it. That's not enough. You got to know some figures. You got to know what your LDL cholesterol is. If that's too high, that's the killer for men, for heart attacks. It's too many snakes. Or you have to know what your triglyceride is. That's the killer for the women for heart attacks. That means overweight. But not only that, the triglyceride tells you the size of the LDL particles. There's two kinds of particles. One is light, buoyant type. If that's high, you only have twice the risk of a heart attack. But if the small, dense type are there, you got seven times the risk of a heart attack. Wow. But if the triglyceride level is high normal, you got 90% of your LDL particles are the bad kind, small, dense type, like the diabetic has. Now, what is the good kind? Well, HDL, but it's not as good as we used to think. We think now it has nothing to do with heart disease. Oh, okay. That's good to know. I think people need to hear that. But you need to know from the doctor what your triglyceride level is and what your LDL cholesterol is. So don't just say, if he says, oh, cholesterol is okay, don't walk away with that. Find out what the details are because that makes a big difference. And now we mentioned the air and sunshine briefly, but I guess the way to get the right amount of vitamin D and fresh air is you said, do your exercise in a practical way. I mean, maybe go outside and do some carpentry or do some gardening. Well, if you're outside, you get the sunshine. Most work is done inside. The window keeps the vitamin D from getting into you, you see. But older people have a hard time because it has to go to the cholesterol in the skin, goes to the liver, goes to the kidneys, it all changes. It's actually a hormone, but we call it vitamin D. But older people, these things are all working at half speed, so they aren't getting it. They're going to have to have a supplement. So it's okay to take, and I take a little vitamin D gummy every day. That's good. So, and if you are out in the sun, put on sunscreen, especially if you're a higher risk with your... But not for the first 20 minutes. So get 20 minutes of sunshine. Yeah. And then you might put on the sunscreen and be more careful about your exposure. That's good. It probably also matters a little bit what part of the planet you're on. You're not going to get as much direct sunshine in Alaska as you are in Guam. And so, yeah, I know I was in Australia and I walked for a few minutes with my shirt off just to get some sun. I got burnt just about in a couple minutes. Everybody living north of, say, Washington DC or New York City, those people are all deficient in vitamin D, practically all of them. If they're not taking a supplement. If they're not taking a supplement. Oh, see, that's very helpful to know. Now, I'm speaking more often now to people who are total vegetarians and don't use milk or eggs. Yeah. Now, how do you get your calcium? Yeah. The epic Oxford study showed there's more fractures of the bones in those who don't get enough calcium. Okay. But if you get, say, 525 milligrams a day, you have enough. You have no excess risk of a fracture. Yeah. Now, how do you do that? Natural way. Cut your salt intake in half. That controls the excretion of the calcium. Oh. See? And second thing is make sure you get enough vitamin D. Your blood levels are up properly. You will absorb two to three times more. So, there's things we can do naturally to get the calcium without taking a pill. That's fascinating. So, some people are maybe struggling with osteoporosis because they ate so much salt, they weren't keeping enough calcium. That's right. Interesting. I'd never put those two together. So, is there a way to get calcium naturally through foods? Well, you have to avoid the foods that have lots of oxalic acid or phytic acid. That combines with calcium to make calcium oxalate, which is insoluble salt. You can't absorb it. So, you don't avoid the foods. You still use the foods for other reasons, but don't count the calcium in those foods as being very good for you because you aren't absorbing it. Yeah. So, there's other ways to get it. There are some foods that don't have it. For example, soy has some oxalate in it, oxalic acid, but it's absorbed well. We don't understand that yet, but it's absorbed very well. So, soy is a good thing. Soy is a good thing. Okay. I recommend one of those boxes, one quarter. Okay. 100 grams. This 400 gram box, 100 grams a day of tofu. Oh, wow. I think it's so good for you. Okay. That's good to know. Now, I'm a vegan vegetarian, so I'm concerned. Make sure I'm getting my calcium. I heard something this week that pistachios have all the natural proteins that you might miss if you weren't eating the B9 and stuff that you wouldn't get from meat. I heard pistachios are a very good source of that. Pistachios are good. They're expensive, but not so bad in California. I buy those shelled too. Yeah, they are expensive, but they're good. So, Dr. Scharfenberg, you know, I want to tell those who are watching, we have a special offer. I get it stuck here in the Bible. We got a special offer we're going to send to those that would like to know more about how to have a longer life, and it has these health secrets. This magazine is actually called The Amazing Health, Amazing Health Facts Magazine, and you can contact the number on your screen or go to the website and find out more about this. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Scharfenberg. I think this has been very invigorating, and if people will practice the things that we're talking about now, that would probably reverse the health crisis and all the money that's being spent. It would, I think, help the economy. It would help the families. It could turn the country around if they would follow these practical tips on lifestyle changes that would give them more abundant life, and we want to thank you so much for coming in today. God bless you. Thank you so much, friends, for joining us for this special Amazing Facts interview, and share the good news that Jesus is alive and coming soon.