Scientifically Proven To Repair DNA, SLOW & REVERSE AGING! | Dr. William Li

You don't want to actually speed up aging. You don't want chronic diseases. In that case, what are some of the foods that are better and supportive of healthy aging? Are you ready? Let's talk about them. All right. The first thing I'm going to tell you for more natural, healthier aging and to slow the aging process is to eat more colorful fruits and vegetables. All right. What do I mean by colorful fruits and vegetables? Well, you know, berries, very colorful. Bell peppers, fruits, apples and oranges and lemons and limes and grapes. All right. You can tell all these colorful foods, stone fruits, peaches and pears and plums. I mean, think about it. You go to the farmer's market and you see big piles of these fruits and vegetables. It's like looking at a rainbow, like a kaleidoscope of color. Okay. Now, here's the thing. The natural substances that give fruits and vegetables their beautiful colors or their diverse colors are actually polyphenols. Polyphenols that protect your body against the stress of aging, protect it against free radical damage, which damages your DNA. These are stresses, a kind of a chemical stress and protect you from inflammation as well. All right. This idea of stress, free radical damage and inflammation. These are just some three of the key drivers of premature aging. So when you want to eat the rainbow, you're actually opposing or countering some of these key parts of aging. You're countering stress, countering damage to your DNA from free radicals and you're countering inflammation. This is really, really important. Now, researchers from China have published in Frontiers of Nutrition, which is one of the big journals, that berries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries are especially good at reducing that kind of oxidative stress that stresses out your cells, speeds up aging. So it reduces that process and that berries lower inflammation. Okay. And in fact, when they studied large populations, they found that those people who consumed the highest level of foods containing these antioxidant polyphenols actually showed the fewest visible signs of aging. Their skin looked better, looked less aged, less wrinkled or less sagging. And when they compared the berry eaters, to people who didn't eat berries, they found that the people who didn't eat berries had more wrinkles and more skin sagging. Really important. All right. So this is actually visible. You can actually see it. The take-home point here is that polyphenol-rich foods and fiber-rich foods too, these fruits, these berries contain dietary fiber. In fact, pound for pound, raspberries are one of the most fiber-rich foods that are out there. All right. But polyphenols and dietary fiber, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, dark chocolates, another one with polyphenols and some dietary fiber, and nuts, tree nuts, almonds, cashews, macadamias, walnuts. All right. These foods actually protect your DNA. They protect against cellular stress and they lower inflammation. And as a result, this is what the researchers have been finding. They actually help to protect your skin against the ravages of aging, improve elasticity. That's the stretchiness of your skin. They support healthy cell turnover. What's cell turnover? Well, it's your new skin replacing your old skin, right? We all know that old skin doesn't look that great. New skin rejuvenates it, right? You ever have a facial or a skin scrub, you see all that stuff that comes off of it, right? That's exposing the new skin and getting sloughing off the old skin. So your skin looks fresher, less wrinkled, less saggy, okay, has more resiliency. So how do you do this? Well, I recommend just adding just a handful of fresh berries to your breakfast every day. Or if you're having oatmeal or yogurt, what great foods to ask dairy to because they're also healthy. The oatmeal contains beta D glucan, which is in lots of fiber for your gut health. Yogurt is a probiotic food. I always get a whole yogurt, add some berries to them. That's a way of lighting up your polyphenol load starting right off at the beginning of the day. The other thing you could do is nibble on a small square of dark chocolate. All right. Now, how dark? Most of the studies show the darker, the better. All right. So I say 80, 85% or better. That's pretty dark. And that kind of dark chocolates kind of bitter. So here's my practical tip for you. Take a square of really dark chocolate. And if it's too bitter for you, combine it with a cup of black coffee. All right. Coffee plus chocolate equals mocha. So if you actually have coffee, which is also slowing down the ravages of aging and dark chocolate, you can put the chocolate right in there. If you get cocoa powder, dark chocolate powder, stir it up in there. Now you make your own mocha or just eat it together. Sip some coffee, nibble on chocolate. It's the same effect. It's just actually in your tongue as opposed to in the cup. Now, here's the other thing. Another practical tip. I recommend keeping a small bowl of mixed nuts. All right. Again, walnuts, pistachios, pecans, cashews. I just made some toasted cashews and I put on some rosemary powder, a little bit to light up the spice. And rosemary has rosemary acid, which is also anti-inflammatory and slows down cellular aging. All right. And so when you eat some of those nuts, you actually get some healthy fats. You get lots of dietary fiber, feeds your gut microbiome and inflammation comes down. With lower inflammation, you actually have, you're countering those effects of aging. OK. That's my first tip. Second tip. To slow down the effects of cellular aging, I recommend you incorporate healthy fats into your diet. And guess where some of the biggest benefits are? That's right. In your brain. You want healthier brain aging, you want to have healthier fats. So you might say, Dr. Lee, aren't all fats bad? Not really. Actually, our body needs fat, some fat to actually survive. Healthy fats, everything in moderation, but healthy fats like omega-3 fatty acids, which you can get from seafood, not just salmon, mackerel and sardines and anchovies. They actually have a lot of good omega-3s, but you can even get it from lighter white flesh fish. They don't look like they're oily, but they actually have omega-3s. Cod, hake, halibut, flounder, and even seafood like clams and mussels and squid, shrimp, lobsters, crab. They also have omega-3s as well. OK. They live in the sea. At the end of the day, they're nibbling on things that actually have the plankton that actually contain the omega-3s. So they get some of the benefits as well. So you eat that, you get the benefits. Point is, healthy fats lead to a healthy brain. As we age, we want our brain or noggin to be really, really sharp. You don't like seafood, you can't get seafood or you're allergic to seafood. Omega-3 dietary supplements, worth it. OK. One of the few supplements that I think we probably don't get enough of that the actual real deal from our whole foods. So I'm cool with actually supplementing or topping off with omega-3s. Now, how do we know this is important? Well, at least when it comes to omega-3s, healthy omega-3s, researchers at Qingdao University in China actually did a study and they published this in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. And they found that the omega-3s are too fine in foods. Like I said, salmon, flaxseed, walnuts. They can lower inflammation in the body. And by lowering inflammation, they counter the ravages of aging. But they found that countering is actually in cognitive function. That's brain function, executive functions. So here's what they did. These researchers looked at more than 100,000 people and they found that those who ate more omega-3s, regardless of the source, were less likely, less likely to experience memory loss. OK. Or cognitive decline as they get older. Very, very important. In fact, just upping the amount of omega-3s daily. All right. Just increasing omega-3s every day. How do you do that? Take a supplement every single day. Led to a 10% lower risk of developing cognitive issues. Right. So this adds to the growing evidence that our brain function is something we can nurture even as we age to counter the ravages of being elderly. So most of us think of, look at really old people and we go, wow, I never want to be like that. Well, there are lots of older people who have really sharp brain function and those are people you want to be like. All right. And omega-3s are actually one of those things that can help to fight dementia and cognitive decline. All right. Now I'm a scientist as well as a doctor. So I'm going to tell you, the questions I ask is, well, how do omega-3s work? Well, it turns out omega-3s lower brain inflammation. Remember, inflammation is one of those hallmarks of aging. As you age, you become more inflamed. So omega-3s counter that. And that seems to be key to keeping our brains actually sharp. Okay. Let me give you some practical tips about omega-3s. All right. As I said, you can eat seafood, all the lists I gave you, the salmon, the mackerel, or the cod or the hake or shrimp and clams and mussels and squid. All right. And by the way, not only is it beneficial for your brain, it's also beneficial for your heart. Omega-3s are well known to be beneficial to cardiovascular disease. They actually help the lining of your blood vessels, your endothelial cell lining. I study blood vessels, so I know a lot about this. 60,000 miles worth of blood vessels in your body. Omega-3s help to pave the road, the highways, along those 60,000 miles of the journey. Every bit of oxygen we breathe and every nutrient that we eat has to fly down these highways and byways in your body. Omega-3s make that process really, really good. Okay. What's another healthy fat? Well, I alluded to this earlier, extra virgin olive oil. Now, there are some omega-3s, there's some monounsaturated fatty acids in omega-3s, all good for vascular health, all good for brain health, but extra virgin olive oil has polyphenols like hydroxytyrosol and oleocanthal. Now, these are super potent anti-inflammatory polyphenols that can lower inflammation everywhere in your body, including your brain. All right. How much omega-3s do you need to eat? Well, a piece of fish about the size of a deck of cards. All right. What about extra virgin olive oil? Well, anywhere between three to four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil has been associated with better health, better aging overall, better organ health. All right. You might say three to four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Man, that seems like a lot. Well, if you go to the Mediterranean and I did a gap year before I went to medical school and I lived in the Mediterranean in Italy and Greece, you can find foods that are actually cooked with extra virgin olive oil. And, you know, when you're cooking the process, check out some recipes, you'll see quite a bit of extra virgin olive oil is used. And when you eat it over the course of breakfast, lunch, dinner, okay, it's pretty easy to get three to four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Now, I always tell people, if you're going to get olive oil, get the ones that have the highest amount of polyphenols. And you may have heard me mention this before, but I'll say it again. There are three types of olive oil, okay, three types of olives used to make olive oil that have the highest levels of polyphenols. There is a Spanish olive called the picuel, P-I-C-U-A-L olive, very high in polyphenols. Fortunately, it's a very common olive in Spain. So the second one in Italy is Moraiolo. Moraiolo is from Umbria, although you can find them in other olive groves throughout Italy. Less common, a little bit more expensive. And then in Greece, Greek olive oil, you look for olive oil made with Koroneki olives. These are from the Peloponnesus, the Southern part of Greece, between Koroneki olives, Moraiolo olives, and picuel olives. These are three varietals of olives that are super high in these healthy, inflammation-lowing polyphenols that are good for brain health as we age to counter that inflammation. So how do you find these when you go to a grocery store? Well, listen, I used to be confused by this. You go to this huge wall of different types of extra virgin olives. Here's what I do. I look for Greek. I look for Italian. I look for Spanish olive oil. Fortunately, there's quite a lot of choices to choose from. Then I look for mono-varietal. Mono-varietal means that inside that bottle is extra virgin olive oil that comes from one and only one variety of olive. Picuel from Spain, Koroneki from Greece. These are two very easy ones to find. Moraiolo from Italy, from Umbria, a little bit more difficult. But if you're having trouble finding these mono-varietal olive oils in your grocery store, maybe with Picuel, Koroneki, or Moraiolo olives, guess what? You can order them online, all right? Just enter in the names of those olives, mono-varietal olive oil, and they'll ship it to your house, okay? Now look, olive oil is sort of liquid gold. It tastes great. Read the polyphenols. It should give you a little bit of that peppery, and a zing in the back of your throat after you have it. A little bit of sourdough bread, all right? A great way to have it. Or if I'm cooking eggs, and by the way, eggs are also good for the brain, for brain health. I don't use butter, or I don't use seed oils. I actually use extra virgin olive oil. Now you get the polyphenols in your scrambled eggs as well, or your fried egg. So look, I wanna just wrap this up by telling you a couple of things. Number one, we all age every single day. Every day we're alive, we're aging, all right? And it's not until we reach the second half of our life that we really start to see and feel those effects of aging. And the foods that we eat can actually counter the speed at which we age, and therefore how we feel and how we look, all right? So if you wanna live long, and live well, and look good at the same time, what you wanna be able to do is to add life to your years, and not just years to your life. This isn't only about longevity, it's about thriving. It's about looking good, feeling good, having a sharp brain, as I mentioned to you. So nourish your body as you age with intention, and remember that the choices that you are making today lay the foundation to how well you're gonna look and feel and think in the years ahead. If you like this video, please subscribe. If you know somebody who would benefit from what you just heard, please share the video with them. And with that, I can't wait to share with you the next video. So I will see you in that next video. Dr. Lee, out. Hey, if you liked that video, then you're gonna love this one. Check it out.