The Longevity Paradox reveals counterintuitive methods science now links to prolonged health, vitality and freedom from disease. Read this book to uncover the root causes of aging you can radically slow through simple lifestyle tweaks
The bacteria in your gut don’t just contribute to your digestion; they also affect the health of your heart, mind, joints, and bones. In “The Longevity Paradox,” you’ll learn how to cultivate a gut microbiome that works hard for you. In this way, you can support your youth well into old age.
Bacteria are your friends.
READ THIS BOOK SUMMARY IF YOU:
- Want to age well
- Are interested in the connection between gut health and your overall well-being
- Feel less than your best
Table of Contents
Introduction
More than ever, Americans are aging into disease and disability — but aging doesn’t have to happen that way. Recent research suggests that, because the bacteria in your gut have cascading effects throughout your body, the best way to stay young well into old age is to cultivate a healthy gut microbiome. This summary teaches you how to do just that.
If you want to make friends with your friendly gut bacteria, be sure to keep in mind these four essential features of the Longevity Paradox:
- Bacteria: It isn’t your genes that determine your future; it’s your bacteria.
- Leaky gut: When bacteria and lipopolysaccharides leak through your gut, they cause inflammation and aging.
- Hormesis: Moderate amounts of stress can protect your body from aging.
- Lectins: Lectins, a type of protein that binds with sugar, are one of the main drivers of inflammation in the body.
Ancient Genes Control Your Fate
You might have heard that your genetic background plays a large role in your health. However, researchers are increasingly finding that the genes you inherit from your parents aren’t what really matters; instead, what matters is the bacteria they pass on to you. Certain families of bacteria that live in the gut can drastically improve medical outcomes in terms of obesity, heart disease, aging, and more, and it may be possible to engineer a gut microbiome that fosters helpful bacteria.
Bacteria play a role in every part of your body, but they make the greatest difference by processing the food you eat to deliver nutrients to your bloodstream. If your gut bacteria can’t process your nutrients, you won’t get its benefits. Furthermore, prolonged exposure to certain compounds can drive out helpful bacteria or invite in harmful bacteria. Lectins, a type of protein found in single-leafed plants like grains and beans, are one such compound, but herbicides, pesticides, drugs, fertilizers, and additives all fall into this category as well.
The broad use of antibiotics is a problem, too. They kill off both good and bad bacteria, weakening your defenses and paving the way for bad bacteria to take up space in your gut once the course of the medicine is finished.
Protect and Defend
Cultivating the right bacteria in your mouth, in your gut, and on your skin is only one half of your defense against aging and inflammation. The other is making sure that bacteria and their cell walls (lipopolysaccharides, or LPSs) stay in the gut rather than crossing the intestinal border. When LPSs and bacteria — good or bad — cross the border, your immune system fires up, causing chronic inflammation. That inflammation causes damage to your body associated with aging.
Lectins are one of the things that leads to a leaky, permeable intestinal border. Lectins bind with both the mucus that protects your gut lining and with receptors on the gut lining, producing a substance called zonulin, which breaks down the connections in the cells of your intestinal walls. Bacteria and LPSs start leaking out of your gut, triggering your immune system to keep your body in constant, lowgrade inflammation. But it’s not just lectins, of course — NSAIDs like Aspirin and Tylenol and proton pump inhibitors like Prilosec OTC also cause leaky gut.
You can protect your gut lining with a process called hormesis. Hormesis is a state of low-level stress that strengthens your body and your bacteria. Hormetic stressors tend to be good for you in low doses but bad for you in excess. Heat, cold, UV light, alcohol, and calorie restriction are all hormetic stressors, for instance. Calorie restriction can be particularly powerful, especially when paired with eating seasonally and establishing routine day/night cycles. By restricting calories, your mucosal lining will have a chance to regrow, and you’ll help your gut microbiome weed out weak and unhelpful bacteria, leaving only effective and protective bacteria.
What You Think is Keeping You Young is Probably Making You Old
There are seven common myths about aging and longevity:
- Let’s start with the myth that the Mediterranean diet, particularly the consumption of grains, promotes longevity. In fact, people in the Mediterranean are among a group of populations that live to 100 years old at a rate 10 times higher than the global average. What the diets of these regions have in common are resistant starches like those in taro root and purple sweet potatoes, high amounts of fat, and low consumption of animal protein. Practitioners of the Mediterranean diet are healthy despite their high grain consumption, not because of it.
- The second myth is that animal protein supports muscular strength and longevity. Research has shown that vegan diets best improve longevity, while animal protein leads to higher levels of blood sugar and obesity.
- Third is that growth hormones — those that make people and animals taller and bigger — are good for you. People tend to think of taller people as having a better diet or more vitality, when in fact there’s an inverse relationship between growth hormones and longevity.
- Fourth is the notion that having a high metabolism means you’re in good health. In reality, a high metabolism is a sign that your body is functioning inefficiently. Furthermore, heat generated from a high metabolic rate ages your body.
- The fifth myth is that you need to get a lot of iron as you age, and this is a common justification for meat consumption. Several studies have shown that people with lower iron levels live longer, and high levels of iron increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
- Sixth is the recent myth that saturated fat is good for you. There’s a distinction to make here: Saturated plant-based fats reduce your risk of developing heart disease, while saturated animal fats increase it.
- Finally, the last myth is that milk is an important dietary staple. During digestion, the protein casein A1 turns into an opioid peptide that triggers the immune system and causes inflammation. And that’s to say nothing of the fact that modern-day milk contains antibiotics and the pesticide Roundup, both of which also cause inflammation.
Get Younger from the Inside Out
Americans have begun to believe that heart disease is inevitable as you age, that it’s an issue of the cardiovascular system alone, and that it can’t be influenced. The truth is that heart disease is an immunological problem. Over the course of his career, Dr. Gundry has found that increasing numbers of patients have inflamed blood vessels. This results from a particular dietary habit: the consumption of a lectin-binding sugar molecule called Neu5Ac that’s present in animal proteins and builds up in blood vessels.
In other words, heart disease begins in the gut. The higher the diversity of your gut bacteria, the lower your risk of heart attack. The good news is that you can reeducate your gut microbiome to stop producing the chemicals that make your arteries stiff by consuming polyphenols, such as those present in red wine and olive oil.
Dance Your Way Into Old Age
Recent research also shows a connection between the gut and arthritis. Aging itself doesn’t cause wear and tear on your body; inflammation does. Lectins and LPSs that leak into your body prompt your immune system to attack your joints, causing an inflammatory response. But all is not lost. Rebuilding the gut barrier can stop that flow and give your joints an opportunity to heal. Osteoporosis and muscle loss also take a toll on your bones and are related to diet. For example, LPSs have produced osteoporosis in mice.
Perhaps the best defenses against bone loss and arthritis are calorie restriction and exercise. Hormesis caused by calorie restriction leads to lower insulin levels and greater muscle mass, and exercise — particularly resistance exercise — builds muscle mass and protects your bones. As a bonus, exercise has also been shown to increase levels of good gut bacteria called Firmicutes, causing cascading positive health effects throughout your body.
Remember Your Old Age
Like heart disease, many people assume that cognitive and neurological conditions like dementia and Alzheimer’s are just a fact of aging. Once again, this isn’t the case: Researchers have found that no matter your age, your body can create new brain cells. Additionally, with increased physical fitness comes increased ability to learn.
You may have heard that the gut is the second brain. On the contrary, there are nine times as many fibers leading from your gut to your brain as the other way around — your brain could be considered your second brain. And when leaky gut affects the brain, it can cause neuroinflammation, which is extremely damaging and is now known to be the cause of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, and dementia.
The best way to care for your brain is to do a sort of “wash.” When you rest, cerebrospinal fluid flows through the spaces between your cells, clearing out harmful substances. However, this wash requires adequate blood flow to the brain, which isn’t possible if you’ve eaten too soon before you rest. This is another benefit of fasting and calorie restriction: If you stop eating by 4 p.m., the brain will have the opportunity to wash and heal itself.
The Longevity Paradox Program
Probiotics aren’t enough of a plan for improving your gut health. Without care and maintenance, your gut microbiome will deteriorate. As far as food goes, there are a few important components to include or eliminate from your diet.
Prebiotics are the long-chain sugars that bacteria eat, which you’ll find in tubers, roots, and fungi. Foods like ground flaxseed, artichokes, leeks, okra, jicama, cruciferous vegetables, chicories, nuts, and mushrooms are excellent sources of prebiotics. Low-sugar fruits like avocados, green bananas, berries, figs, and coconuts are anti-aging, as are healthy fats like perilla seed oil, MCT oil, and olive oil. Dairy alternatives include goat dairy products, ghee, and coconut yogurt and milk. And good news: There’s one grain that’s actually beneficial to your health! Millet has no lectin or gluten, and its fibers are prebiotic.
Foods to avoid, on the other hand, include simple sugars and starches, sugar substitutes, conventional dairy products, and bad fats like saturated fats and peanut oil.
You’ll also schedule in certain eating plans each month. Most days will be free days, during which you can eat without restricting calories or timeframes. Five consecutive days a month will be fast-mimicking days, on which you should eliminate animal protein and limit your calories to 900 per day. Once or twice a week, you’ll schedule “brain wash” days, on which you can either skip dinner or eat it before 4 p.m. For extra longevity benefits, include optional calorie restriction days once or twice a week, when you’ll only eat 600 calories. Finally, if you have degenerative problems, you can schedule extra brain days each week.
The “Longevity Paradox” lifestyle plan has two parts: stress management and recovery. For longevity, the best form of stress management is exercise. The Longevity Paradox exercise plan takes only five minutes: One minute of jogging in place, one minute of classic crunches, one of planking, one of squats, and one of meditation. If you want to step up your routine, you can add 10 minutes of highintensity interval training, which burns fat longer than traditional exercise. Additionally, heat and cold exposure provide beneficial hormesis because your cells will learn to tolerate stress.
As for recovery, the most important step is to make sleep a priority. Make sure to avoid blue light and establish a regular sleep routine. Furthermore, tightly-knit communities are the norm in people that live the longest. Connection with others is crucial for rejuvenation.
Conclusion
Everyone has to age, but aging doesn’t have to mean growing sick or feeble. With the help of your gut microbiome, your family, and your friends, you can stay young at a ripe old age.
As you make healthier choices in your life, keep in mind the key points you’ve learned in this summary:
- Bacteria: It isn’t your genes that determine your future; it’s your bacteria.
- Leaky gut: When bacteria and lipopolysaccharides leak through your gut, they cause inflammation and aging.
- Hormesis: Moderate amounts of stress can protect your body from aging.
- Lectins: Lectins, a type of protein that binds with sugar, are one of the main drivers of inflammation in the body.
About Steven R. Gundry
Dr. Steven R. Gundry is a former cardiac surgeon who now runs a clinic that investigates the effects of diet on health. He also wrote the bestselling book The Plant Paradox.
Genres
health, science, medical, aging, longevity,wellness, medicine, biology, gerontology, nutrition
Review
The book is about how to live a long, healthy, and happy life by supporting the health of the microorganisms that live within our bodies, especially in our gut. The author, Dr. Gundry, is a world-renowned surgeon and nutrition expert who has treated thousands of patients with various chronic diseases.
He argues that aging is not inevitable, but rather a result of the way we have lived over the decades. He claims that the “diseases of aging” such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, diabetes, and heart disease are largely caused by the damage we inflict on our gut microbiome, the community of bacteria that make up 90% of our cells and control our immune system, metabolism, mood, and appearance.
He also explains how some foods, such as lectins (a type of protein found in grains, beans, nightshades, and dairy), gluten, sugar, and animal protein can harm our gut buddies and trigger inflammation, leaky gut, autoimmune disorders, and weight gain. He proposes a four-phase nutrition and lifestyle plan to restore and maintain a healthy gut microbiome and reverse the signs of aging.
The plan includes eating more plant-based foods, especially those rich in polyphenols (antioxidants that feed the good bacteria), avoiding or limiting lectins and other harmful foods, taking supplements such as probiotics, prebiotics, and digestive enzymes, fasting intermittently or periodically, exercising moderately but regularly, managing stress, sleeping well, and practicing gratitude.
He also provides simple hacks to help anyone look and feel younger and more vital, such as drinking hydrogen water, using red light therapy, applying stem cell creams, and taking NAD+ boosters.
The book is well-written and engaging, with many anecdotes, case studies, scientific references12, and practical tips. The author is very knowledgeable and passionate about his topic and his approach is based on his own experience and research.
He challenges some conventional wisdoms about aging and nutrition and offers a new perspective on how to achieve longevity and vitality. The book is not only informative but also inspiring and empowering, as it shows that we have more control over our health and destiny than we think.
The book is also very comprehensive and covers many aspects of aging well, from diet to lifestyle to mindset. The book is not without its flaws though. Some of the claims are not fully supported by evidence or are controversial among experts. For example, the author’s views on lectins are disputed by some studies that show that they may have beneficial effects on health34.
Some of the recommendations are also unrealistic or impractical for some people, such as avoiding all grains, beans, nuts, seeds, dairy, eggs, nightshades, and most fruits. Some of the supplements and hacks are also expensive or hard to find. The book may also be too long and repetitive for some readers who prefer a more concise and straightforward guide.
Overall, I think the book is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn more about how to live longer and better by taking care of their gut health. The book provides a lot of useful information and advice that can be applied to improve one’s health and well-being.
However, the book should not be taken as a definitive or dogmatic source of truth but rather as a starting point for further exploration and experimentation. The book encourages readers to listen to their own bodies and find what works best for them individually. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in longevity and nutrition science.