Smart foods for longevity

What has diet, nutrition to do with genomics? Indeed, what is genomics? We'll ask two special guests today, Dr. Eliana Liotta, a scientific journalist, a colleague,

and prof. Pier Giuseppe Pelicci, who is research director at IEO-European Institute of Oncology, and Professor of Pathology at the University of Milan.

Eliana, I am addressing you as "tu" (informal Italian) since we are colleagues.
-Yes, God forbid! I will also take this opportunity to thank you

I have to thank you and the "Corriere" of course, but first of all you for coming, because the two "guys" here- I apologize if I call them like this informally - have written a book, which is called "The Smart food diet", this one.

When I received it, honestly, beyond the fact that Eliana is a colleague I know, I was a bit puzzled, I say "The usual diet, that is, Dukan, Mediterranean" do not misunderstand me, great diets ...

Okay, I'll browse through just a little to see if it is interesting, and then I realized it was a completely different stuff from what I had expected. It talks of diets, it talks of intelligent foods, smart food actually, it talks of genetics, genomics... Eliana...
-What have we done?
-What is this thing?

The Smart Food diet is a guide, to begin with, for a healthy diet and therefore it is a diet for well-being, which helps to fight overweight and prevent such diseases as cancer or diabetes and cardiovascular disease, is an easy, very easy diet to follow because it is intuitive.

Just to go to practice, for example, how to organize a lunch or dinner? Here, imagining you should eat half vegetables and fruits, a lot more vegetables than fruit, one fourth grains, better if whole, therefore bread, pasta, rice, and another fourth protein.

We'd like to invite you to eat a lot of bean family protein, that is vegetable protein, at least three times a week, but animal protein is also allowed, therefore fish, meat for those who are not vegetarian, eggs, low-fat cheese, and then there are, dear Luigi, the thirty food that it is "smart", intelligent, not to be without, because they may help to live longer.

Here we are, because so far, let's face it, this is good general dietary advice, easy to share, I think that no nutritionist can deny them in general terms, however...
No -I would say they can't!

Here's the difference then, prof Pelicci, I'm turning to you, right, because your being a famous "smart" researcher leads me to you at once, but in short, why "smart food"? What is so special, they lengthen life, why?

They lengthen life because substances contained in them interact with some genes that in turn control lifespan.

Here is actually is all the revolution that began a few years ago in science, that is, is to have realized, firstly, that foods affect, modify, the activity of our genes, this is not such a novelty.

The two major innovations are, first, that we understood which those genes are and what their function is, which is a very important function because it is a function related to the control of life duration and to the onset of the typical diseases of aging.

And the second big revolution has been to have acquired tools able to measure these effects. So in a certain way, a new era has begun, an era in which we will be able to measure the effects of food on our genes and especially on those genes that are so important to our well-being.

Here, though, worded like this, it brings to my mind one thing, that all nutritionists I hear say "beware, there's no such thing as good food and bad food, you just have to put them in a balanced manner inside a varied diet".

Isn't there a danger that this message may tell us that there are only good foods and that's all ... question?
-No, no, there are no absolute prohibitions in this diet...
-But not even excessive encouragement?

There is an encouragement to favor certain foods and certain food categories... therefore, yes, of course, all foods from the vegetable world are the ones to be definitely favored, and then there are these 20 longevity smart foods

that were referred by Pier Giuseppe Pelicci, which are very common and extraordinary foods, from lettuce to strawberries, from berries to asparagus, cherries, even dark chocolate.

They contain molecules, which, in laboratory and in studies on animal models, have shown the ability even to silence aging genes and stimulate longevity genes.

Here, as regards long lifespan, in your book I read that also speak of fasting; in your book you say that this diet is not punitive, it gives no fixed rules, that anyway no one can follow, however you speak about fasting... come on, fasting is punitive...

Yes, we do speak of fasting in this diet because fasting, or better calorie restriction, has in a way opened this new science; in the sense that if any animal, from the least evolved up to man, up to apes and probably humans, undergoes calorie reduction, the effect is dramatic.

It increases lifespan in some species up to 200%, in mammals around 30-40%... why? Precisely because calorie restriction interferes with these genes Eliana was talking about, the genes which in turn act on the life span.

And this has opened a science, which continued with a second question: is it only calorie restriction that acts on these genes, or are there other molecules, other substances in nature that do that? And the answer is: there are also other substances, which are contained in certain foods.

Apparently, in the course of evolution animals have learned to use these foods and use those substances, clearly in an unconscious manner, to achieve effects on their well-being, which is in a sense a stimulus to evolution, so the answer is surely yes.

Here, then, however, when we speak of fasting we are talking about a reasonable fasting not of things...

No, no ... Unfortunately the first experiments... so let us distinguish three stages. Early experiments: calorie restriction. Dramatic; the mouse, for example, with a restriction equal to 30% of what it would eat without restriction, throughout life, lives longer. Absolutely impractical. However, it opened a huge highway.

Yes, but what life is that...!!!
-Of course that is not a nice life.... We cannot do that!!! Then there was ... two evolutions that are going on now, the first is: is calorie restriction really useful or is it fasting, or partial fasting, that has the same effect?

And this is a trend that is just now opening, and the first results are extremely encouraging, in some experiments in animals, which are partly being replicated in humans, a partial fasting every three to four days, has the same effect of calorie restriction, truly another planet!

Secondly, are there any foods that have the same effect without reducing calories? And the answer that is emerging is: yes!
-Well, last question: how do you think nutritionists will receive this news, these suggestions you offer?

I think they will react well, these are recommendations based on thousands of scientific research studies and a smart food diet is a kind of gateway to a fascinating world, which is that of the relationship between food and genetics.

You can learn a little more, those who wish, with a nutrigenomics glossary and twenty pages' published research, the most reliable, on the subjects of nutrition and longevity genes.

A very last question, even if the one before was to be the last, but another came up to my mind... is this not in contradiction with the Mediterranean diet, of which we have long been saying that, in short, it is the best that can happen to us, so to say...

Absolutely not, but I would say more, it is not contradictory to any diet. You see, the problem with diets, at least one of the reasons that led us to write this book, is that they are often ... the motivation to choose food is based on criteria which are not inspired to answer the question 'is this food good or bad',

but they are inspired by other philosophies and other ideologies: do not eat meat because it is ethically unacceptable, eat quickly because you do not have time, eat Italian food so the economy will improve, eat without GMOs because it is not acceptable ...

These things have nothing to do with the choices about what is healthy and what is not. What would be really great - and I think this book gives a hand in creating this culture and give us tools...

Is that everyone may have the tools to be able, within their own beliefs, whether the Mediterranean diet, or slow foo, or... what they like, the tools to decide.

I mean, hell, we are those that choose pursuing our beliefs, based on, if you will, what makes us more or less healthy
-All right, thanks for coming and goodbye to you all!