Taking Care of Your Brain While Increasing Your HealthSpan by Counting Your Steps ... for Linda and Roy

Health span.  Increasing the span of healthy/active living.

Step #1

An excellent way to keep your brain healthy for 120 And Beyond is daily exercise and the Mind Diet as described HERE by the Mayo Clinic.  The human brain makes up 2% of body's weight but consumes 20% of the body's oxygen supply.  Our brains high oxygen demand is so important that it employs drastic measures like fainting to restore circulation and proper oxygen delivery to the brain.

My cardiologist has ordered me to 5-6 days of cardio per week [includes walking]. Cardio vascular activity, like walking or cycling stimulates the heart to increase blood flow and 20% of that increased oxygen supply is gobbled up by your brain!  I'm up to about 5 days of cardio per week.

My wearable device tracks my daily steps then sends them to the Activity App on my phone. This works for androids too.  From there, I enter the daily total on the custom spreadsheet below.  This spreadsheet tallies my steps by the week month and year.  I've been tracking my steps since September 17, 2015.

Why bother?  Beginning in 2015 my step count averaged between 103,000 to 124,000 steps per month. Along the way I noticed a tendency to want to increase my monthly step count and I'm betting that will extend my health span further into the future.  

In June of 2021, I challenged my family to track steps with me by posting our steps onto a spreadsheet. That month my total was 224,056 steps. 

June: 224,056

July: 308,973  

August: 351,486    

September: 334,383

Once other family members were part of the process, my numbers jumped an additional 100,000 steps per month. 

It takes three months to change a new behavior into a habit.  I’m testing this hypothesis. I wonder if these new numbers are sustainable.  If so I expect an accompanying increase in health span.

Now I have more of an incentive to go out and walk or spin ... even when I'm feeling a little lazy. I frame it this way:  each day I exercise for an hour adds an additional healthy and active day onto my health span lifespan.  I've been called an optimist but hey... that's not a bad way to conduct business.

I've created a Steps Counter Spreadsheet Template for public use...

I'll post the link here.  Stay tuned.

Health Span Research

HealthSpan: 120 and Beyond

a life well lived, a life worth living.

Science will be able to extend life beyond 120

Click HERE for the Guardian Article 

Extending health span is the journey, negligible senescence and enjoying life along the way is the quest.  So make a list of all the things you want to do.  Click HERE.   

Enjoyable living beyond 120 is afloat on a rising tide of research bent on repairing the damage that builds up in our bodies during our life time.  This enjoyable journey is made possible by pharmacological longevity research, by examining the roots of aging in our DNA, by reducing frailty and disability, by minimizing age-related disease risks and by combining this building body of knowledge with the proactive practice of taking care of what we have along the way.

In September 2013 Google announced the creation of Calico, short for the California Life Company. Its mission is to reverse engineer the biology that controls lifespan and “devise interventions that enable people to lead longer and healthier lives”.

Here are links to 5 research institutes paving the way.

1. Google Calico

2  The Ellison Medical Foundation,

3. The Paul F Glenn Foundation for Medical Research

4. The Buck Institute for Research on Ageing

5. Negligible Senescence

At the cellular level, the molecular phenotypes of aging are being characterized.

What if neuro precursor cells could be injected directly into the human brain? Would these cells now do what they did in our earliest embryonic development? Would they migrate to their proper place in the brain? Would these new cells effectively replace older, less efficient brain cells that contribute to neurodegeneration? Could this be the breakthrough enabling people to continue to get smarter as we get older?

Have a relative who has lived beyond 90 or 100? How inheritable is longevity? Calico researcher Graham Ruby answers this question.  7%  Click HERE for details.  He concluded that heritability of lifespan appears to be much lower than previously reported -- as low as seven percent.

Burnt Food and Cancer, a survey of the research.

Burnt food and Cancer ...Studies in rodent models have found that acrylamide exposure increases the risk for several types of cancer...  human research is on going. 

1. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/diet/acrylamide-fact-sheet#how-are-people-exposed-to-acrylamidenbsp

While human studies are inconclusive, animal studies show acrylamide exposure linked to several types of cancer. Toby’s recommendation: reduce acrylamide exposure until ongoing research studies are completed.  See A and B below. For more follow links 1 and 2.

A. Food and cigarette smoke are the major sources of acrylamide exposure...

B. The major food sources of acrylamide are French fries and potato chips; crackers, bread, and cookies; breakfast cereals; canned black olives; prune juice; and coffee.

C. Decreasing cooking time to avoid heavy crisping or browning, blanch potatoes before frying, avoid storing potatoes in a refrigerator. 

10 common high acrylamide containing foods (by dietary percentages. USA)

• 100-1300 mg/g higher than french fries!
• 25% french fries (of the average total intake of acrylamide, 25% comes from french fries!)
• 20% bread especially toasted
• 13% cookies and crackers
• 12% cereals
• 11% potato chips
• 6% coffee, lower levels in dark roast, higher in instant coffee

Also 

• cocoa: esp Hershey's Original Cocoa Formula had a whopping 909 ppb.
• Peanut butter
• prune juice

Source: https://www.healwithfood.org/list/foods-high-in-acrylamide.php#ixzz5xALJ9wAz

Article: Does burnt food give you cancer? 

Chemist Dr. Simon Cotton University of Birmingham, UK 

1. https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/perspective/does-burnt-food-give-you-cancer.aspx

3.Survey Data Acrylamide in Food (last updated 2006)    https://www.fda.gov/food/chemicals/survey-data-acrylamide-food

1. Acrylamide in coffee       https://www.healwithfood.org/articles/coffee-acrylamide-levels.php

Adding to our 120andBeyond community...

My Tai Chi friend Bill has asked about my spin classes (which I do to sustain cardio fitness).  Cardio exercise pumps blood and oxygen to the muscles and the rest of the body, but did you know that the brain consumes 20% of circulating oxygen?

Here’s an invitation my trainer Mary and I made to let Bill know... we’re waiting for him to join in... The more cardio, the more oxygen goes to the brain which we want to sustain for all of our remaining days. As importantly, having Bill as an exercise partner will help.  There are times when I feel like skipping a spin class, but if I’m meeting to Spin with Bill, I’m more likely get to class.

Reliable health information is easily lost in the tsunami of internet social media and advertising. So where do we find dependable sources?  Here's the first vetted source for just that information.

Each of the 8 menu sections at the top of the Harvard Medical School Health home page
has its own drop down menu. (see menu bar below)

Recent health research cited on Harvard's Health site. Click HERE to go there.

TAI CHI FOR A LONGER HEALTHSPAN

Ikigai and My Tai Chi Community for a longer 

and happier health span. 

August 28th, 2018.  Meet Vince McCullough our 88 year old Tai Chi Master whose group I walked into one morning while I was on my beach walk, part of my 10,000 steps per day exercise goal.  

Follow along with Vince as he demonstrates the Emeritus Short Yang Form.

In this photo Vince is celebrating his 88th birthday by leading his Tai Chi class with over 100 students.  That’s Wendy Ma on stage so students can have a better view.

Scroll down for two Tai Chi lessons.

Tai Chi 7 days a week, with Friday at the Laguna Hills Community Center. Here, Vince has asked Wendy to demonstrate the Long Yang form: her movements are like a beautiful heron taking flight.  With over 100 students in the class, Vince has smaller groups lead by additional dedicated teachers like Wendy and Matthew, Jim, Bill, and others.

Two videos below show the Final Exam of his last class. 

#1. Wendy and Matthew lead a group through their final forms.

#2 Below, Jim leads his group through the Long Yang Form...

After class, a group gathers for coffee and conversation, where performing arts, philosophy, and wildly diverse topics are discussed and good books are recommended. Together with the movement of Tai Chi, I have an epiphany:  an Ikigai Blue Zone community is emerging.  Ikigai is the Japanese concept of having purpose in life.

Pure Fun!  Zumba your way into a long and happy lifetime!

Meet my newest happy-long-life coach:  Marc Evangelista
Mark is the latest addition to 120 And Beyond.  He has ramped up the fun in the body-and-mind fitness pillar of living a longer and happier life.

Last week, I discovered another Zumba class with Alyssa.  I’ve never had so much fun exercising! Stay tuned for more!