Nutrition and lifestyle in healthy aging

Today, researchers are struggling to find a compound or an “elixir” for long life, while common people are taking dietary supplements with the intent to preserve mental, physical, and emotional health into old age. Most dietary supplement programs include combinations of vitamins, antioxidants, and other constituents, some of which have been shown to have significant health benefits in controlled clinical studies. Specific nutrients provide all the necessary building blocks to support telomere** health and extend lifespan.

This is the case of folate [56,57], vitamins (B, D, E, C)[58] zinc [59] and polyphenol compounds such as resveratrol [60], grape seed extract and curcumin [61]. 

Several foods -such as tuna, salmon, herring, mackerel,halibut, anchovies, cat-fish, grouper, flounder, flaxseeds, sesame seeds, kiwi, black raspberries, green tea, broccoli, sprouts, red grapes, tomatoes, olive fruit- are a good source of antioxidants. These, combined with a Mediterranean type of diet containing fruits, vegetable sand whole grains would help protect our chromosome ends [62-70]. 

Footnotes correspond to article bibliography:  https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/paperchase-aging/pdf/mW9rhe3mWMZWAs46n.pdf

**Telomeres are long sequences of nucleotides at the end of our chromosomes, forming with specific proteins complex, an “end caps” which preserve genome stability and lead a cell to correctly divide.