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Healthy At 100 Main Text

Hello, this is AJ again. Welcome to our next lesson. This one is called “Healthy at 100.” Healthy at 100 is the name of a book by John Robbins. It’s a fantastic book, very interesting and the topic of this book is exactly what the title says. The topic of this book is how to be a healthy person at the age of 100, which seems kind of amazing to most people. Can you be healthy? Can you be strong? Can you have energy when you’re 100 years old? And the answer is absolutely yes. Now how did John Robbins write this book? It’s very interesting. Well, what he did, personally and then with his research assistants, he studied cultures, places in the world where large numbers of people live to be very old. But not only just live to be old, because, y’know, if you live to be old but you’re weak, that’s not very fun.

So he studied places that had a lot of very old people who were also very strong, very energetic, very healthy, very happy. There’s a big difference if you’re 90 years old and you’re in a nursing home and you’re weak and sick, and ugh. That’s a terrible life. But if you’re 90 years old and you’re out running and you feel great, well that’s fantastic. And there are cultures like this and there are also a lot of individual people like this. And when I say a lot, I don’t mean a lot by percentage. It’s a small percent of the human population. But still there are thousands of these kind of people, I don’t know, maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe millions. I’m not sure what the exact number is. But you can find these people. You can find specific cultures where there are a lot of them. And then you can find individuals.

And so John Robbins was very curious about this and he wanted to know why. Why, why do some people live strong, long, healthy, active lives for a very, very long time? Why are some people, you know, so strong when they’re older and live so much longer? And then other people, y’know, they’re 60 years old, they’re already tired and sick. What’s the difference is what he wanted to know. And so he studied different groups. One of the groups were people, traditional people, on the island of Okinawa, Japan.

So that we’re not talking… …Okinawa now has a lot of modern culture, a lot of American influence. And those people do not live so long. And they’re not so healthy. But the kind of people who live on Okinawa in a traditional way, the way they always have for a very long time, those people are very special. They live very long lives and they’re very strong and healthy. They’re still working when they’re 80 or 90 years old, working like on farms, like hard, physical work.

He studied another group of people in Pakistan, same thing. They lived to be 90, 100, over 100, and the whole time they’re working, doing heavy, hard, physical work. It’s pretty amazing. And then another thing they did is they studied individual people.

There are just certain people, for example one of my favorites, one of my favorite teachers, he’s dead now but I think he’s a great example, I want to be like him. And his name is Paul Bragg. Paul Bragg was, in America, one of the first people to start health food stores. He kind of started the health movement in America. He was one of the first people to start eating organic food, for example. Well Paul Bragg, he is so interesting. He died when he was, I believe, 96 years old.

You know, that’s pretty good itself, he lived to be 96. But here’s the cool part, this is the part I love. How did he die when he was in 96? Was he in a bed sick with cancer? No, he was surfing. He was surfing when he was 96 years old and it was a surfing accident. Like I don’t know what happened. I guess he was surfing and he fell off the board and another surfboard hit him in the head or he hit a rock or something. You know, it’s sad that he died, of course. But he died active. He’s out on the waves surfing in the ocean. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, daaah. And he’s 96 years old! Awesome! Or Jack LaLanne, another great guy from the United States. In fact he learned from Paul Bragg. He’s still alive today. He’s 90 years old. He’s still super energetic. He exercises constantly. He swims . He runs. He lifts weights. His wife also, they’re both like 90‑something years old and they’re just so strong and healthy.

We can find a lot of people like this actually. And what’s really interesting when you compare Paul Bragg, Jack LaLanne, these different peoples in Okinawa, in Pakistan, other parts of the world, they have similar things. They’re all doing similar things. There’s a reason. It’s not a roll of the dice, remember that phrase? It’s not a roll of the dice. It’s not luck. And it’s not because of their family members, because Paul Bragg’s father and mother didn’t live really long and really strong.

It’s something they are doing. So that’s what this book is about, Healthy at 100. And one of the things they study in the book is cancer. Why do some people get cancer at a high rate and other people very, very low rate of cancer? Let me read a little section from the book now and it’s about cancer and it discusses the reason, or one of the biggest reasons. And it’s titled Cancer and Animal Foods. Here we go:

If the correlation between cancer and animal food consumption is indeed powerful, you would expect many studies to find a connection between the two. It turns out there are many. For example, a study of 122,000 female American nurses found that those women who ate meat daily were two and a half times more likely to get colon cancer than those women who ate meat less than once a month. In 2001 a comprehensive Harvard review of the research on dairy products and prostate cancer found that those who had over the course of their lives consumed the most dairy products had double the rate of prostate cancer and four times the rate of metastatic prostate cancer. A high intake of fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, was associated with a lower risk of advanced prostate cancer.

Other studies including the famous physicians health study have also confirmed a link between dairy product consumption and prostate cancer. And a study of more than 12,000 men found that those who drank soy milk regularly rather than cow’s milk had a whopping 70P reduction in their risk of prostate cancer. Today, men in China who are still eating their traditional plant‑based diet without any dairy products have one of the lowest rates of prostate cancer in the world. And no one can say these low rates are due to a genetic advantage because Chinese American men living in the United States, eating the standard American diet, have rates 10 times as high as their genetic counterparts still eating in the traditional way in China.

Whoo, okay. That’s a little bit difficult section. A little bit scientific and some long sentences there, let me just explain what it means. So basically, he’s talking about a lot of research related to cancer. And here’s what they find, the basic result: The more animal food you eat, so that’s meat and dairy, the higher your risk for cancer, the higher the rate of cancer. The less you eat, the lower the rate of cancer. So strict vegetarians, which are called vegans, have the lowest rates of cancer in the world. People who eat lots and lots and lots of meat and drink a lot of milk and eat a lot of cheese, they have the highest rates of cancer in the world. Interesting.

That’s one reason I’m a vegetarian to be honest. And another thing that you find is these people, like Paul Bragg, like Jack LaLanne, these different people in different parts of the world, they may not be total strict vegetarians. However, they eat very, very, very little meat. They almost never drink milk or dairy products or eat cheese. They are eating a lot of fresh organic vegetables basically. And, of course, fruit as well. I mean that’s the big secret. Yes, you’ve got to exercise and move your body. That’s another part of the book. He talks about that diet is one big factor but also moving your body and getting a lot of exercise and physical activity, of course, is very important as well. Those two factors are the biggest factors in determining how long you will live, how healthy you will be, how strong you will be, how much energy you will have in your body.

So, y’know, I never tell people “Be a vegetarian” because it’s a personal choice, I think people need to decide on their own. However, if your goal is to be a very healthy, strong person, live a long time, reduce your risk for cancer, heart disease and a lot of other things, you should think about it. You should at least reduce your meat and dairy intake a lot. And, y’know, again don’t just believe me. Maybe I’m just crazy AJ. Go look at the scientific research. Get the book Healthy at 100 by John Robbins.

There’s a lot of other stuff out there. Do your research. Get on the internet if you want to and do some research. But I encourage you reduce the amount of fat and meat and cheese and milk and all that stuff. Get it out of your food. Get it out of your diet. Keep it out of your body and start eating a whole lot more vegetables and fruit. Get some real healthy, vital, energetic food into your body. You’re going to feel a lot better. And you’re going to get the same kind of energy that people like Paul Bragg have, that Jack LaLanne has, that Tony Robbins has, that I have.

Alright, we’ll see you next time. Bye bye.