If you ask yourself what do you want more – to be young and active, or to be beautiful and healthy, the answer, most likely, will be laconic: all of this! Because activity is an integral part of longevity, and health is an essential part of attractiveness.

But, despite the indisputability of this statement, things go differently in modern life: beauticians handle our beauty, doctors treat our diseases, and fitness trainers take care of our activity.

It’s not so easy to deal with your health in a holistic way: it takes time, money, and facilities. However, there is another way: find a professional who works in several spheres at the same time. Someone like our guest — Jean Pierre Spinosa, a practicing surgeon, gynaecologist, oncologist, and specialist in anti-age medicine, the main component of which is nutrition. Apart from that, Jean Pierre Spinosa is an author of many purely medical and popular scientific topics.

We plan to hold regular meetings with doctor Spinosa in our magazine. That’s why we have decided to start with such «elemental» things as healthy eating.

— To begin with, we need to clarify some things: what does the term «healthy eating» mean?

— It means a correct nutrition that is healthy, non- toxic, and the one that helps to maintain longevity. And, obviously, the one that makes us look beautiful. Over long years of my medical practice I have realized a few important things. First, there is no universal «healthy food» that works for everyone. Eskimos, living in igloos, will have a different notion of healthy food from, for instance, aborigines of Australia or Amazon Indians. Observation of various population groups leads us to another conclusion: it is more important to know what foods to avoid rather than what foods you should eat. I tell my patients what they must NOT eat when they are ill, and what they should eat when they have this or that disease. There is another important nuance: we are not talking here about dieting as it initially implies certain limitations. We are talking about healthy eating. The type of nutrition that helps to reduce the risk of illness and, wherever possible, postpone aging. «Aging» presupposes «illness» since all diseases tend to exacerbate with age.

— Do you mean to say that it is impossible to tell clearly what food is healthy and what is not?

— Among foodstuffs there aren’t such that could be effectively grouped into super toxic or extra healthy. Health and quality of life depend on a balance, which is quite complicated and delicate: it is the balance of cell functioning and it has to be maintained all the time. It’s like breathing: you can’t stop breathing today to be able to breathe a little longer tomorrow. We have to pay attention to the functioning of our cells, and give them all they need for them to keep going. For example, people who go on holiday and indulge in all sorts of excesses and later try to make up for it are, to put it mildly, not right.

— With modern speed of life to keep such balance is a challenge…

— The genome of a man of 2016 is practically identical to the man (homo habilis) of about some 3 million years ago. It is, in its turn, the result of what mankind has accumulated over 3 million years of its existence.

And over all these years we have been adapting our genetics in such a way so as to adjust to the world which lay around. Thus, human genes that control our digestive system have not changed so much. To make it more visual, 3 million years (for example) is 3,000 cm on an imaginary ruler. That means that, in general, over all the time of human existence we have seriously changed our nutrition only in the last 10 cm. But it took us 30 meters of time» to form our genetic legacy!

— Do you mean that people have been eating a lot of meat for over 3 million years and have felt great?

— Not! I can only say that this question — to eat or not to eat meat — is a false dilemma. We can, covering all the continents, look at populations who have the best longevity and health status, and analyse their health, and see that it’s not all so unambiguous. In some places of the world, where lives a higher number of older people, and their health is just fine: these are some areas of Japan (the Okinawa islands, in the first place) and the Mediterranean region (Crete). If you don’t take these observations as a dogma but rather use them as a basis for reflection, then the conclusion is clear: in all these places meat has not been excluded from their diet. People rather ate balanced food. But you can still identify some foodstuffs that have been excluded or their intake has been limited to a minimum: these are grain and dairy products, refined sugar, and beans.

There is a simple explanation to this: for million years people have had to eat things they could eat, the things that were available, the animals they could catch. We are the progeny of those individuals who could adjust to this type of nutrition, the ones that were able to survive in the evolutionary battle.

— What diet did a Neanderthal man have?

— At first, people ate simple food: they obtained food where they could procure it. It was easier to eat a healthy plant rather than chase after goats or giraffes. Nonetheless, it was still dangerous. Meat in all forms was a part of their diet, but it did not prevail. Thus, vegetarians aren’t so wrong after all: food rich in vegetables is absolutely necessary for our biology. But animal products should also be included in our diet.

If you compare the anatomy, you will find out that the human intestine looks more like the one of the carnivorous rather than of the herbivorous. That means we are omnivorous. So, the devil is in the proportions.

— Is this the demand of the evolution?

— Not so much the demand, rather an obligation. Another important thing is that over the time of human existence, there have appeared some ways of cooking food that haven’t been there before. For example, a way of storing meat by either salting or smoking it. Modern people are not ready to metabolize and digest some substances, formed as a result of such ways of storing food. Consequently, we can expect that overuse of smoked and pickled foods can cause a deterioration of health. For instance, in Japan, but not on the Okinawa islands, there have been registered a lot of people with oncological diseases. This can easily be a consequence of overeating smoked and salted food.

— The proponents of vegetarianism eat more bread, baked food, and all sorts of flakes. What would you say about them?

— Wheat is a vegetable product. If you look at what segment of the 3 metres of our imaginary ruler there came the use of grains, then it could only happen when people started to lead a sedentary life. That is no more than 3 thousand years ago or no more than 3 cm on our ruler. I can assure you that there are a lot of health problems among the regular consumers of grain products, too. Thus, here comes another argument against vegetarianism.

If you ask people whether they drink milk in the morning, meat-eaters will most likely reply affirmatively and add that they do not refuse cheese either. But do you know over what period of time have our bodies learned to adapt to dairy products? — It turns out that even later than to grain products! Judge for yourself: even if you somehow could manage to capture a mammoth, but to keep it to have milk from it was definitely much more difficult. That is, in terms of our history, it happened almost yesterday. Naturally, you can find a high rate of serious diseases in the countries where people eat a lot of cheese, butter, and especially dairy products: for example, in Scandinavia and Northern Europe. In the USA people eat huge amounts of ice cream, chocolate, and meat with soda… As a result — the health status of Americans raises serious concerns, and obesity, about 50% of the population suffer from it, is now taking the form of epidemics. Cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and diabetes are also prevalent there. And a lot of serious medical studies have demonstrated a link between these diseases and the kind of nutrition.

Things are a little better in Italy than in the USA. However, this country has problems related to the consumption of huge amounts of grain derivatives — pizzas, pasta, and breads, even if carbonara is one of the best and tasty dishes. Very detrimental to health are sweet soda drinks.

Ideal nutrition is a mixed one with predominance of the vegetables but not only vegetarian and even less vegan. Some aliments should be consumed in limited quantities: we mean essentially aliments with high content of carbohydrates as well as of milk, dairy products, salt and the majority of refined oils. A serious approach for the personal nutrition advice is only possible with the blood test and nutrition check-up.

— We should probably talk about the harms of fast sugar separately?

Sugar is not an individual product. Bread, rice, grains, flakes, potatoes, are all sugars, too! The worst a man can do is to have a diet with high content of carbohydrates (or sugar-containing products). There are species of microbes that feed almost exclusively on sugars. Thus, for example, with candidiasis lesions, you can start by excluding sugar from your diet and the microbes will die of hunger!

If we come back to our ruler and try to make a list of all products people eat, then all the harmful and toxic products will be grouped in the last part of the ruler, and all the healthy ones will be evenly distributed over its length. Thus, using this «method of ruler», you can easily guide yourself through all the varieties of gastronomic offers in the modern world.

— And find a simple truth: moderation is the answer…

No doubt, the extremists who want to exclude all animal products from our diet are wrong. And biology explains why. Research has shown that exclusion of some substances from your diet is laden with severe health complications. But people who eat a lot of animal products are also risking their health. Consequently, a perfect diet should include both vegetable and animal products, but predominantly vegetables. This is an optimal formula, which is both correct «vis- à-vis» of our past, and, at the same time, goes in line with current research. And this is a maximal chance to have a real advantage in terms of long life with good health!

— Thank you for a very interesting and informative story!

EXPAT: Dr. Jean-Pierre Spinosa believes that he gave us a rather sketchy analysis of a topic, which is otherwise very extensive with a multitude of aspects and nuances. In the next issues of our magazine, we will continue to familiarize you, dear readers, with new observations and research on this subject.