5 PROVEN WAYS TO LIVE LONGER #44

After months of listening all about how many people have died from Covid 19 and how this has altered the average lifespan of Americans (for women it is 81 years and for men it is 77 years), I decided to write about what all we can do to live longer and stay healthy. After reading lots of articles I came up with the top 5 proven methods to extend your life beyond the average.

First – Foremost you must practice PREVENTIVE DENTISTRY-this means you must floss daily (after every meal but for sure at night after dinner) and you must brush after every meal. Dr. Charles Mayo of The Mayo Clinic has said that “PREVENTIVE DENTISTRY CAN ADD 10 YEARS TO YOUR LIFE”! The main reason for this is related to the fact that your mouth contains “ZILLIONS” of bacteria and many of them are the bad bacteria such as “STREP AND STAPH”. These germs cause gum infections, decay and even some forms of cancer. Once they have created an infection this can spread to other parts of the body. It is now estimated that about 25% of strokes, heart attacks, diabetes and premature birth are connected to the fact that the patient was not committed to PREVENTIVE DENTISTRY. I’m going to write a book and call it “FLOSS OR DIE”. But just this one step can add years to your life!

Second – QUIT SMOKING! First of all, smoking is extremely unhealthy for the mouth. It helps the bad bacteria to grow and then here comes the gum infections. In practice I am going to say that about 99% of my patients that smoke have some form of gum disease. Of course, in addition to causing gum infections, it also causes all kinds of other problems with the rest of your body such as heart disease and cancer. I can’t think of anything related to smoking that is good for you. QUIT IT!!! Quitting smoking has been shown to also add about 10 years to your life!

Third – It is very important to get your BMI less than 25. BMI stands for Body Mass Index. It is a measure of your body fat based on height and weight. If your BMI is over 25 you are considered fat. If your BMI is over 30 you are considered obese. If the BMI is over 40 you are considered severely obese. I personally used to be in the 26-27 range and I didn’t think that I looked that bad but I didn’t consider myself fat. However, I was having lots of health issues. The health issues seemed minor to me, such as difficulty sleeping (I had Sleep Apnea) and I tried a CPAP and couldn’t stand it. I was having lots of other health issues such as heart burn and indigestion, enlarged prostate, poor sleep quality, arthritis, low energy levels, sinus issues, slight diverticulitis, high cholesterol etc. As soon as I went on the PALEO DIET and lost 25 pounds (now my BMI is 23.5) most of these problems either went away or improved greatly. I had no idea that BMI could affect so many other issues, but for me it was a game changer. I asked my physician about that and he said “Well, you realize that being fat is an inflammatory process and it wreaks havoc on your entire body?” I didn’t realize that and I didn’t realize how bad I felt until I felt good/great! There is not enough study yet to see if your BMI is normal, how does this affect life expectancy. There is one study that if you are considered Fat or Obese it will shorten your life from 5-20 years depending upon how fat you are.

Fourth – Exercise. I have exercised my entire life. I played sports in junior high and high school and I ran track in college. Since then, I have always done something like jogging, swimming, lifting weights, treadmill, walking etc. I think that exercise for me has helped me to fight off a lot of disease processes and reduce stress. For the last 5 years or so I have been doing walking, treadmill and going to the gym to lift weights etc. Dr. Ken Cooper M.D. and many others have been able to show that aerobic exercise can help you fight off all the insults that are thrown our way on a daily basis. Examples would be pollution, preservatives in food, chemicals in our water etc. Dr. Cooper recommends that you get at least 150 minutes per week of aerobic exercise. To this day I try hard to do that and on days where I can’t walk, I try to get on the treadmill and in addition rack up my 10,000 steps. National Institute of health says that moderate exercise will add about 5 years to your life. Whatever the time is, I think it adds quality to living.

Fifth–Eat PALEO-there are lots of good diets out there and of course nothing is perfect. But, for me, Paleo fits almost all of the criteria for the perfect diet. Let me show you what I have discovered regarding the PALEO diet. This is what I have found through my research!

Paleo provides the same ingredients that God provided us in the beginning. We would not have evolved as a species to what we are now if we had not followed what God and nature provided. God did not provide processed food, sugars, dairy and other Franken foods that exist today. These foods are not natural and science has confirmed that they actually make us sick. There is no way you can stay healthy when you are consuming 200 pounds of sugar per year (that is what the average American consumes!!) No wonder we have an unprecedented number of people that have have diabetes and suffer from cancer and heart attacks not to mention gum infection and decay! Our PALEO ancestors diet consisted of vegetables (Plants), fruits (when in season), nuts, seeds, fowl, eggs, fish and animals when they could catch them. They ate no processed food of any kind, nor grains, sugars or animals from a feed lot on antibiotics and hormones. Obviously, everything they ate was of an organic nature with no additives or chemicals. Did you know that caveman had no gum disease and no cavities until they started to learn to make grains into bread and pasta.

Supported by all of these studies and facts, I am sure that the right diet for me is the Paleo diet. In my opinion, it is the only diet that gives us the food that our bodies were designed to eat! The paleo diet is based on plants as the foundation so we need to eat vegetables at every meal and some meals will include a protein such as fish, chicken or beef (Nothing raised in a cage or feed lot). And did you know that man is the only animal on the planet who consumes milk from another animal? So, what do you think? Are you eating like God designed us to eat? Do you consume chemicals, hormones and antibiotics? Do you eat meat from cows that have been standing knee deep in their own poop while talking those antibiotics to prevent the infections they all have???

SUMMARY-In my opinion, I think that the PALEO diet is the only diet designed by God that makes sense to eat. If you knew what chemicals were in your food, would you consume them anyway? Did you know that there are about 60 different names for sugar and about 60% of the food we buy contains sugar? Did you know that 68% of all the food we eat contains corn? Did you also know that 90% of American food contains chemicals of some kind? In my opinion, we should all eat Paleo now!

“THE MOUTH IS THE WINDOW TO YOUR HEALTH”. BRUSH AND FLOSS TWICE DAILY, AVOID SUGAR FOR 2021 AND SEE YOUR DENTIST AND PHYSICIAN ON A REGULAR BASIS.

Spiker Davis D.D.S. spiker@thepaleodentist.com John Seger M.D. Matt Guerre D.D.S.

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RANT AND RAVE-I challenge you to find a food that does not have some kind of chemical in it. Why do they have chemicals? I believe that they put sugar in food to make the food addictive. I believe that they put chemicals in food to help preserve them so that they can sit on the shelf or in your pantry for months without rotting. I believe that they put corn in everything because it is a cheap filler and this allows them to make more money on the product. What do you think?

STAY SAFE. WORRY ABOUT NOTHING AND PRAY ABOUT EVERYTHING.