Longevity
Healthy Vessels, Healthy Brain
Healthy arteries, healthy brain: The Tsimane demonstrate that a long life with sharp cognition is possible – if your lifestyle supports it.
Longevity
Healthy arteries, healthy brain: The Tsimane demonstrate that a long life with sharp cognition is possible – if your lifestyle supports it.
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Healthy blood vessels and a healthy brain – yes indeed, it exists. Though not so much with us in Switzerland and other "Western" countries. But there are indigenous peoples who show us the way – who demonstrate that such healthy humans truly do exist.
Perhaps some of you remember: Not long ago, researchers claimed to have discovered "the world's healthiest people" (quite amusing). The best lifestyle overall for heart and cardiovascular health, [source no longer available], belongs to the Tsimane, an indigenous people living in the Bolivian rainforest.
Remarkable, isn't it? What's the research behind this? We'll quote from our book, where we explore this topic:
"In a cross-sectional cohort study whose results were published in the prestigious Lancet Journal, scientists visited 85 Tsimane villages and examined the hearts of approximately 700 adults aged 40–94 years using CT scans. These scans show us the state of arterial health. Based on the CT scans, 85% of the Tsimane people had no risk for heart disease, 13% had low risk, and only 3% had moderate to high risk. This pattern essentially persists into old age: two-thirds of those over 75 have no risk for heart disease.
By comparison: A large US study of 6,814 people aged 45–84 found that only 14% of Americans had a CT scan showing no risk for heart disease, while 50% had moderate to high risk (cf. Kaplan et al. 2017). This means: Among the Tsimane, hardly anyone dies from the disease that kills every second person in our Western populations."
Isn't that sensational? There truly are people in the world who show us that a normal person at 60, 70 years old need not suffer from cardiovascular disease, nor need they die from it. Quite the opposite: clearly there are very healthy people who maintain healthy blood vessels even into old age. "How come?" one asks.
But there's more. In late May, edubily's favorite science journal Science Daily reported: "[source no longer available]." Researchers have now also examined the brains of these people. Result: once again, sensational findings.
"The Tsimane, an indigenous people in the Bolivian Amazon region, experience less brain atrophy with age than their American and European counterparts. The decline in their brain volume with age is 70% slower than in Western populations."
So: these people not only have very healthy cardiovascular systems, but may also be less prone to dementia in old age. One must express this with some sarcasm, because it would have unfathomable social and economic consequences if people in our countries aged as well and as gracefully.
Yet what distinguishes these people from us? First and foremost, lifestyle. Anyone who recalls [source no longer available] – where we showed what happens to arginine and the vasodilatory gas nitric oxide (NO) with unhealthy diet – may already understand the simple connections:
Anyone with a cardiovascular system as healthy as the Tsimane's almost certainly has enough NO in their arteries to keep their blood vessels healthy.
Furthermore, there's another simple principle: Damaged blood vessels (technically endothelial dysfunction) or disease of the microvasculature – those tiniest branches that supply our tissues with oxygen and nutrients – are the norm in our societies. As early as 2019, [source no longer available] on this topic:
"Maintaining normal learning and memory functions requires a high degree of coordination between brain and vascular cells. Fundamental and clinical studies have shown that dysfunction of the brain's microvasculature activates inflammatory cells in the brain, leading to progressive neuronal loss and ultimately dementia."
There we have it. Healthy arteries, healthy brain. Diseased arteries, diseased brain. The famous pathologist Rudolf Virchow already knew this, having coined the phrase "A man is as old as his arteries." Simple connections, not rocket science.
In any case, there's a clear thread running through all our health concerns. Healthy blood vessels, a healthy brain, and much more depend on a healthy lifestyle. What that entails, how it relates in detail to nitric oxide, what mitochondria have to do with it, and how you can take this into your own hands – that's covered in our book. Nowhere else quite like it.
Optimizing Health – Increasing Performance: Fit with Biochemistry
We keep getting the same questions our book already answers. It's worth taking the time to study it.
