What is the best diet to follow for optimal health and longevity? Which diets are not optimal for health?

Follow these dietary guidelines for optimal health

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What is a healthy diet? Is it a carnivore, paleo, keto, vegetarian, Mediterranean, low-lectin, or gluten and dairy-free diet?

I recently watched a podcast by someone who follows and believes in the carnivore diet. The reasons for supporting this diet are because it helped him with a health condition, and so now he touts this diet for the masses and talks negatively about vegetarians.

The issue I have with this is that I could watch another podcast on the paleo diet and another on a vegetarian diet, and they all will say the same thing: their diet is the best and will state how the diet improved their health.

So which is it?

Most likely, it is all the above, probably because each person took out processed foods and switched to whole foods.

All these diets have research to support their use, each having benefits due to the added whole foods, balanced blood sugar, and reduced processed foods.

Instead of thinking about “diets,” think of a lifestyle way of eating

A healthy diet is a diet that is working for you at this time in your life.

For instance, a study by Jagielski et al. (2022) showed that people who consume 500 grams of vegetables and fruits and more than 10 grams of nuts daily have an 80% lower risk of respiratory infection.

Another study by Gray et al. (2018) indicated that people ages 45 and older who followed a Mediterranean-style diet had a 25% lower risk of developing sepsis.

A study by Otten et al. (2017) examining the effects of the paleo diet found that people with type 2 diabetes who followed a paleo diet for 12 weeks improved insulin sensitivity, reduced HbA1c, and reduced leptin.

Intermittent Fasting. Add IF into any diet (other than a processed-food diet)

Whatever whole foods diet you choose, you can reap additional benefits from your diet by incorporating IF into it.

I used to think that IF was a fad; that is, it is basically a diet that skips breakfast, but the two are different. Many people, such as my much younger self, skipped breakfast but then had that low blood sugar rush in which we needed food, needed it now, and needed it to be sugar/carb-rich. This is not the same as mindfully fasting.

Do not jump into fasting if you are eating a processed food diet. Learn how to eat healthier, then incorporate fasting.

Think of your ancestors. They had feasting periods and fasting periods. Oscillating between the two can optimize hormones and support healthy weight maintenance.

However, do not fast too often or too long, as this can have negative consequences and lead to adapting to fat storage (a survival technique when your body thinks it is starving) and insulin dysregulation.

Instead of explaining IF further, I found this video by Dr. Berg, which succinctly reviews the technique and its benefits. He mentions adding a keto diet to your IF routine, which I think you should only do on occasion since it limits many beneficial and nutrient-dense whole foods.

My advice is to mix it up. Do not stick with one diet, one way of eating.

Just like with exercise, your body will adapt to your workout routine, and you will stop seeing results.

How to mix it up

Add in IF days. If you are new to it, begin with a 12-hour overnight fast. Slowly build up to 14 or longer fasts. You do not have to fast every day.

Add in low-carb days, vegetarian days, carnivore days, and so forth.

Eat less frequently, stop snacking, and stop grazing.

Eat seasonally. Eat fruit in season and skip or reduce fruit intake in colder months. Eat more warm foods in the winter and more raw dishes in the summer.

Should we all eat meat, and which diet do I not support year-round?

The best diet (in my professional opinion) is no diet at all but embracing a little bit of everything instead within the limits of your health.

Humans require B12, and we cannot get it from plants.

I do think that we all need to eat some meat (beef, poultry, fish). I believe this because our bodies are designed to get B12 from specific foods. We need B12, and humans can only source B12 from meat-based foods, not plants, nuts, seeds, or legumes. If our bodies are designed to get B12 from meat sources only, isn’t that an indication that, as humans, we require it?

Since our ancestors may have feasted on a fresh kill for months but then had to abstain from meat for several more months, it is easy to understand why our bodies were designed to store B12.

If you are on a meat-free diet, you can store B12 in the liver for quite a long time, even up to five years, until the B12 in storage is depleted. However, if under chronic stress, you have an absorption/GI issue or genetic defect, it can all mean that you require B12 more often. If you take a look around you, many people have GI issues and are under chronic stress.

For instance, I have MTRR A66g (+/+, GG) on my genetic profile, which may result in altered blood levels of homocysteine, folate, and B12. Additionally, I am a stressed-out type of individual, and even more so since 2020, and I am a distance runner, all of which will further deplete my B12. If I were also someone with digestive disorders, my ability to absorb and retain B12 may be reduced even further.

Therefore, many individuals may benefit from adding meat-based protein or supplementing with a B complex. Some people may need to do both.

In my son’s AF special warfare training, an individual is a strict vegetarian. As of now, he is in phenomenal shape. But at this stage of their training program, they are not allowed to take supplements. Additionally, I cannot even begin to describe the physical and mental stress they are placed under. I wonder when his B12 in storage will deplete and the consequences for him and his abilities to train and perform at this elite level.

A deficiency in B12 can exhibit symptoms such as anemia, paleness, weakness, fatigue, shortness of breath, dizziness, nerve tingling, muscle weakness, confusion, dementia, and loss of hand/feet sensation.

I find it odd that doctors prescribe gabapentin for nerve issues when they should, at the very least, have the patient incorporate therapeutic B12 and magnesium and address insulin resistance first to determine if this would help before putting them on a medication with numerous side effects that is also very difficult to taper off of.

Gabapentin, a drug for nerve pain, diabetic neuropathy, and restless leg syndrome, is also a drug that can be very difficult to taper off from due to withdrawal symptoms.

Avoid these diets long-term:

I do not support very restrictive diets long-term, such as vegan, keto, or a raw diet, because they exclude too many beneficial foods.

Bottom Line

Listen to your body. Decide which foods are right for you at this time in your lifecycle. What may work for you at 20 may not be a diet with optimal results at 60. It does take some trial and error to figure it out, but you are an individual, and what works for your friend or what you hear on a podcast may or may not be the best diet for you.

Lastly, if you are a strict vegan or vegetarian, you most likely will require more supplementation than your meat-eating counterpart. You also should have annual, if not every 6 months, lab work to examine your iron levels.

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