[News Now] "Extending your life with a meal"...What are some of the emerging slow-aging methods?

■ Host: Kim Sun-young Anchor
■ Starring: Jung Hee-won, professor of geriatric internal medicine at Asan Medical Center in Seoul

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information. Please specify [YTN NewsNOW] when quoting.

[Anchor]
As the temperature dropped sharply, the scent of autumn became thicker. There are a lot of people who get an appetite when fall comes.

How you eat determines the speed of aging.

There is a person who is busy as a 'low-speed aging' evangelist these days.

I'm Jung Hee-won, a professor of geriatric internal medicine at Asan Medical Center in Seoul. We have you in the studio today. Welcome.

[Jung Hee-won]
Hello, I'm Jung Hee-won.

[Anchor]
Usually, if you live a long life in good health, many people say that it's a gene or an arm, but does your life expectancy really change significantly depending on your lifestyle?

[Jung Hee-won]
Experts usually have about 30 percent of the oil field, and of course, some luck goes into it. And about 70% of them say it is the accumulated result of lifestyle habits. Recent studies have shown that my aging rate differs by more than 30% depending on how my diet has been over the past two years, and experiments such as reducing the amount of food by fasting have shown that some studies have reduced the biological aging rate by up to 75%. So it's very important to eat.

[Anchor]
So, depending on your lifestyle, you can considerably determine how long you live a healthy life, and the most important thing is diet, he stressed. So I prepared a graphic by studying the slow aging diet that the professor is emphasizing these days. Please show us. a low-speed aging diet Please take a note. Please introduce what it is.

[Jung Hee-won]
The one at the center of the core is that I'm stupid with my mind diet, so the Mediterranean diet is well known. In addition, there is a diet called the dash diet that is effective in preventing chronic diseases. It is a diet mainly used for non-pharmaceutical treatment of hypertension. I made it by combining the advantages of this diet. As I collect my strengths, there are aspects that have become a little simpler. There are many similar aspects to traditional Korean food, so I'm making and presenting a diet that Koreans can easily practice, so I'm promoting it as a meal method that can make slow aging and slow aging.

[Anchor]
If I point you out, olive oil, whole grains, fish, various vegetables, nuts, berries, fruits, beans. You're not telling me to put all of this in my diet at once, are you? I can share it, right?

[Jung Hee-won]
In this diet, some recommend eating more and others recommend eating less.

[Anchor]
What's the most important thing here?

[Jung Hee-won]
First of all, the most important thing is to reduce the intake of ultra-processed foods that contain a lot of simple sugar and refined sugar. Snacks, fries, fast food. So-called junk food, especially when we buy these foods that come in the form of industrial products that we can buy at food stores or supermarkets.

[Anchor]
Sausage? Something like that?

[Jung Hee-won]
Processed meat can also be included here. Even if you eat the same amount of carbon complex, or nutrients, these foods are usually designed to be too delicious to eat with the same ingredients and raise blood sugar quickly, so your stomach quickly disappears after eating them. After eating cup noodles, I get sleepy after an hour, and after time, I get hungry, so I have to eat again. Even though it's very high in calories. That's why avoiding these meals becomes number 0. The next thing you need to eat more is actually beans, whole grains, foods that slowly raise blood sugar, and I recommend eating nuts as a snack. Green vegetables and berries, I think Koreans can eat seasonal fruits.

[Anchor]
What's in season without blueberries?

[Jung Hee-won]
Most of the apples, pears, peaches, and fruits in Korea are good for the body because they are low in sugar index and contain a lot of fiber. You eat a lot of these fruits. If you eat animal protein for protein intake, you are saying that you can try more fish, poultry, and other things, and there are junk foods that you need to eat less. Next, processed meat with a lot of saturated fat, as I mentioned before. Next, red meat. So they are saying that it would be good to reduce beef, pork, and lamb. Next, we recommend cutting back on fried foods, especially because they are made from bad vegetable oils and have a lot of trans fats.

[Anchor]
If you show your diet again, many people have doubts about my diet because there are people who say that they can't digest well if they eat mixed rice. Is it better for those people to eat or avoid it?

[Jung Hee-won]
Of course, it's good to check whether you can digest well and control the mixing ratio. Some people say that if you eat whole grains, especially oats or brown rice 100%, you can't digest it as it is, and some people complain of discomfort if you have diarrhea. There are people who say they are full and there are people who are full of gas. So, you don't have to overdo multigrain rice, and when you say you're eating, I recommend you to mix it up to the point where you can endure it. What's interesting is that people with bad stomachs work out their muscles and eat protein well, and for those who need to gain weight, don't stick to a slow aging diet too much, but rather eat three meals of meat soup with white rice. So, elementary school students and elderly people in their 70s have to eat similar meals, but their bodies lack energy. In this case, eating in a way that increases my muscles often improves digestion in the long run. So, of course, it's good to do it according to your constitution.

[Anchor]
So, you should take a note. For those who can't digest, it's better not to stick to multigrain rice, and elementary school students and people in old age can eat red meat every day because it's important to get energized.

[Jung Hee-won]
That's right. So I'm not saying that you have to do this dogmatistically because it's a slow-aging diet, but we're giving you the overall guidance, which is a collection of large-scale clinical studies, so many tens of millions of people, that actually increase life expectancy or prevent chronic diseases. Mainly after the middle age, that is, from the end of the growth period until the body of the elderly, the degree of excess metabolism eventually speeds up the aging rate, so it can be considered a helpful diet if you practice it at this time. You will need a little more energy during the growth period. In old age or having chemotherapy or various diseases, you lose weight. In this case, if you reduce your energy too much or eat vegetables, you can lose bone density and muscle.

[Anchor]
So, how on earth does the professor who is preaching this diet eat, and we asked him to send us a picture of his diet, but he said he eats like this. Breakfast, lunch. What are you eating in the morning?

[Jung Hee-won]
In our hospital, you can choose Korean food and Western food in the morning, but among the Western dishes, I eat two steamed eggs and cabbage salad as much as I can. Then, you can reduce olives little by little like that. I got two soy milk and saved one for later. One is coffee, one espresso shot, and I make soy milk latte and eat it. So that breakfast has about 21 grams of protein, so the amount of protein needed for a young adult...

[Anchor]
You didn't measure it, did you?

[Jung Hee-won]
Of course, I measured it. Of course, I didn't analyze that, but the middle one of the eggs will be about 6g, and soy milk contains 9g protein in 200 millimeters. So it's about 21 grams.

[Anchor]
Please introduce your lunch, too.

[Jung Hee-won]
We usually have salads for lunch, so there are times when we eat salad, or when we get a regular meal and eat it with brown rice or mixed grains rice. So the basic principle of my breakfast and lunch is that I avoid simple sugars and refined grains when I work. Because when blood sugar spike comes, when blood sugar rises, you get sleepy and you lose concentration, which is called a brain fog. Then, if your blood sugar drops again, your appetite rises at this time, so stress hormones come out then. So, especially if you eat a lot of simple sugar and refined grains in the morning, your stomach will grow at around 10 or 11 o'clock. I'm afraid I'll overeat my lunch again. Then, if I eat simple sugar and refined grains for lunch, I can't work at 1 to 2 p.m. due to food poisoning, and I crave snacks at 3 p.m. As a result, I avoid simple sugars and refined grains as much as possible during breakfast and lunch and eat mainly protein and vegetables. Instead, I'm eating white rice, a complex carbohydrate, and it contains relatively a lot of protein for dinner.

[Anchor]
Do you sometimes eat pork belly?

[Jung Hee-won]
Of course. So in a study on the mind diet, which is actually the core of slow aging, we saw how much we need to eat to slow down cognitive decline. Compared to those who only eat completely junk food, those who eat well and eat really neatly can say that it is about 70 out of 100. So, you really don't have to eat only dew, you don't just eat vegetables. In particular, even if you look at the Blue Zone and Baeksein Village, it always allows you to have a drink when you have a festival or enjoy eating with people, so you don't have to be too stressed out and enjoy your meal.

[Anchor]
A lot of people wrote in the professor's YouTube comments that if you eat like that, it would be worse for your body because of stress. You're telling me to keep it to the point where I can endure it, right?

[Jung Hee-won]
It's a really important question, and you can't bear it. First of all, my taste changes. And there's what we call comfort food. Candy, chocolate, or cake, things like that raise blood sugar quickly. And when blood sugar rises quickly and then falls, stress hormones come out. And when blood sugar rises a lot, insulin comes out then, and insulin makes swelling. If insulin and stress hormones reduce the quality of sleep and the quality of sleep that night is bad, the stress hormones are higher next month. So in the long run, to relieve stress, of course, if I eat those foods, I feel good because dopamine and endorphins come out right now, but in the long run, if I become more stressed and this stressful person, my favorite food tastes worse. It's about pulling more stimulating food. So, dopamine addiction is not actually a dopamine addiction, but in fact, you can think of it as a state in which your brain is under stress, but rather, if you eat neatly, this stress is reduced, so you can get enough satisfaction even if you eat a darker meal. So, eating, stress, and sleep are the three most basic things that create a virtuous cycle, and as a result, the overall quality of life is improved.

[Anchor]
Many people want to change their diet, but sometimes they are shaken by this temptation. For example, Warren Buffett did that a while ago. Didn't you say that the doctors who lived well for this long and told me not to eat that died first? What did you think after watching this?

[Jung Hee-won]
is correct. There's a kind of concept that we call epidemiology in clinical research. So, there's all this data about what lifestyle habits you have and how long your lifespan will increase in the long run. I'm telling you with that tendency, for example, some people drive recklessly without an accident and may not have any problems. That doesn't mean we can't recommend reckless driving. There may be some people who say that it's okay to continue because there's no problem after driving under the influence of alcohol, but I can't recommend it. You can think of it as the same as this. For example, there is Jean-Calmão from France, who said she lived the longest in the world. This person also smoked until not long before he passed away. However, according to actual research, continuing to smoke is related to a decrease in life expectancy for more than 12 years, and the aging period is accelerated by 3 to 5 years. It's accelerated aging. That's why I'm so lucky, there's so good genes, and cancer is more than 50 percent lucky. I'm old enough not to get cancer or anything. That's a good thing, but just because Warren Buffett did that doesn't mean I can't recommend it to everyone.

[Anchor]
People who want to live a long and healthy life right now must be taking notes of everything the professor is talking about, but many people are curious about not only diet but also exercise. It's known that if you walk 10,000 steps every day, you live a long, healthy life. Is this true?

[Jung Hee-won]
is correct. It is certainly known that walking about 8,000 steps every day reduces the risk of various diseases from then on, and blood pressure, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, obesity, depression, esophageal reflux. It's really a panacea. But strategically, there are things we need to consider. It's good to walk a lot in middle age, but Koreans have a small and thin body, and in old age, it's mainly because of sarcopenia and osteoporosis. So, how professors of geriatric medicine in Japan, who have already experienced an aging society before Korea, say, "When you are in your 60s, you should eat a lot of meat and keep your muscles." That way, you don't get dementia. In that sense, it's actually better for young people to do a lot of aerobic exercise. So in your 20s and 30s, 70% of aerobic exercise goes like this. 30 percent of the weight training. However, when you reach your 60s, you need to change your weight training to 70 and cardio to 30. So I don't really say walking is an exercise. Many people tell me that they do walking exercises, but actually walking is about three times the activity compared to sitting down. However, in order to talk about exercise, aerobic exercise is usually five to nine times, so you have to sweat a little or get a little short of breath to improve cardiopulmonary function. And you have to do muscle exercise separately at least twice a week. And as you get older, your joints become harder, so you have to stretch together, and if you do exercise such as tai chi, yoga, and Pilates, you can prevent dementia and fall. That's why you have to make a good sports portfolio so that you can walk until you're 100 years old without suffering.

[Anchor]
People in old age, only walking, but strength training is essential. This is what they said.

Lastly, I'm curious about this. What's worse than drinking one or two drinks every day or binge drinking once a week?

[Jung Hee-won]
First of all, experts' views on drinking have changed a lot recently. For example, countries like Canada say that the upper limit of safe drinking is zero. That's why even one drink a week is not good. So it's better to drink as little alcohol as possible. But realistically, it can't be. As a result, many countries are making various recommendations. Among them, the U.S. National Institutes of Health recommends 14 cups for men and 7 cups for women regardless of the state, and Korean guidelines recommend 8 cups for men and 4 or less for women.

There is a slight difference in this. Koreans are smaller than Americans, weigh less, and many people have weak enzymes that break down alcohol and aldehyde, so it is better to abstain from drinking. So considering these things, there is a drinking budget. So, regardless of alcohol, there's a glass of soju, a glass of beer, 200CC, and all of these glasses. Considering that, it is relatively safe for men to drink eight cups a week and for women to drink four cups with my budget.

[Anchor]
So if you drank a lot today, do you think you have to decide the total amount?

[Jung Hee-won]
It is known that such an effect on preventing diseases is certain. Of course, alcohol is usually like that, but when we say we set a certain cutting point, it refers to things that suddenly increase the risk from eight or more drinks. Alcohol is steadily increasing, so the less you drink, the better.

[Anchor]
Many of you know that what I eat and drink today determines my life span, but it would be nice to remember it again.

Until now, I was a professor of geriatric internal medicine at Asan Medical Center in Seoul. Thank you.

[Jung Hee-won]
Thank you.