My colleagues and I would like to launch the Longevity Cook Book crowdfunding campaign in upcoming three months.
We would like to raise funding to create a book that will tell the story about what longevity depends on, what processes are going on in our bodies during aging and how they can be slowed down, dieting in the right way, based on the current scientific knowledge. The book will contain the most up-to-date research data on the beneficial properties of various foods, their longevity effects and abilities to prevent different age-related diseases.
Longevity Cook Book will give you the special recipes, developed with the help of professional chefs, on how to cook longevity-boosting dishes from the healthiest ingredients possible.
Besides the recipes, the book will tell you how to “cook” longevity in terms of science. I will explain the existing directions in aging research and the most promising experiments that need to be carried out to make a truly long and healthy life a reality.
Here’s the Longevity Cook Book plan:
Part 1
- The role of diet in health and longevity. I will describe the diets that increase longevity and prevent age-related pathologies (with proof in humans and model animals)
- Physiology of nutrition. I will explain how food is digested, how the nutrients are absorbed in the intestines, how they enter blood stream, what they do inside the cells. There will be some pretty pictures to illustrate all of that.
- Brief and easy-to-understand description of aging mechanisms and the mechanisms of age-related pathologies (like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, etc.) and how diet can influence those mechanisms
Part 2
Description of the healthy foods including scientific papers, illustrating why they are healthy, and biological mechanisms that those foods influence
Part 3
Longevity Menu. Dishes made with longevity foods cooked the healthiest ways accompanied by pretty pictures of the dishes.
Part 4
“Cooking” longevity. I will describe the main approaches to solving the problem of aging and the most promising experiments.
How do you like the idea? Would you be interested in reading such a book?
For the crowdfunding project to be successful it has to have a powerful start, therefore I’d like to agree on reposting the campaign when it launches in advance.
I call upon everybody to, please, let me know, who would be up to spreading the word about this project when the time comes.
If you have some nice amount of people following you on twitter or other social networks, I’ll be happy to collaborate.
I also welcome advice on how to engage a larger audience. Maybe you have some journalists or bloggers that you know?
I present a draft of a possible layout of one of the pages.
There will be many different icons that tell you various bits of information about the dish. In particular on this page a face means the research on the given type of food was done in humans, a mouse – on mice, a test tube – on cell cultures.
We haven’t yet put together the pictures of aging mechanisms, but we will definitely do it.
Maria Konovalenko 
What is the basic type of diet that the book would promote? It seems there is no agreement on what a longevity diet should look like, so wouldn’t that complicate the creation of such a book? Would it be basically promoting a vegan, 80-100% raw diet? A paleo diet? A high carb low fat diet? Health advocates all have their own ideas about what works. It seems like we need more evidence with respect to old people aging gracefully after several decades on a particular diet before we can come to any firm conclusions. So far, the best evidence I have seen is for the raw vegan diet, with respect to its ability to slow aging and result in people in the 50-80 age range looking 20-30 years younger than their biological age (and with telomere lengths also corresponding to a much younger age than their biological one), but we have yet to see people in their 90s and beyond on such a diet. Meanwhile, the diets of people in their 90s and beyond are very varied, and the only commonality seems to be that they don’t eat too much. So I am curious what approach you would take in constructing a longevity diet.
The approach will be bioinformatic meta-analysis of the literature. What ever it shows, that would be the composition of the diet.
I have followed you for the last year Maria and applaud you and your teams efforts. The most promising breakthroughs I have seen were the studies on Senescent cell removal from the bodies of mice, reversing the effects of aging. The study was buried and never heard of again even though they said they were going to try it on humans next. Senescent cells buildup is a principle cause of the majority of major health effects of aging. The only other therapy that showed as much promise was turning a persons own cells into TCells and injecting them back into the persons own organs to repair and renew. I feel that breakthroughs will only get suppressed because Big Pharma needs to keep the wheel turning and we are an over populated world anyway. Only after a SARS/Bird Flu/Ebola wipes out 3/4 of the world will this technology be released.
We’re talking cookbook. I agree with you on this topic…but, it’s not the topic we’re talking about.
Would you buy the cookbook?
Thank you. The senescent cell removal study (I think you mean what people at the Mayo Clinic are doing) is definitely not buried. In fact I just heard the lecture by the leading scientist, Dr. van Duersen, who presented some nice life extension data, but I don’t think this is published yet.
Big Pharma doesn’t care that much about aging research, unfortunately. Otherwise aging would have much more buzz in the media.
I would definitely be interested in reading such a book. Many times, i know what kind of nutrients I should eat (taking into account all the current research in CR and protein moderation), but I fail to make meals that are varied and I would like to have some more inspiration that would allow me to eat more delicious food from and eating different foodstuffs!
A very good project, IMHO
Dr Roy Walford, MD, wrote a book called Maximum Lifespan in the 1980s in which he proposed several recipes. He didn’t reach a great age, and neither was he signed for cryopreservation as far as I know.
so…you’re saying…you wouldn’t buy the cookbook and it’s a waste of time? or what?
I am saying that there must be a lot of these recipe ideas out there already, and I suspect that they don’t make a great deal of difference. As other have said, there are likely to be better avenues for research.
I will back you 100%. I want to see this happen!
Many thanks in advance!
Personally I think you are too brilliant to do this.
Your time is more precious. Spend it on other topics: research, cells, genes, etc. anything that you like.
I don’t think you can do something revolutionary in diet.
There are so many (people) before you who have already tried to make the ultimate cookbook or ultimate dietary changes.
That is not the way for big leaps forward.
If you want to make big progress, huge contribution to longevity science, drop this topic.
That is my 2 cents.
Thank you, but I still will do the book. Here are the reasons why:
1. We have to make the first step. The ultimate cook book that takes into the account all the genetic differences of the population and all the differences in the environment is not possible in principle at this time, simply because there is not enough research data. Our book will advocate clinical trials for elucidating the effect of foods on different types of populations depending on their genome/other factors.
2. We will release updates according to the new published research. We would like to show the scientific method – correction of the hypothesis when new information arrives.
3. If we are able to raise enough money, we will hire a bioinformatics team to conduct bioinformatic analysis of the papers. Ideally we would like to see an atlas of interactions “food-pathway-effect”. The first version of the bioinformatic analysis won’t be 100% accurate, because there is lack of information in general, however we think it’s important to start somewhere and then improve.
4. The book will promote aging research. The more people understand how their healthy and happy lives depend on the current state of science, the more support there will be and hence more money eventually for more scientific discoveries.
An excellent project idea and I would be happy to read such a book. As everyone knows the market is full of diet books that are nothing but steeped in unscientific beliefs and asinine fads and we need one that is based on current scientific research.
Thank you, Joe! Yes, our approach is meta-analysis, which is comprehensive analysis of scientific literature in regards to the influence of foods on longevity and age-related diseases.
I’d definitely read and buy this book. Even if you “should” be pursuing other more promising areas of research in longevity, I think that a lot of people would buy this book and it has the potential to generate significant income that might allow you the freedom to pursue these other research areas. Just a thought. You’d have a definite customer here, and probably several times over. I can’t think of a more perfect gift from me, a longevity nut, to everyone I know. Thanks for pursuing this, I hope it works out. Let me know if you need another person to create recipes, edit, etc. Happy to help.
Thank you very much for your support, Heather! I’ll do my best to make the book a reality.
You should integrate this with The Food Hourglass book
A longevity cook book it is a wonderful title, and idea. I will buy your book and support you project. if I can find Leonardo Da Vinci recipe, I will send it to you. Leonardo was a vegetarian, the strongest man in Florence, the smartest, a genius with an interested longevity for his time.
Thank you , that’d be very nice.
In fact, there are several strategies to slow down the aging process by nutrition:
-low caloric
-low glycemic
-low methionine
etc.
A little collection of recipes:
http://lang-leben.xobor.de/t42f15-Anti-Aging-Rezepte.html
Dear Lord, this woman finds time to Cook??? She battles ignorance everywhere she goes, promotes transhumanism, completes are medical studies to now be declared a Doctor.. Next she will be running for President.. Ha.. Respect to Doctor Konovalenko
I am not a doctor yet, but thanks.
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Excellent idea! I would definitely buy this.
Very glad you like it!
Diet is so very Important.. We at Adam and Eve have found the only diet that will help keep the infection called ageing from coming back into our body so readily, after beginning the cure treatment/The Elixir of Life/Ambrosia/Panacea. Did you examine Last months Woman has Won post??? And this Months post on the Found cure for ageing, the Enzymatic Formula Adam and Eve’s “Gerevivify” ??? Respect http://adamandevewordresearch.blogspot.com/
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1. I think you should consider individual genetics, and not just ‘one size fits all’ solutions (nutrigenomics; see http://www.gbhealthwatch.com as an example)
2. I understand it’s a “cookbook”, and so ingredients appear as “typically found in a kitchen”, but when you simply list “[some] lemon juice” instead of “a lot of vitamin C”, you lead your audience away from super-potential solutions for longevity: http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/paulingrec.html
I would definitely be interested
I will post updates on the project on the website, which is under construction currently and in the blog as well.
If even 3 to 5 people committed themselves to fundraising 30 or 40 hours every week until it was raised, then I am confident that it could be raised in short order. I’m not sure if I would have the time these months.
“For the crowdfunding project to be successful it has to have a powerful start, therefore I’d like to agree on reposting the campaign when it launches in advance.”
I agree to spread it for at least the first few days.
Thanks a lot, Eric! That would be very helpful!
You will do well on this project.. You Ladies are sure winners, do not let any Teachers or want to be teachers bring you down from this Great Idea… Respect
I very much like the idea of combining simple, familiar things (reciepes) with information that would seem daunting on its own (descriptions of processes and experiments, sciency stuff). I hope the book doesn’t come out too expensive and I’ll deffinately try to contribute to the campaign.
As a psychiatric physician, I make inquiry about a persons diet regularly. Many times I find poor diet with excess use of processed food, sugar, low quality fats, chemicals and caffeine at the root of many mental ailments. As example, poor food causes vitamin deficiencies, vitamin D is often low in depression and correcting negates need for antidepressant use. Same concept with anxiety, fibromyalgia, mood instability and even hallucinations. I would very much buy and recommend such a book to my patients.
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