science

The Longevity Diet

The Longevity Diet is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Longevity Diet rather than just read about it. In short: The Longevity Diet is a 2018 book by Italian biogerontologist Valter Longo. The subject of the book is fasting and longevity.

Key takeaways

The Longevity Diet belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Longevity Diet to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Longevity Diet from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Longevity Diet is a 2018 book by Italian biogerontologist Valter Longo. The subject of the book is fasting and longevity. The book advocates a fasting mimicking diet (FMD) coupled with a mostly plant based diet that allows for the consumption of fish, for greater longevity.

Background Valter Longo, a PhD in biochemistry and director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California, invented the fasting mimicking diet. Longo has said, "Using epidemiology and clinical trials, we put all the research together..." The diet calls for an emphasis on combining a plant-based diet with fish, together with fasting, timing and food quantity.

Synopsis In the book, Longo says one should alter one's diet to avoid illness in old age. He advises dieters start the diet with a five-day fasting mimicking diet (FMD), which calls for a plant-based diet with calorie restriction of 1100 calories the first day, followed by 800 calories for the next few days. The fast-mimicking diet was pioneered by Valter Longo. The book calls for the five-day, calorie restriction FMD to occur twice per year. Before turning 65 the diet calls for minimal protein, and mostly plant-based diet augmented with calorie-restriction. After someone finishes the fasting mimicking diet, Longo advocates following a mostly plant-based diet that includes fish. He also suggests implementing time-restricted eating, with daily eating windows of 11-12 hours.

Reception The book is an international bestseller, has been translated into more than 15 languages, and is sold in more than 20 countries. Writing for Red Pen Reviews, Hilary Bethancourt stated the diet might be difficult and expensive to follow. Bethancourt goes on to say that the book gives advice about how to have a longer lifespan and healthspan through the practice of following a five-day fasting-mimicking diet and by choosing what to eat, how much to eat, and how often to eat. Reviewing the book for Glam Adelaide James Murphy felt that the book has "too much discussion of his thwarted ambitions to be a rock star".

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Longevity Diet

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Longevity Diet claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Longevity Diet before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Longevity Diet ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Longevity Diet

In research: The Longevity Diet appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Longevity Diet in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Longevity Diet is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2018 non-fiction books, Books about life extension, Dieting books, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Longevity Diet outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Longevity Diet in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Longevity Diet means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Longevity Diet out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Longevity Diet in simple terms?

The Longevity Diet is a 2018 book by Italian biogerontologist Valter Longo. The subject of the book is fasting and longevity.

Why does The Longevity Diet matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Longevity Diet?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Longevity Diet.