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New Studies Suggest Healthy Eating May Add Years to Your Life
“What’s the secret to a long and healthy life?” When I asked my great-grandmother that question on the occasion of her 90th birthday, her answer took everyone by surprise. “I always make sure to eat the fat and gristle off meat,” she said.

Fat and gristle?
We all laughed at the time, Great-Grandma included, but no one dared argue with her. What her pet theory lacked in scientific evidence it more than made up for by personal example. She lived a jolly, healthy, sharp-minded life well into her nineties.

Since then, whenever the headlines tout a new breakthrough in longevity—whether it’s green tea, red wine or a supercharged antioxidant supplement—I haven’t paid much heed. Lately, though, I’ve begun to wonder if it isn’t time to take a fresh look at the field of anti-aging research—and not only because I’m halfway through my fifties.

Increasingly, serious scientists have joined the quest for a fountain of youth. The National Institutes of Health is spending millions to explore ways to increase life span, including research into drugs, nutritional supplements and calorie restriction. Last year, headlines announced that a new anti-aging drug, based on a substance called resveratrol found in wine and grapes was being tested in people. If the booming science of anti-aging medicine has turned up anything that really works, I decided, I want to know about it.