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Exercise Radically Improves Brain Power

Exercise can keep your brain sharp as you age. A new study has shown that a program of exercise can, over the course of a year, increase the size of your hippocampus, a part of the brain key to memory and spatial navigation.

CLICK & SEE THE PICTURES

The hippocampus often shrinks in late adulthood, leading to memory impairment.

According to the Los Angeles Times:
“To complete the study, the team recruited 120 older people who didn’t exercise regularly. Half were randomly assigned to an aerobic exercise program … The group doing aerobic exercise had increases in hippocampus volume: up 2.12 percent in the left hippocampus, and 1.97 percent in the right hippocampus.”

Regular exercise can also improve the ability of overweight children to think, plan and even do math, according to other recent research. MRIs have shown that previously inactive children who start to exercise experience increased brain activity in the prefrontal cortex, an area associated with complex thinking, decision making and correct social behavior.

The more they exercise, the better the result.

Eurekalert reports:
“Intelligence scores increased an average 3.8 points in those exercising 40 minutes per day after school for three months with a smaller benefit in those exercising 20 minutes daily.  Activity in the part of their brain responsible for so-called executive function also increased in children who exercised … Similar improvements were seen in math skills”.

Resources:
*Los Angeles Times January 31, 2011

*Wall Street Journal February 22, 2011

*Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

*Eurekalert February 18, 2011

*Georgia Health Science News

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Different Types of Milk & Their Health Benefits

 

CLICK & SEE……Cow’s milk.
Whole cow’s milk packs 150 calories per cup, and about half of those calories come from fat. (See the related chart for a nutritional breakdown of all these different milks.) The 8 grams of fat in a cup of whole milk includes 5 grams of saturated fat, which can raise blood cholesterol. The American Heart Assn. recommends limiting saturated fat intake to 7% or less of daily calories: An adult consuming 1,800 calories per day would get more than one-third of that in an 8-ounce glass of whole milk.

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Skim and reduced-fat milks provide the same amount of protein without the high levels of saturated fats or the cholesterol whole milk also contains. They also retain all of the calcium found in whole milk — up to 300 milligrams, about one-third of the recommended daily intake. According to the Institute of Medicine, adults require between 1,000 and 1,300 milligrams of calcium a day for optimum bone strength. And cow’s milk has long been promoted by nutritionists and dietitians as a good source of this important mineral, as well as the vitamin D needed to absorb the mineral.

But “there’s a fair amount of controversy in that whole area,” says Larry Kushi, associate director for epidemiology in the division of research at Kaiser Permanente Northern California in Oakland. The issue is just how important calcium — and milk as a source of calcium — truly is for bone health.

Scientists increasingly began to question the relationship after several studies, including two unusually large ones, failed to find evidence linking increased milk consumption to a decreased risk of fractures, a sign of bone health.

A 12-year study of more than 77,000 women, conducted by Harvard researchers and published in 1997, found that women who drank two glasses of milk a day had roughly the same risk of hip or forearm fractures as women who drank one glass or less per week. A 2003 investigation of the same population found that although vitamin D intake reduced the risk of hip fractures in post-menopausal women, high calcium and milk intake did not.

The science on the relationship between cow’s milk and cancer is also somewhat murky, and researchers are working to clarify this. Population studies have produced good evidence that increased dairy consumption, including that of milk, may decrease the risk of colorectal cancer. But studies also suggest that the risk of prostate cancer may increase with increasing milk consumption.

The evidence for female cancers — including breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers — is more mixed. Studies conducted several decades ago were less likely to demonstrate a link between dairy consumption and female cancers than more recent ones, and some nutrition experts think this difference may be linked to industrial practices that have increased the levels of the hormone estrogen in cow’s milk.

Then there’s the issue of milk allergy, an immune-system reaction to any of the several types of casein, whey or other proteins in milk. About 2.5% of children develop cow’s milk allergies in their first year, according to the National Institutes of Health, and 80% outgrow it in adulthood.

Other individuals suffer from lactose intolerance, the inability to digest the dominant sugar found in milk. The intolerance (which causes gas, bloating and diarrhea) stems from a lack of lactase, the enzyme required to break down the milk sugar lactose. It is far more common than milk allergy. “Most of the world’s population can’t digest milk,” says Dr. Scott Sicherer, professor of pediatrics at the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, and co-author of the 2009 book “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Dairy-Free Eating.” “Our bodies are not made to drink this stuff.”

CLICK TO SEE.Buffalow milk

Buffalo milk contains higher total solids than cow milk, which makes it thicker. Buffalo milk has 100% more fat content than cow’s milk, which makes it creamier and thicker. Due to high peroxidase activity (family of enzymes that are a catalyst for reactions), buffalo milk can be preserved naturally for a longer period. Buffalo milk contains more calcium, a better calcium to phosphorous ratio and less sodium and potassium which makes it a better nutritional supplement for infants. Cow’s milk is extremely rich in iodine. It has good amount of minerals like Calcium and Phosphorus.

 

CLICK & SEE……..Goat’s milk
The popularity in the U.S. of cow’s milk makes us a bit of an anomaly: Globally, goat’s milk is a far more popular drink.

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But Americans may be getting a taste for it. Tracy Darrimon, director of marketing for Turlock, Calif.-based Meyenberg Goat Milk Products, the top producers of commercially available goat milk in the U.S., says that over the last four years the company has increased production more than 30% to keep up with demand.

Consumers choose goat’s milk because they perceive it as less allergenic, easier to digest and more healthful all round than cow’s milk. Some of those perceptions may be wrong. Since goat’s milk, like cow’s milk, is derived from mammals, “It’s much more likely to have similar effects on long-term health,” Kaiser’s Kushi says.

Consumers looking to avoid saturated fat and cholesterol, for instance, may do well to eschew whole goat’s milk: It has more saturated fat than cow’s milk and similar levels of cholesterol and is higher in calories and total fat. And goat’s milk, like cow’s milk, contains lactose. Though the levels can be slightly lower than those in cow’s milk, “It’s not enough to really make a difference if someone has lactose intolerance,” Bastyr’s Kazaks says.

In Europe, where goat’s milk consumption is far more common than in the U.S., a few studies have suggested that goat’s milk is less likely to cause allergies than cow’s milk. But Ohio allergist Dr. Julie McNairn, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, doubts that this is true. She says the proteins triggering allergy to cow’s milk are very similar to those found in goat’s milk.

More than 90% of the time, people allergic to cow’s milk are allergic to goat’s milk, Sicherer adds: “If someone’s allergic to cow’s milk, I tell them to stay away from mammalian milks.”

Click & see…Sheep milk
Sheep milk (or ewe’s milk) is the milk of domestic sheep. Though not widely drunk in any modern culture, sheep’s milk is commonly used to make cultured dairy products. Cheeses made from sheep milk include the feta of Greece, Roquefort of France, Manchego from Spain, the Pecorino Romano (the Italian word for sheep is pecora), the Pecorino Sardo and Ricotta of Italy, and the ?bejna from Malta. Yogurts, especially some forms of strained yogurt, may also be made from sheep milk. Though sheep produce a far smaller volume of milk than cows, it is richer in fat, solids, and minerals. This makes it ideal for the cheese-making process.

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It is a delicious and healthy alternative to cow’s milk. It is particularly popular among those with lactose intolerance because of sheep milk’s low lactose properties.

Sheep milk can be used in every way that cow’s milk can: over cereal, cooking, baking, and desserts. The taste is often preferred over cow’s milk bland taste.

There are several reasons that you should choose sheep milk over traditional cow’s milk:

*Taste: After trying sheep milk, many people often conclude that cow’s milk is “tasteless” whereas sheep milk is sweet and creamy. It is comparable to goat’s milk, yet sheep milk does not have the faint bitterness or tanginess of goat’s milk, which makes it a more preferable option. With all changes, sheep milk may take a little while to get use to, but after the initial trial stage many people come to prefer the rich taste of sheep milk over any other milk on the market. Therefore if you prefer a sweet and creamy treat any time of the day, sheep milk is a viable and healthy option.

*Digestion:Nearly 75 percent of the world’s population is considered to have a lactose allergy, or are “lactose intolerant”. Those with a lactose allergy have difficulty digesting cow’s milk causing symptoms such as gas and diarrhea. However, most people with lactose intolerance are able to drink and enjoy sheep milk without the symptoms because of sheep milk’s low lactose content. With sheep milk being used in cheeses and yogurts, those that are lactose intolerant now have more options to enjoy dairy products once again.

*Nutrition:It may be a surprise to learn that sheep milk is actually more nutritious than cow milk and even goat milk. Though it contains a high level of butterfat, it is lower in saturated fat than cow or goat milk.

CLICK & SEE……CAMEL MILK

Compared to cow, buffalo and ship or ewe milk fat, camel milk fat contains fewer short-chained fatty acids, but the same long-chained fatty acids can be found. Some researchers claim that the value of camel milk is to be found in the high concentrations of linoleic acid among other polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are essential for human nutrition.

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Camel milk has a high vitamin and mineral content and immunoglobin content. The composition of camel milk depends on its feed and species: Bactrian milk has a higher fat content than dromedary milk.

Camel milk is low in lactose compared with cow’s milk. However, levels of potassium, magnesium, iron, copper, manganese, sodium and zinc are higher than in cow’s milk.

*Cholesterol in camel milk is lower than cow or goat milk.
*Camel milk is three times higher in vitamin C than cow’s milk and 10 times higher in iron.
*It is also high in unsaturated fatty acids and B vitamins but lower in vitamin A and B2 (than cow milk).
*Camel milk has more fat and protein than cow’s milk

Camel milk is believed to modulate the immune system. A study showed its ability to ameliorate allergies in children. (Shabo Y, Barzel R, Margoulis M, Yagil R., Camel milk for food allergies in children.) However, the sample size of this study is evidently small.

Camel milk is also used as a medicinal product in India. The Bedouins of the Middle East believe it to have curative powers.. Click & read> ..Diabetic? Try camel’s milk
CLICK & SEE…Donkey milk

Donkey milk is considered to be the closest to woman’s milk. It is very nourishing because it contains more lactose and less fat than cow’s milk.  It was used until the beginning of the twentieth century as a substitute to breast milk. The 1928 testimony of Dr. Charles Porcher (1872-1933) of the Lyon National Veterinary Institution showed that the practice was still used, to a lesser extent, in the interwar years:

It seems that we are getting back to ass milk to raise children in the earliest infancy, notably when the child is of delicate health. Ass milk has not been quite totally abandoned, but if 25 or 30 years ago, a few well looked-after asses were easily found in the city to provide milk nourishing young babies, it is no longer the case today.

More recently, studies have shown that that ass’s milk could serve as an alternative to cow’s milk for children allergic to bovine proteins.

It has several other medicinal and cosmetic uses

CLICK & SEE………...Soy milk
Because soy milk is made from a plant, it contains no cholesterol and negligible amounts of saturated fat: just half a gram per cup.

Compared with whole cow’s or goat’s milk, it is lower in calories too, but a glass still provides the same levels of key nutrients present in those milks, including calcium, protein, vitamin A, vitamin D and potassium. That’s partly because soybeans contain calcium, protein and potassium. But soy milk is also fortified to be nutritionally comparable to cow’s milk.

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Soy milk’s lack of cholesterol and low levels of saturated and total fat have made it a popular choice for people looking to improve their heart health, says Stacey Krawczyk, a research dietitian with the National Soybean Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For the last 10 years, soy foods have been allowed to bear the FDA-approved claim that a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet containing 25 grams of soy protein per day may reduce the risk of heart disease.

Soy milk may have another benefit: In recent decades, several large population studies have suggested consuming soy may be linked to a lower risk of cancer, including prostate, colorectal and breast cancer.

But the relationship between soy milk consumption and cancer remains unclear — largely because most studies have focused on populations, such as those in Asia, that consume whole soy products, such as tofu, tempeh and edamame, as a large part of their diet. Studies on the general U.S. and European populations have not been able to replicate the findings, in part because soy consumption levels here are much lower, Kushi says.

This protective effect against cancer, if there is one, is thought to be at least partly due to estrogen-like compounds in soy that may compete with human estrogen in the body, hindering it from prompting the cell proliferation that can trigger cancer. But the link between soy consumption and cancer may invert in women after menopause, when natural estrogen levels plummet. “The evidence is still unclear,” Kushi says.

Soy can be a good dairy alternative for most people with allergies to cow’s milk. Soy allergies affect 0.4% of children — more common than most food allergies but far less common than ones to milk. Soy milk allergy in children is often outgrown. And though people allergic to cow’s milk are often likely to have another food allergy, the differences in the two milks’ proteins means an allergy to one doesn’t automatically translate into an allergy to the other, McNairn says.

Soy milk also lacks lactose, so it’s easier for people with lactose intolerance to digest it.

A downside? Because soybeans have an inherently bitter taste, soy milk is often heavily processed — and sweetened — to mask that flavor, says Kantha Shelke, a food chemist with the Chicago-based food-science think tank Corvus Blue. Sweeteners are often high on the list of ingredients in soy milks, adding sugar and calories that consumers might not be aware of. Still, with about 5 grams of sugar per cup, even the more sugary soy milks contain fewer sugars than the 12 grams per cup in cow’s milk. (Soy milks labeled “unsweetened” contain about 1 gram.)

Soy milk presents its own digestibility challenges, Kazaks says. The milk contains high levels of oligosaccharides, carbohydrates that are hard for the body to break down. “It can really cause a lot of gas in some people,” she says.

CLICK & SEE…......Almond milk
“With almond milk, it’s more about what you don’t get” than what you do, says Sam Cunningham, an independent food scientist and consultant specializing in nuts, who helped develop almond milk for Sacramento-based Blue Diamond Growers as an employee of the almond processor in the 1990s.

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Like soy milk, almond milk contains zero cholesterol. It’s free of saturated fats, so it’s a healthful option for people with, or at risk for, heart disease. It doesn’t contain lactose, so it’s an option for people with lactose intolerance. And it’s even lower in calories and total fat than soy milk: a glass contains just 60 calories and 2.5 grams of fat to soy milk’s 100 calories and 4 fat grams.

But although almonds, among nuts, are a good source of calcium and protein, almond milk’s calcium and protein levels don’t compare to the levels in cow’s, goat’s or soy milks. A glass of almond milk provides just 1 gram of protein. Some brands provide up to 20% of the daily recommended calcium intake (about 10% less than the other milks), but other brands provide none.

Almonds are also a good source of iron, riboflavin, vitamin E and some essential fatty acids. A cup of the ground-up nuts contains more than 11 grams of omega-6 fats (but very few omega-3s).

In recent years, several studies have hinted at a link between nut consumption and lower blood cholesterol and a reduced risk of heart disease. Since 2003, the Food and Drug Administration has allowed almonds (and other nuts) to bear the claim that eating 1.5 ounces of nuts daily, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce risk of heart disease.

Still, nuts are one thing — almond milk is another. The fraction of almond milk that’s actually comprised of finely blended almonds varies between products and can be minimal, Kazaks says. In many commercially available almond milks, almonds are the second or third ingredient, after water and sweeteners. (The same is true for many soy milks as well.) So despite the high vitamin E and omega-6 content of almonds, a glass of almond milk may contain none of the vitamin and just 300 to 600 milligrams of the omega-6s.

Almond milk is a fine alternative for people allergic to cow’s and soy milks, Jaffe’s Sicherer says, but almonds pose their own allergenicity hazards. Allergies to tree nuts, including almonds, are among the top allergies in the population, affecting 0.2% of children. And although cow’s and soy milk allergies are often outgrown, nut allergies are more likely to persist.

CLICK & SEE……..Rice milK
Like almond milk, rice milk’s main advantages are what it doesn’t contain. It is free of cholesterol and saturated fat. It doesn’t contain lactose. Allergies to rice are rare.

In fact, rice milk manufacturers commonly promote their product as safe for people with any of a number of allergies or intolerances — including cow’s milk, soy and nut allergies, as well as lactose and gluten intolerance. (Gluten, found in wheat and other cereal grains, is not present in any of the milks mentioned here.)

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Rice milk, like soy and almond milk, is formulated to contain levels of calcium, vitamin A and vitamin D similar to (albeit lower than) those in cow’s milk. But it is not a good source of protein, with just 0.67 grams per serving, and often contains more calories than almond or soy milk: about 113 calories per cup. Its vitamin E levels exceed that of cow’s, goat’s and soy milk but don’t compare with that of some almond milks.

One more thing rice milk doesn’t have: flavor in need of masking with sweeteners. “It’s a very mild-flavored product,” Corvus Blue’s Shelke says.

CLICK & SEE……….Hemp milk
Among plant-based milks, hemp milk is unique, and not just because the cannabis plant it’s made from poses legal challenges for farmers.

A glass of hemp milk contains the same number of calories as soy milk, one-third to one-half of the protein, but 50% more fat: 5 to 6 grams. However, most of the fats in hemp milk are omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids, key for nervous system function and healthy skin and hair. Certain omega-3 and omega-6 fats also appear to reduce inflammation and lower blood lipid levels.

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Plant oils typically have an excess of omega-6 fats relative to omega-3s — and the hemp seed is no exception. A cup of hemp milk (which is made from the “nut” of the hemp seed but can also contain some of the hull) often provides about 1 gram of omega-3s and 3 to 4 grams of omega-6s. Still, that level of omega-3s is high for plants, making hemp milk a useful source of them — especially given that American diets typically provide too few omega-3 fats and too many omega-6s.

In fact, some nutrition experts recommend a dietary ratio of omega-3s to omega-6s of between 1:1 and 1:3, a ratio that occurs naturally in hemp milk.

But the story is more complicated than that. It is unclear whether the predominant omega-3 fat in hemp, alpha linolenic acid (ALA), has the same heart-health benefits of those found abundantly in fish oils (known as EPA and DHA for short), says William Harris, director of the Cardiovascular Health Research Center at the University of South Dakota.

Like soy milk, hemp milk is low in saturated fat and cholesterol-free. It’s also free of lactose, and allergies to hemp are rare. Christina Volgyesi, vice president of marketing for Portland, Ore.-based Living Harvest Foods, which makes hemp milk, says the milk is made from different cannabis varieties than those used to produce marijuana, and contains none of the mind-altering active ingredient THC.

Hemp milk contains many of the nutrients found in cow’s milk (including calcium, vitamin A and vitamin D) since it’s fortified. In fact, some brands provide 40% to 50% of the daily recommended allowance of calcium, as compared with the 30% found in cow’s milk.

Nutritionally, hemp seeds are similar to flax seeds, which have become increasingly popular sources of essential fatty acids in recent years. But not all seeds rich in the fats lend themselves to a palatable milk alternative.

“Flax milk would probably be dark brown,” Shelke says. “We are probably not prepared to drink something dark brown in color.”

Unless, of course, it’s chocolate milk — be it of cow’s, goat’s, soy, almond, rice or even hemp.
Resources:
The Los Angeles Times
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_milk
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Buffalo_Milk_vs_Cow_Milk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep_milk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ass%27s_milk_%28Donkey%27s_milk%29

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Exercise and Longevity: Get Moving

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You may have heard the advice “If you exercise, you’ll live longer.” The good news — or the bad news, if you hate doing anything more active than downloading iTunes — is that it’s true.

Research backs this up. A 2007 study in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. found that fitter people lived longer, even if they had extra pounds around the middle. Among 2,603 adults 60 and older enrolled in that longitudinal study, the fittest people (those who did best on a treadmill test) also had the lowest risk factors for hypertension, diabetes and high cholesterol

Most of the negative changes to our bodies over time can be chalked up to two things, says Wojtek Chodzko-Zajko, head of the department of kinesiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: normal aging and disease-related aging (that is, changes accelerated by illnesses and conditions such as diabetes and heart disease).

Exercise, he says, can reduce the severity of both types.

Strength maintenance: Normal aging results in a gradual loss of muscle mass (about 1% a year) that begins in middle age.

Strength-training can offset this loss, called sarcopenia, Chodzko-Zajko says. “The link between functionality and longevity may be indirect but more muscle mass allows you to be ambulatory and maintain function, whereas in a wheelchair you can’t.”

Having stronger muscles — especially leg muscles — and better balance may mean fewer falls, a leading cause of death among the elderly, according to the American Geriatrics Society.

Cardiovascular health: Over time, arteries become stiffer, paving the way for cardiovascular disease. The chemical composition of the artery walls begins to shift, says Douglas Seals, a professor in the department of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado, making the walls more rigid.

“That stiffening of the arteries can cause changes in your blood pressure,” putting extra stress on the heart, Seals adds.

Regular aerobic exercise, he says, slows or reverses some of the changes.

Diabetes risk:
As we age, blood-glucose control becomes less robust, making us more insulin-resistant and increasingly susceptible to diabetes. People also tend to gain weight as they age, further upping the chances for developing the disease.

During aerobic exercise, muscles take up glucose from the blood and use it for fuel, keeping the body’s blood sugar levels low.

Exercise also causes the pancreas to decrease production of insulin. Continuous, steady exercise especially causes the liver to take lactic acid, amino acids and fats and turn them into glucose, further feeding the muscles and regulating blood sugar levels.

Inflammation control: Inflammation can also worsen as we age and become exacerbated by extra weight, upping the risk for cardiovascular disease, lowering the immune system and paving the way for bacteria and viruses to take hold — even cancer cells to grow. But exercise may cause a decrease in levels of C-reactive protein, a marker for inflammation.

Researchers using cross-sectional data from the Health, Aging and Body Composition Study found that among 3,075 men and women ages 70 to 79, inflammatory markers were lower in those who had higher levels of exercise and physical activity, as well as those who used antioxidant supplements, regardless of their exercise level. The 2004 study appeared in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Brain health: A small study found that older adults who did a minimum of 180 minutes per week of aerobic activity a week for 10 consecutive years had more small-diameter blood vessels with less twisting than a less active group that did less than 90 minutes of physical activity a week. The vessels of the more active group had a vessel pattern that was similar to those of younger people. The study appears this month in the American Journal of Neuroradiology.

The research leaves no doubt that activity isn’t just meant for the younger years. “Human beings were active animals on the grassy savannas of Africa with high levels of energy expenditure,” says Steven Blair, a professor in the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. “That’s the kind of critter we are. But we’re at the point now where we’ve engineered energy expenditure out of our lives, and that isn’t good for us.”

Studies linking exercise to living longer sometimes leave off the important message that being physically active improves the quality of life as well.

“Eat, drink and be merry and die happy — who am I to argue if that’s what you want to do?” Blair says. “But I’ve never met anyone who has said they want to spend the last five years of their life frail, feeble and living in a nursing home. The very best insurance that you can take out to maintain your independence and be able to function is to be physically active.”

Jerry Taft is a believer. Ten years ago, the Los Angeles actor and performer was 30 pounds heavier and mostly sedentary. Now in his 70s, he hits the Los Angeles Athletic Club twice a day and tap dances to stay in shape.

“I wanted to be my young, handsome self again,” he says, explaining his motivation for deciding, a decade ago, to get in shape.

But he regained more than his trim physique — he says he has better lung capacity (which aids his singing) and hasn’t developed any of the diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease, that plague his peers.

“I had four older brothers, and they’re all dead,” he says, “Three got so they couldn’t walk, and I said, ‘That’s not going to happen to me.’ So I keep my legs moving. I feel very good.”

Does he also think his regimen will help him live longer? “There’s no doubt about it

Source:
Los Angeles Times

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