Expert Commentary: Dr. David Edelberg 11/27/2009

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Studies like this are regarded with a "Ho-hum" by most doctors who see patients on a regular basis, especially those physicians like myself who practice nutritional and anti-aging medicine. "Okay," we think, "Someone is getting some sort of government grant to do studies on fruit flies. I guess he's got to justify his results by thinking it will make good press by applying those results to humans."

Fruit flies? You’ve seen fruit flies. They’re incredibly tiny and annoying and common sense says it’s probably quite difficult to measure the calorie intake of a fruit fly.

Now let’s get real.

In this week’s highly respected Archives of Internal Medicine is an article entitled “Healthy Living is the Best Revenge” in which researchers tracked the lifestyle choices of 23,153 actual people to determine how healthy living actually translated into a disease-free long life. They tracked four choices—choices that YOU could make today:
·    Never smoking
·    Having a Body Mass Index below 30 (this means normal weight)
·    Regular physical exercise
·    Healthy eating choices: lots of fruit, veggies, whole grain bread and low meat consumption

The question they asked was: “Does this pay off?”

The answer was a loud and clear, “You betcha!”

Every individual practicing just one of these bullet points had fewer chronic illnesses (stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer) than those practicing none. Adding another bullet point lowered risks further. The very healthiest patients, namely those following all four, had (by far) the lowest number of chronic illnesses and the best outlook for a healthy long life.

Well, to lose weight, you’ve got to restrict your calories. To stay thin, you’ve got to restrict your calories throughout your life. Add exercise, healthy food, and toss the Marlboro Lights and the main problem you’ll face is to have enough money to support you into your nineties.

Fruit flies? Forget it.

Archives of Internal Medicine 2009; 169 (15): 1355-1362 (August 10, 2009)