Reaching 100 - 16

SPEAKER A The following program presents principles designed to promote good health and is not intended to take the place of personalized professional care. The opinions and ideas expressed are those of the speakers. Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions about the information presented. SPEAKER B Welcome to healthy living. I'm your host, Margot Marshall. What are the secrets of the longest living people on earth? And what can you do now to improve not only the chances of reaching 100, but getting there with less disabilities? Stay tuned for the answers. SPEAKER C Healthy Living is a 13 part production of 3ABN Australia television focusing on the health of the whole person, body, mind and spirit. You'll learn natural lifestyle principles with practical health solutions for overall good. SPEAKER B Healthy life is very precious and quality of life is equally important. My guest today has firsthand experience in helping people to live longer, healthier lives. Welcome Dr. Eddie Ramirez. SPEAKER D Thank you. SPEAKER B Tell us the secrets that you have for us today. SPEAKER D Well, there is a lot of research today trying to find out what we can do in order to reach 101 of the latest principles that have come out. University of Florida. There's a hospital there that is called Celebrations. You can Google it if you're interested on the topic. Have come out with the word creation that talks about those eight principles. And every one of those letters have something to do with a good principle. SPEAKER B Like an ackerman. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B Spelling of the word. SPEAKER D So the C would be for choice, the R would be for rest, the E would be for environment. The things around exercise, actually activity a activity. The T would be the trust. And then we have interpersonal relationships, then outlook, and then nutrition. SPEAKER B Well, that's beautiful. A really good lineup of things that all play a role. Some of those are interesting, the interpersonal relationships. And that's very much what we like to promote in this program, because mental, physical and spiritual health, that's all of who we really are. And they all blend in together and they impact on each other. So it's really good to come from different angles for whole person health. That sounds beautiful. SPEAKER D If you notice, the very first one was about choice. And whenever we have choice, we need to make a decision. So all change needs to start with a decision. You have to decide. And I see this in the clinical practice. I know that if there's a smoker there, if he says, well, maybe I'll quit smoking, it's not going to happen. It needs to be with all your heart, then change can happen in you. And what happened is that sometimes we human beings are a little bit reluctant to make changes, yet we need changes to be prosperous. And you know the part of the brain that plays a very important role regarding your decisions, it's called the frontal lobe of your brain. SPEAKER B Before you go on with that, you're talking about decisions and choices and so on and change. And I remember reading somewhere once that two laws of change, change is inevitable, and change will be resisted. Even a change for the better. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B Strangely enough, that fascinated me that we would resist a change that was going to make life better. But we do. SPEAKER D After working for 23 years in lifestyle centers in Europe, in Africa, in America, I've seen that with my very own eyes. And you know, we actually have the hard word to make good decisions. For example, a cat has only 3.5 of his brain is frontal lobes. A dog is 7%. Who does more tricks, the cat or the dog? SPEAKER B Definitely the dog. SPEAKER D Now, who can do more tricks, a monkey or a dog? SPEAKER B I haven't really seen monkey doing tricks. SPEAKER D Well, maybe because you don't have too many here in Australia. SPEAKER B Well, no, we don't, but I do love them. SPEAKER D 17% of the chimpanzee is frontal lobe. That's why monkeys can actually do more complex things than a dog. SPEAKER B And the frontal lobe is the executive. SPEAKER D Part of the executive part of the brain where you take the choices and so forth. And whenever people say that you came from monkeys and so forth, well, it's actually a huge difference between what a monkey is and what a human is. A human has 33% of the whole brain is frontal lobes. So you have the hardware there to make good decisions. The physical part is there. You just have to decide to make the change. Then it can happen. SPEAKER B Right? And so the other part of the brain that tends to want to take charge is the feeling part of the brain. Part of the brain. And we often say, I don't feel like doing that. And that takes control. That's not a good. SPEAKER D So you have three parts of your brain that play a very important role. You have your frontal lobes. That one asks the question, is it correct? Yes or no? Then you have the other part of the brain that is not frontal lobe, that is not limbic system. That one asks the question, is it logical? Yes or no? And the limbic system asks the question, do I like it? Yes or no? SPEAKER B Yes. And that's it. That's all it does. SPEAKER D And see, you need to use those three parts of your brain to make good decisions. Sometimes there are things that you may like, yet you need. So we have three counselors which are called judgment, reason and conscience. So judgment has to do with the question, is this the best for me? See, when you go to the store, don't ask the question, what's wrong with this? No, that's the wrong question. Ask the question, what is the best? I want the best for me. In that way, judgment will work properly. Then you have reason. Reason has to do with taking into account all the different factors. And then you make a decision. That's why you need to be very careful what kind of information you put in your head. I see this very often in medical consultation. People go to the internet and start reading all kinds of pseudoscience and they believe it's true. Be very careful. Use reason properly because bad information will give bad behavior. And as I recently saw in a doctor's office, it says you will be charged an extra $20 for diagnosis found on the internet. Self diagnosis found on the internet. Be careful, use your reason correctly. And finally we have the conscience part. Conscience has to do with the moral and ethics side of things. For a Christian, this would be the question is this the will of God or not? So that will was a special gift that God gave to human beings at the very beginning. And what happened is that when you have true love you have to decide if it's related to something related with love. You have to have the possibility of saying no. For example, I never seen a couple that tells me how he proposed to his wife. He didn't get his hand and twisted the hand of the future wife. I said you have to say yes. You have to say yes. It doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that. You have to have that ability of choosing and God in his infinite love provide us with that reflection of his love in us so that we could take decisions and love. And the thing is that if there's no love, there is no happiness. And that's why we need to have love in our lives. Love others and have the ability let others love us. SPEAKER B Yes. And it's interesting, I mean, sometimes when we think of love we think of fluffy feelings. Yes, that's from a different part of the brain and that's nice that comes. But the Bible also talks about what love is. It gives a beautiful definition in first Corinthians. It's patient, it's kind all those lovely things and it doesn't do any harm and it doesn't keep a record of wrongs, all those sorts of things. And that's really more about what love actually is. And it brings with it some fluffy feelings too. SPEAKER D That's right. But that's not the basis and that's not the basis. It is a decision that you need to take. And God made human beings and put them in a perfect environment. Everything was nice, air was fresh, food was healthy, relationships were great. But still human beings needed to take a decision. And that decision was based on two trees. You had the tree of life which actually today could be representing all those good decisions that you need to take everything that is good for you, that is life giving. But then you also have the decision of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and you know, that represented those poor choices that sometimes we take that unfortunately have negative consequences, unhealthy consequences. And life destroying practices and God never wanted us to partake of that. And as we went ahead and disobeyed the will of God, we got ourselves in big trouble. SPEAKER B Really big trouble. SPEAKER D Sin was introduced in the picture. I can illustrate with you this as a mother that bakes some good smelling cookies and he puts them in a jar and she says, johnny, I need to go out of the house for a minute, please don't eat the cookies. The mother goes out and it's taking longer. Johnny goes and starts to open the jar and as he's starting to put his hand in the jar, he hears the door being open. Question where does Johnny want his mom to be at that moment? In the North Pole or possible in the moon? SPEAKER B Isn't it probably one of those? SPEAKER D That's what sin does to us. Sin creates separation. And that's why God never intended that door to be open. It was that God didn't want it to give us something special and so forth. God never intended that door of pain, of suffering, of pollution, of dead, of sickness to be open. That's why we need to be very careful on the decisions that we take. Because our choices do have consequences. They do good or bad. In the same way you don't want to base your life in bad decisions because as I tell my patients, sooner or later the bill will come to you. And especially sometimes young people, they feel indestructible and their behavior and practices may testify of that. But I can tell you sooner or later the bill comes. I'm surprised to see sometimes people that are my age, my friends, some of them so sick, taking all kinds of medications and feeling tired and so forth, there is no need for that. SPEAKER B You look remarkable for your age and I think it's all right to say you're 43, but you look that's right absolutely amazing. And that is a credit to your lifestyle and to all the good choices that you have. SPEAKER D As I tell my patients, I don't want to be a hypocrite, if I'm telling you to do something is because I am doing that thing in my life. So when sin gets introduced in the picture spiritually, we know we separated ourselves from God physically. Disease came on emotionally, stress and anxiety and relationship problems came on. SPEAKER B The relationship fell down as soon as it happened, didn't it? They started blaming it's like oh, not me, my fault. And that was an immediate thing. So yes, it does. And all of those things are affected, our relationships and our physical health, our mental health. And of course, just like Johnny didn't want his mum to be there, they hid from God. So all of those aspects of our being impact in one event, they all mixed in together. SPEAKER D Very true. SPEAKER B Do one and not have them all affected for good, as you said, or negatively. SPEAKER D So our goal should be to try to understand what type of lifestyle has been taking place at the very beginning and try to pattern our lifestyle as much as possible on that, regarding diet, regarding exercise, regarding rest, regarding relationships and so forth. There is blessings in that. And that's what I like about the Bible as you read its pages. There is good examples and bad examples. The bad examples are there so that you can avoid falling on the same pits that certain people fell. And there are good examples. For example, in Genesis we see the negative consequences of uncontrolled anger resulting in the death of the first human being. Also Psalms talks about what happens with uncontrolled passion, how relationships were affected in the case of David, and pain and even death resulted as a result of that. So bad consequences. SPEAKER B You're talking about when he saw his wife? SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B He committed adultery and then she got pregnant and he tried to hide it and couldn't. So he had the husband killed. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B And then of course, it all came back against him and it was just very bad experience. SPEAKER D Or Judas uncontrolled greed took him to the point that he actually traded Jesus for just some pieces of metal called silver. But also the Bible also has examples of people that even had pathological families in the example of Joseph. Very pathological family. Yet the choices that he took, sooner or later they give good consequences. And you can see that he became one of the highest officials in Egypt or Daniel. He purposes in his heart that he would not defile himself with the wine or the food of those Babylonians and God bless them. SPEAKER B I think that's the absolute key. He purposed in his heart and he made that decision, that choice before he was ever confronted with the temptation. And I think that's a big secret. If you wait until the cookies come out or whatever it is, whatever it is, it's very difficult. But if ahead of time you think, this is what I am going to do, this is what I'm not going to do, and you draw a line in the sand, in your mind, you just draw that line. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B And I believe that's the secret, whatever it is. SPEAKER D So remember, all change starts with good decisions. Now there's people that say, well, it's because I have bad genetics. Doctor, you don't understand this. My father died of heart disease, mother died of cancer. There's a lot of disease in my family. Well, we're realizing that genes actually account only for 20% of your health. You know, there's a study that took place actually not too far from where I'm currently living. It's called Alameda Longevity Study. And we can see that on screen. They found out that people that follow these habits, you actually predicted their longevity. No smoking, seven to 8 hours of sleep, adequate weight, regular exercise, no or nonalcohol or reduced alcohol, no eating between meals and having a regular breakfast. And let me share with you a very interesting graphic. That graphic tells you how you can actually predict that longevity. In this graphic, for example, you can see that a 20 year old that has zero to two habits you see on the red, he is not 20, he's actually 34. And if you notice, the older you get, the more the implications. Somebody that is 70 years old that has five habits, he's going to have about 71. But if he has the seven habits that I just mentioned, he is actually going to be 52 years old in. SPEAKER B Real age compared to someone who doesn't have any 97. That's a 45 year difference. SPEAKER D That is a huge effect, a massive difference. And the older you get, the bigger the effect that it has for good or for bad. SPEAKER B And this is just in your quality of life. And really that becomes so important. And unfortunately, sometimes we have to lose some measure of our wellness before we really appreciate quality of life. So that's huge. I mean, a 45 differential. SPEAKER D I know what some people may be thinking right now. They may be saying, you know, doctor, what were those seven habits? I didn't copy them again. So let's show them in. Screen those seven habits again. No smoking, seven to 8 hours of sleep, adequate weight, regular exercise, no or very little alcohol, no eating between meals and regular breakfast. SPEAKER B They're actually very common sense when you think about it, but not all that common. SPEAKER D So National Geographic was interested in finding out where the longest living people on earth were. And in fact, you can actually Google that article for free. There's actually a nice little short video that I recommend you watch. If you type in your Google Living Longer National Geographic, it will bring you to that online version of the article living Longer National Geographic. And there it talks about three cultures of longevity in Japan, in Okinawa, Japan, also in Italy, way in the mountains, not the whole island, but there's a small population there in the island of Sardinia. And finally they were surprised that in America, in the western world, in the east of Los Angeles, there's a small community there of Seven Day Adventists in Loma Linda, California. You can go to the National Geographic page. I'm not making this up. And Dan Buetner, the author of this research, he wrote a whole book called The Blue Zones. And the interesting, fascinating thing about those Seven Day Adventists that live in Loma Linda, I do lots of research and actually met a researcher of the environment in America, and he told me that Loma Linda is one of the most polluted places in America. The reason being is that Los Angeles is close to the ocean and as the winds push all that smoke, loma Linda is surrounded by mountains. So all that smoke stays in Loma Linda. You have one of the most polluted places in America, yet you have one of the longest living people in America. So universities and governments around the world wanted to know, what are they doing that is causing that amazing longevity? And, you know, today there's more than 50 years of research and you can actually find this. It's called Adventist Health Studies. And they have found out that there is nowadays in the database more than 100,000 people that have been studying. And this is what they found out. They found out that these Seven Day Adventists live ten years or more than the average American. SPEAKER B The ones that also live in the area. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B They're not isolated from all of the temptations or the availability. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B Other choices. So it's a choice. SPEAKER D Yes. And as my professor said when I was studying medicine, going to an American market can be harmful to your health. You have all kinds of excess. There sugars and white flour. Whatever you want is there in those markets. So, yes, they are exposed to those types of temptations. And back in the 60s, they did a study, one of the first studies for the Adventist mortality studies, and they found out that males were living 6.2 years more than the average American. But then the latest, latest study, and in fact, if you are somebody that watches the news or reads the newspaper, you have seen the results of these studies. CNN, Fox News, NBC and Australian outlets and newspapers and all over the world have reported the amazing results of these studies. So let's go through some of the fascinating facts that these studies have shed on the lifestyle of this Adventist. We can see, for example, that mortality in all cancers among males is 60% less compared to the average population. Fantastic. Mortality on all cancers among females, 76% less. Also, they found the importance of eating whole grains. Eating whole grains decrease the risk of a fatal heart attack in 45%. SPEAKER B That's a huge reduction. SPEAKER D That is fabulous. SPEAKER B It's almost half, isn't it? SPEAKER D And also, drinking water has an effect. Five or more glasses of water reduce the risk of a heart attack by 50%. And also, what a simple product. That's right. Water. SPEAKER B And it's just so valuable. SPEAKER D And then tomatoes. Tomatoes. The males that ate the most tomatoes reduce the risk of prostate cancer by 40%. And if you replace your dairy for soy milk among males, you reduce the risk of prostate cancer by 70%. A cancer that it is extremely common here in Australia. SPEAKER B Unfortunately, yes, very common. SPEAKER D And if you analyze this group of people, they're not just one race. You cannot just say, oh, it's just white. No. There's Hispanics, there's Asian. There's African. All kinds of people composed the Seven Day Adventists. And not all the Seven Day Adventists grew in the same way. There are some that didn't grow as Adventists and later on choose to become an Adventist. If you eliminate those people that were eating lots of cheese, lots of dairy, lots of meat. That in the past. They partake of lots of alcohol or drugs. Actually, the longevity goes to 1012 or even more years compared to the average American. So what are they doing, these Adventists? They're not smoking. They follow a plant based diet, they consume nuts, they do regular exercise, and they keep a healthy weight. And one very important factor, they found out is that the way that the faith they live, having faith in God, as they crunch the numbers, they realize that is actually a huge factor in longevity. SPEAKER B Yes. And that doesn't surprise me at all, because in the last hundred years there's been, oh, I think it's about 1200 studies that show the beneficial effects to our physical health from spirituality. You're probably aware of all that too. I'm sure all the research that you do, yes. Has a really amazing impact on our overall health, tapping into spirituality. SPEAKER D So if you want to have that longevity, I invite you to tap into those spiritual resources. In fact, in National Geographic, one of the characteristics of those three groups is that they had faith in God, which is fascinating. SPEAKER B It is, actually, because they weren't all identical. Like, the factors that helped each of the groups weren't entirely identical, but that was one that was a common one that they all had. SPEAKER D I like to teach a Bible verse for those patients that would like to overcome a certain habit. I teach them Philippians 413, which says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So focus in a few things, start making those changes, decide for the change and harvest the good results. SPEAKER B That's tremendous. And the Bible actually the same creative power that brought this world into existence is in actually in God's word. So it's really, really powerful. So we wish you a very long and healthy life. And remember that you can view our programs on demand. Just visit our website at 3abnaustralia.org.au and click on the watch button. And we just hope that this has been a really helpful thing for you. And I hope that you will take on board something that you've heard and even think of one thing that you could do right now to give yourself a long and healthy life. SPEAKER C You’ve been listening to a production of 3ABN Australia television.