A 78-year-old doctor says he’s reversed his age by 20 years. Here are the 4 diet principles he follows to stay young
Business Insider was given access to the eating guidelines of a healthy ageing specialist who asserts to have reverted his biological age by twenty years.
At Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Michael Roizen is the chief wellness officer and an anesthesiologist. He is 78 years old. He did, however, tell BI that his “biological age” is approximately 576 years old, which means that his body seems to be decades younger based on his chance of passing away and/or acquiring age-related chronic illness. (Notably, there is disagreement about what constitutes a person’s biological age or how to calculate it.)
Using the same ideas that he claims have kept him youthful, Roizen created a wellness centre at the Cleveland Clinic that offers financial rewards to staff members who adopt healthier lifestyle choices. According to Roizen, the programme has helped Cleveland Clinic save up to $200 million annually on the medical expenses of 101,000 employee patients and has influenced their research efforts on healthy ageing.
Here are the diet principles Roizen follows.
Eat a Mediterranean diet
The Mediterranean diet excludes red meat, processed foods, and alcohol and emphasises whole foods including fruits, vegetables, legumes, low-fat dairy, and low-fat protein. Research has connected this diet to improved heart health, weight loss, and reducing cognitive decline. It has been rated the best diet by US News & World Report for seven years running.
His main sources of animal protein, which include omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D, are salmon and trout.
Eat a big meal at lunch
Roizen eats “very little” at dinner, generally simply a salad, and consumes his largest meal at lunch. After a large lunch, he has trouble falling asleep and feels “much worse the next day.”
Regardless of the quality of a participant’s diet, a 2024 study by researchers at the University of Alagoas in Brazil discovered that eating the majority of your calories at lunch could help prevent and treat obesity. The scientists hypothesised that eating in this manner might be more in tune with the body’s natural cycles.
Restricts calories five days a month
Roizen also adheres to the Longevity Diet, which was created by Valter Longo, a gerontology professor and the head of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California. He’s spent the last seven years doing this. Five days a month, calories are restricted as part of the diet to replicate the effects of fasting.
On the first day of the “fast,” calories are reduced to 1,100, and subsequently to roughly 700 on days two through five. According to a 2024 study conducted by Longo’s group at USC, after three months on the fasting-mimicking diet, participants’ biological ages were reduced by an average of 2.5 years.
“It’s not unreasonable to think that, during ages 40 to 60 at least, this regime twice per year may add three to four years of healthy life, maybe more, in those with higher BMI, blood pressure, blood sugar, etc.” said David Clancy, a biologist at Lancaster University in the UK who was not involved in the study, to BI at the time.
He noted, however, that the diet was “harsh” and that working people would find it difficult to adhere to. “Scheduling days four and five for weekend days would be sensible,” he stated.
Eat in an eight-hour window
Roizen eats every day from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. in order to observe intermittent fasting.
Even though the evidence supporting the effects of intermittent fasting on longevity is far weaker than that supporting calorie-restricted fasting, he nonetheless expressed his satisfaction with the state of affairs.
“After those sixteen hours, I feel fantastic and incredibly energised. I appear to have a lot more energy and I sleep much better,” he remarked.
Research on the possible advantages of intermittent fasting is still inconclusive, according to BI’s earlier analysis. According to a contentious study published earlier this year, it might even shorten people’s lives, while other studies contend that it has no positive effects on health.
