Longevity

[Diogo]

Seems to me there is a pattern around quite a few Brazilian centenarians.
Besides the, usually clean air in the country side, the so common beans with white rice and/or meat meals, the variety of fruits and the social culture, is there any other reason for so many people reaching 90+ years of age?
Looking around online, plenty of them smoke pipes on a regular basis:
117 and smokes a pipe
(
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y6ixaIl0Xw&t=1453s
)
110 and smokes a pipe
(
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYPYuI4e4ks&t=170s
)
114 and smokes a pipe
(
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RGD0OHsb2c
)


Anyone care to share their view on what could actual pipe smoking benefits be for lengevity?

And by consequence, the dangers of it.

 

[Nfinkelstein]

maybe it is because nicotine is pro metabolic, although the downside to pipe smoking is obviously emphysema etc.

 

[TheSir]

They lived through an era when everyone smoked. Perhaps they just happen to be those whom aren't greatly harmed by tobacco?

 

[Runenight201]

I would have to suspect that their lifestyle is also very relaxed/stress-free. Stress is so degenerative and people who live long I imagine experience very little of it.

 

[Diogo]

I would have to suspect that their lifestyle is also very relaxed/stress-free. Stress is so degenerative and people who live long I imagine experience very little of it.

100 years means they all pass thourgh both world wars and persecution in their own countries and I would dare to say, extreme poverty.

 

[Diogo]

They lived through an era when everyone smoked. Perhaps they just happen to be those whom aren't greatly harmed by tobacco?

Seems there this were based on heavier pros than cons, which serves as a foundation to the questions I asked last in the post.

What would these benefits be and in what type of system deficiencies would smoking be "recommended" and, of course, the cons but those some of us already know to a certain extent.
How do the cons translate in bio chemistry?

 

[Diogo]

maybe it is because nicotine is pro metabolic, although the downside to pipe smoking is obviously emphysema etc.

I always thought both pipe and cigar smoking were not to be inhaled. Might be my mistake.

 

[Runenight201]

100 years means they all pass thourgh both world wars and persecution in their own countries and I would dare to say, extreme poverty.

Certainly so, yet I wouldn’t be surprised if their tropical environmental made them much more resilient to these stressors than a more toxic modern environment. Being surrounded by vegetation, sunshine, the natural earth, imposes a more restorative, peaceful calm being than being surrounded by concrete, cars, computers, etc… so long as these people had access to food, shelter, and medicine, then extreme poverty is not debilitating so long as they get those requirements met. Poverty only becomes toxic once it leaves you susceptible to the elements and/or restricts your ability to eat sufficiently.

What are their daily expectations? The modern human is required to engage in all sorts of activities that are not conducive to longevity. From the clothing, to the work, to the societal expectations, all of these cripple and suffocate.

 

[Apple]

I always thought both pipe and cigar smoking were not to be inhaled. Might be my mistake.

They don't inhale . But it can be deleterius for the teeth

 

[Diogo]

Certainly so, yet I wouldn’t be surprised if their tropical environmental made them much more resilient to these stressors than a more toxic modern environment. Being surrounded by vegetation, sunshine, the natural earth, imposes a more restorative, peaceful calm being than being surrounded by concrete, cars, computers, etc… so long as these people had access to food, shelter, and medicine, then extreme poverty is not debilitating so long as they get those requirements met. Poverty only becomes toxic once it leaves you susceptible to the elements and/or restricts your ability to eat sufficiently.

What are their daily expectations? The modern human is required to engage in all sorts of activities that are not conducive to longevity. From the clothing, to the work, to the societal expectations, all of these cripple and suffocate.

I imagine the stress of living through two major wars being incredibly degradating, even if this people did not(probably) had direct contact with it, no matter the ammount of vegetation, sunshine and/or the lack of modern society features.

Extreme poverty in a nutshell implies lack of accessibility to plenty of essential products and services, including food diversity, mobility and quite a few others.

Speaking of medicine, funny enough, at least two of elderly in the videos do not take medicines and never took vaccines, one of the even hiding behind his bed to not take a vaccine.

So a question arises. How often is seen centanarian Amish people? The comparison might give some insight.

 

[Diogo]

They don't inhale . But it can be deleterius for the teeth

Seems like a light con in comparison, then. We do know that smoke is estrogenic and the bad effects of estrogen, however, it is nothing less than a delightful sight to see someone over 100 smoking a pipe on a regular basis. Shouldn+t they have died 50 years prior? Something seems off in here and that is what I´m trying to bring to the surface with help.

 

[Runenight201]

I imagine the stress of living through two major wars being incredibly degradating, even if this people did not(probably) had direct contact with it, no matter the ammount of vegetation, sunshine and/or the lack of modern society features.

Extreme poverty in a nutshell implies lack of accessibility to plenty of essential products and services, including food diversity, mobility and quite a few others.

Speaking of medicine, funny enough, at least two of elderly in the videos do not take medicines and never took vaccines, one of the even hiding behind his bed to not take a vaccine.

So a question arises. How often is seen centanarian Amish people? The comparison might give some insight.

I don’t believe your claim that these people were deprived of food and still lived for a long time. This would be tough to verify tho, short of either of us living and having direct experience of these peoples lives. Bottom line is that anytime an individual is susceptible to stress, it shortens lifespan, whether that be physical, mental, psychological, emotional.

To live a long time stress has to be minimized, or at least the individuals RESPONSE to stress, which I would wager all centenarians have done exceptionally well.

 

[Diogo]

I don’t believe your claim that these people were deprived of food and still lived for a long time. This would be tough to verify tho, short of either of us living and having direct experience of these peoples lives. Bottom line is that anytime an individual is susceptible to stress, it shortens lifespan, whether that be physical, mental, psychological, emotional.

To live a long time stress has to be minimized, or at least the individuals RESPONSE to stress, which I would wager all centenarians have done exceptionally well.

Deprived of food variety. Luckily, their land is richer in variety of food and animals than plenty of other countries, however, there are still examples of people who lived plenty of times only on oranges, bread and sardines.

I know stories of families of 5 having one sardine for dinner way too many times and plenty of this people surpass their 80´s.

If you were to say that, to the very least, this centenarians in particular have something in them that helps them manage stress and/or not feel is as much, then I would agree.

For instance, Dona Bakana, another Brazilian centenarian who seems to manage just fine stress.

She is constantly making jokes and curses others quite a few times in this 10 minutes clip.

She socializes a lot, only ate home made cooking

She is very lucid, and is never sad.

She is extremely active, even past 100 she still works at the farm and cooks for herself.

One would think this type of activity would be stressful to the body at such an age.



View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA8srhbo5_A


The great question here is, what is the pattern among this centenarians?

 

[Runenight201]

@Diogo Being active on its own is not stressful. In fact it is incredibly restorative on the body. This forum has a negative perception of exercise but truthfully if done correctly it is a very healthy activity, increasing both healthspan and lifespan. In addition, ff we were to look at the physiology of these centenarians, regardless of what we may think may be a stressor, if their body is not producing cortisol and the other stress hormones, along with pathological neurotransmitter function, but still maintaining the youthful hormones and positive neurotransmitters, than they are not experiencing stress. This can be applied even if someone is living through wartime, food deprivation, isolation, etc....

Simply avoiding toxicity, such as PUFA, pathological mindsets, environmental toxins, etc... can make up for a subpar diet as well. Maintaing positive relationships with self, others, and the world, can also supercede any shortcomings in other areas.

 

[TruffleGnocchi]

What is it or is the most damaging part, when people say stress? Is it the cortisol?

 

[Diogo]

@Diogo Being active on its own is not stressful. In fact it is incredibly restorative on the body. This forum has a negative perception of exercise but truthfully if done correctly it is a very healthy activity, increasing both healthspan and lifespan. In addition, ff we were to look at the physiology of these centenarians, regardless of what we may think may be a stressor, if their body is not producing cortisol and the other stress hormones, along with pathological neurotransmitter function, but still maintaining the youthful hormones and positive neurotransmitters, than they are not experiencing stress. This can be applied even if someone is living through wartime, food deprivation, isolation, etc....

Simply avoiding toxicity, such as PUFA, pathological mindsets, environmental toxins, etc... can make up for a subpar diet as well. Maintaing positive relationships with self, others, and the world, can also supercede any shortcomings in other areas.

I imagine you understand there is a huge difference between gym workouts and agriculture work.

"regardless of what we may think may be a stressor"

How do we do that? Are we from different races and planets? I´m a human, if something stresses me, it will most likely stress you also.
We are not here to imagine scenarios, rather, we are here to trying to understand what could be biologically different in this people comparing to the rest.
Besides the well known habits and manners they adopted, what do they have or do that got them this far.

You refer "maintaining youth hormones", how do you see that happening? What would make someone above 80 not taking any type of medicine maintinaing youth hormones? Is it a genetic predisposition? Is it some fruit or vegetable? Coconut water bark, perhaps?

 

[Runenight201]

@TruffleGnocchi It's the cascade of stressful hormones. Cortisol is obviously a big villain, but I imagine there's many also, as well as inflammatory markers such as cytokines, all of which are damaging to the body.

@Diogo In regards to individuals susceptibility to stress, there is a ton of variation, and you can't assume that something that stresses one human out will stress someone else out. Someone who grew up with a healthy amount of relationships and positive interactions with others will feel very good socializing and interacting with others, while someone who grew up in isolation and did not develop proper social skills will have a lot of anxiety and stress response to socialization. In addition, two babies with mothers who had different nutritional statuses or exposure to stress in the womb will have drastically different responses to stress as they develop and mature in the world. Then there is also education and upbringing, a child who learned healthy coping mechanisms and formed a healthy identity with self, others, and the world (ie maturity properly) will be much better able to handle stress compared to a child who never learned such mechanisms. Let's not forget the power of the mind, and how one perceives environmental challenges which can mitigate or excacerbate stress. For instance, a child who has learned helpness will be thoroughly damaged by stress, vs a child who was taught resilience and perserverence in the face of adversity. A mindset in itself can blunt a stress response!

 

[akgrrrl]

I always thought both pipe and cigar smoking were not to be inhaled. Might be my mistake.

Exactly, also could it be they smoked tobacco not contaminated with 1000 additives, pesticides or gmo'd? Also grown consciously and not monocultured for profit? My mom told me she worked for RJ Reynolds in 1940s and they'd harvested the entire field weeds grass and all then caramel color it to look the same and shred it for cigarettes

 

[Diogo]

@TruffleGnocchi It's the cascade of stressful hormones. Cortisol is obviously a big villain, but I imagine there's many also, as well as inflammatory markers such as cytokines, all of which are damaging to the body.

@Diogo In regards to individuals susceptibility to stress, there is a ton of variation, and you can't assume that something that stresses one human out will stress someone else out. Someone who grew up with a healthy amount of relationships and positive interactions with others will feel very good socializing and interacting with others, while someone who grew up in isolation and did not develop proper social skills will have a lot of anxiety and stress response to socialization. In addition, two babies with mothers who had different nutritional statuses or exposure to stress in the womb will have drastically different responses to stress as they develop and mature in the world. Then there is also education and upbringing, a child who learned healthy coping mechanisms and formed a healthy identity with self, others, and the world (ie maturity properly) will be much better able to handle stress compared to a child who never learned such mechanisms. Let's not forget the power of the mind, and how one perceives environmental challenges which can mitigate or excacerbate stress. For instance, a child who has learned helpness will be thoroughly damaged by stress, vs a child who was taught resilience and perserverence in the face of adversity. A mindset in itself can blunt a stress response!

"it will most likely stress you also." , I said!!

Exactly, also could it be they smoked tobacco not contaminated with 1000 additives, pesticides or gmo'd? Also grown consciously and not monocultured for profit? My mom told me she worked for RJ Reynolds in 1940s and they'd harvested the entire field weeds grass and all then caramel color it to look the same and shred it for cigarettes

Seems to me that what the elderly usually smoke is the famous "fumo de rolo", which are tobacco leaves rolled in a way similar to a rope.

As follows: Fumo de Rolo / Corda

 

[TruffleGnocchi]

I recently started smoking cigars, after getting the sense that vaping caused or increased my rate of lung infection, and when I started smoking cigars, no such problem. Before trying cigars I tried rolling cigarettes, and I couldnt finish a single slim rolled cigarette because it felt like I was smoking news paper, later I saw andrew tate smoking cigars then I got the idea.
Some cigar give me brain fog and I feel awful I think it had additives, I think Bones was the brand, it was darker in color and had a stronger flavour. Others have less taste just tobacco taste but also no such problems, unless I smoke too much I get slight brainfog I think but nothing like that other cigar I tried. All in all I am amazed at the difference between rolling tobacco and cigar tobacco. Could also be the rolling paper but I doubt it's just the paper.

A few days ago I started pipe smoking. I bought some general brand pipe tobacco, just bigger cuts than regular rolling tobacco, so I thought. But actually it was vanilla flavoured. My head and face felt like vanilla for the whole next day after somoking that and a bit messed up, it was too damp as well. Yesterday I bought another tobacco that supposedly doesnt have flavor, dried it a bit, smoked 1 pipe of it a few hours ago, no vanilla flavor, my head it clear, but my mouth has quite strong smell of the tobacco I smoked. Smoking the cigars doesnt give me this. Maybe it's because it's still a bit too damp or its processed differently, or maybe still has some additives that the cigar doesnt have.

Both cigars and smoking tobacco is nothing like smoking rolling tobacco in a regular rolling paper, and absolutely not like packed cigarettes. I feel like the smoke is anti-bacterial, as opposed to the humid clogged up feeling I would get in my chest after vaping (either 50/50 PG/VG or 100% VG both gave me that).