Is it possible to lose weight with eating? Even if it may seem a strange thing, the answer to the question is yes, it is, according to recent, and very promising, researches that are focusing their attention on the connection between aging, diet and fat burning in a really complex but fascinating process. The shelves of the supermarkets are full of products prepared with refined flours, sugar-rich drinks, sweets with glucose syrup designed to satisfy our need of sweet and fatty food that is inside us. In fact, even though we live in a world that is continuously growing and evolving, our genes haven’t evolved and are the same of primitive men who hunted for food. In so hard time finding abundant and high-fat food could mean more energy and more possibilities to survive being able to defend from attacks or preparing the body for fasting periods. This is the explanation of why we have this desire of energy-rich foods, but this is also the main problem, because when you eat abundantly you send also a specific signal to the body. What we are communicating is that survive isn’t at risk, but we do also more, in particular, the so called aging genes are activated (Eliana Liotta, The SmartFood diet). These genes make the cells produce more energy and therefore more free radicals and also make the fat accumulate on the waistline, for hunger periods. What can we do? We aren’t considering extreme diets, fasting periods, about which we can hear a lot in this period but first of all there aren’t for everybody, especially if the life is active or there are illnesses, and second they should be done with the advice of a specialist, or also unbalanced diets that simply ban all the foods containing carbohydrates and sweets with the risk to increase depression and tiredness but also not to have all the needed intake of nutrients. Instead, the solution may be, inside a balanced diet rich in unrefined foods, fruits, vegetables rich in fibers and antioxidants and with a low intake of sugars, to include also particular foods rich in substances, such as antocyanins, resveratrol, epigallocatechin gallate, capsaicin or quercetin, able to activate the sirtuins, a group formed by 7 proteins that in the body have several functions. For example, the sirtuins are involved in the mechanism of metabolism, they move fat reserves from the adipose cells to the blood to convert them into energy, control the inflammatory processes and the lifespan (Libert et al, Annu Rev Physiol, 2013 - Villalba et al, Biofactors, Sep 2012). In fact, the sirtuins are able to silence the aging genes with two important results, less fat is accumulated and there are less free radicals in the body, you lose weight, live more and are less ill. The sirtuins in fact deceive the body and send a signal that makes the body think that we are fasting, that survive is at risk but in fact all is ok, we are eating and safe! This signal makes activate the survive genes, all the energy is used to repair the damages of the free radical and to protect the body from illnesses, the fat isn’t accumulated but used. The result? You can get a longer life, with a smaller waistline.
The foods that activate the sirtuins
And what are these foods that contain these amazing substances and how we can serve them? We are speaking about strawberries, parsley, chocolate, but it should be dark with at least 70% cocoa, green tea, prepared with a brew time of the leaves higher than 5 minutes, better if around 10 minutes, and at a temperature of 70°C, kale and red wine, the best are the wines from Burgundy such as Pinot Noir since they are richer in resveratrol. Moreover don’t forget also the onion, especially red onion, perfect raw but also cooked but it should not be boiled because in this way most of the beneficial effects are given to the water, better a micro wave or a frying cooking that, according to scientific studies, preserve most of the nutrients, then consider also soy, extra virgin olive oil, buckwheat, turmeric, but taken with extra virgin olive oil and some ground black pepper to overcome the stomach barrier, walnuts, arugula or rocket salad, chili pepper, lovage, dates, red chicory, eaten raw in salads, asparagus, paprika, celery, cut into slices and added to salads, aubergines, but not grilled because this type of cooking destroys the sirtuin activator agents, the anthocyanins, blueberries, but not eaten together with cow’s milk or yogurt, capers and coffee (Pallauf et al, Oxid Med Cell Longev, Aug 2013 - Eliana Liotta, The Smart Food diet - Ioku et al, J Nutr Sci Vitaminol, Feb 2001 - Harris et al, Food Chem, Nov 2015).
