Ten Foods that Slow Aging After Age 50

 

One day you look in the mirror and something feels different. Not just the gray hairs or the wrinkles. It's that nagging thought in the back of your mind. Am I getting old? You think back to your last doctor's visit. The lab results weren't great. Blood sugar keeps creeping up. Cholesterol is getting worse. And the doctor said, "It's not that bad. It happens to most people your age. We don't need to put you on any medication yet.” But that phrase stuck with you.

Most people your age. What age is that? When the aches start showing up, when fatigue lingers, when the brain fog sets in. It's not that it's terrible, just not like it used to be. Maybe it's time to start changing some things while there is still time.

Hello, health champions. Today we're going to talk about the top 10 foods to eat after you've reached the age of 50. Most people as they grow up feel pretty much invincible and then up to age 30 it's pretty much a free ride. But after 50 things really change.

It's sort of like this. If we think about your vitality, in your youth and in your teens your body develops without you having to do anything. So at about age 25 you reach your peak and then it's pretty much plateaus for a few years, but after the age of 30 it starts going back down again... so that at age 50 you are on the way down, so to speak, and this is where you start noticing some of the earliest signs of aging.

Our goal is not to try to never age because we don't know how to do that yet, but what we do know is if we make some lifestyle changes, if we do the right things from an early age, we can get this peak a little bit higher before we start going down. We can degenerate much much slower so that the time where you start having symptoms is much much later in life.

After age 50, some things change that you may not even notice. Most people are going to start losing muscle mass unless they're very physically active. You're going to start losing collagen and elastin, and these are the components of bone and cartilage and skin. And when you start losing those, now you become stiffer.

Also, what happens that people didn't necessarily think about before is you become more insulin resistant. So, even if you haven't started gaining weight or become diabetic, for most people, they're heading in that direction, even if they haven't really changed much of what they eat. They could eat certain things when they were 30, but it doesn't mean that you can necessarily eat those things anymore.

For most people, you're also starting to get more oxidative stress and inflammation that shows up in the form of a low-grade chronic inflammation that starts driving degenerative disease and premature aging. So when we talk about the best foods, it needs to be foods that support all these factors and can start building your body and reversing or slowing that degeneration.

Food number one is salmon and or sardines, or some other fatty fish. But do your research and make sure that it is high in the essential fatty acids... the omega-3s, EPA, and DHA, because fatty fish is the richest natural source of these things.

There's many benefits to this, especially as you age. It has the ability to reduce or normalize your inflammatory response. It supports brain and artery health. Part of that is because it reduces inflammation. Part of it is that most of your brain is actually built out of DHA and DHA is directly linked to the rate of brain shrinkage... meaning if you have high levels of DHA as opposed to not enough, then your brain is going to shrink and degenerate less. And also having enough DHA has been shown to improve memory and reduce the neurological decline compared to people who have less of this DHA.

The scary thing is because most people don't eat fish and because we eat a lot of processed foods, most people are deficient in these omega-3s. So fish or fish oil therefore is not really optional. If you don't eat fish, if you don't eat fatty fish, probably three times a week or more, then you really need to be taking a fish oil supplement.

Food number two is avocados, very rich in potassium and monounsaturated fatty acids, which helps the heart because it helps improve vascular elasticity. If the blood vessels are elastic, then it's easier for the heart... it doesn't have to work as hard to pump the blood through the blood vessels and that makes it easier to maintain normal blood pressure.

Avocados are also very high in fiber and very low in net carbs. And this is a very important factor for insulin resistance as you become less carbohydrate tolerant. And it helps you stabilize insulin with less insulin responses and it helps maintain your blood glucose. It also helps with the absorption of vitamin A, D, E, and K... all the fat soluble vitamins as well as the carotenoids like beta carotene which is pre-vitamin A that your body can convert into vitamin A.

Food number three is cruciferous vegetables... things like broccoli, Brussel sprouts, kale, cauliflower, cabbage, and arugula. These help enhance liver detox. They contain compounds that enhance the liver's ability to detox. And one of the things the liver does in that regard is to improve estrogen metabolism. All hormones have a certain half-life. They are only active for so long and then the liver breaks them down. That is how we balance out hormones. If we have enough of these compounds that are contained in cruciferous vegetables, then the liver can do a better job, which is especially important during menopause for women and for prostate health for men. They also contain very high levels of antioxidants that help the body control inflammation and oxidative stress.

Food number four is pastured eggs... not pasteurized eggs. Pastured meaning the hens that lay them are living their life on pastures. If they do that, then they contain high levels of choline, lutein, and zeaxanthin, which are very important for memory and nerve signaling... and to protect your vision as you age. They also support the production of acetyl choline, which is a neurotransmitter that is super important for learning and memory. And they're also very rich in DHA... not as abundant as the fish we talked about first, but eggs are an important source of DHA for the brain.

Also very important for the brain as you age is cholesterol. If you have very low levels of cholesterol, that dramatically increases your risk of dementia. Pastured eggs also contain the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K.

It is important that we eat the whole egg, not just the egg white. And it is important that we get a good quality egg. Why? Because most of the nutrients that we talked about are in the yolk. If we want to utilize the protein to build tissue, then we need the combination of amino acids from the yolk and the white combined. That is the only way that we can utilize a significant amount of those amino acids. And if we compare the really good quality eggs, the pastured eggs where the hens walk outside and they get sunshine and fresh air and they get some exercise and they eat some bugs and some worms and some grass and some seeds... that's a very healthy hen as opposed to the CAFO chicken from a concentrated animal feeding operation where the hens are treated atrociously. They never see daylight. They're just fed hormones and whatever it takes to make them grow fast. They're miserable. If we compare the nutrients that show up in the eggs, you get two to three times as much of the EPA and the DHA in the pastured eggs. Vitamin D, you get three to six times more in the pastured eggs. Vitamin E, you get twice as much beta carotene that we can turn into vitamin A, with seven times as much and this, which is what gives the egg yolk its color.

Some manufacturers in the CAFO operations or in the the less natural, the less caring operations, might feed the hens some beta carotene to try to make the yolks look healthier, so you may get a better looking yolk , but it's not going to improve the other nutrients. And when we look at the lutein and the zeaxanthin which is important for eye health, we have twice as much in the pastured eggs. So if you can afford it, I would strongly suggest that you get the pastured eggs. You either invest in health or you pay for disease.

Food number five is bone broth, which is very rich in glycine, collagen, and proline. These are compounds that we boil out of the bones so that your body can put them back into bones. So it supports the connective tissue which again is skin and joints and tendons and cartilage. Therefore to support our joints and our gut lining and our skin, bone broth is a great choice. And to support the joints, we need to reduce overall inflammation and then provide the proper building materials to put the joints back together and repair them properly. This can help reduce inflammation and reduce osteoarthritis, which is part of an unhealthy aging process that makes you stiff. The amino acid glycine has also been shown to improve sleep for some people.

Food number six is berries that are very rich in two compounds called polyphenols and anthocyanins, compounds that help reduce oxidative stress and inflammation, which in turn helps slow down brain damage and cognitive decline by helping improve signaling and memory formation in aging adults. They specifically reduce oxidation in the brain area and damage in the brain and can also help improve circulation... which is super important as you age.

But while berries are sort of your safe sweet treats, you still don't want to overdo them and you do want to know a little bit about which ones are safer in terms of sugar. So, we're just going to talk quickly about glycemic control.

Once you get over 50, your metabolism slows down and your insulin sensitivity goes down, meaning your carbohydrate tolerance goes down. So, you can't eat as much of them as you did when you were 30, even if you maintain or increase exercise. So you want to shift yourself around to a low carb and low glycemic diet. These go hand in hand for the most part.

We want to first understand a little bit about the glycemic index, which is a measure of how quickly you eat something and then it becomes blood sugar. If that happens very fast it's a high glycemic index. If it happens very slowly, it's a low glycemic index. Pure glucose has the reference number of 100. So, traditionally, a low glycemic index is between zero and 55, a moderate index is between 56 and 69, and a high glycemic index is 70 and above.

But understand, this traditional scale was created not for people over 50 who are becoming insulin resistant, and remember it has been developed in a society where they believe that carbohydrate and starch is the foundation of eating. They believe in the food pyramid and that you should have eight to ten servings of grains and starch every day. But, all of that is not true and this is why we have an epidemic of obesity and diabetes around the world.

So, I'm going to give you my adjusted numbers. I think especially as you age, your low glycemic index is 0 to 25. You have no business eating anything that's as high as 55 or maybe only as an exception here and there. Moderate is 25 to 40 and high is anything above 40. This is if, again, you really want to age gracefully and maintain good health and good brain health and remain insulin sensitive.

So let's talk about some of the foods that I'm recommending.

First of all, meat, fish, and eggs have a glycemic index of zero because they basically don't raise blood sugar. They can raise it a little bit if you eat a lot of them, if you overeat, because excess protein can be turned into glucose. So, that zero isn't strictly true, but just know that the glycemic index is very, very low.

Next is non-starchy vegetables. And even though the primary constituent is carbohydrate, it's mostly fiber and water. So the glycemic index is also very very low, between 10 and 20. Now since seeds are also low, they're between 10 and 35.

Let's look at some examples. Berries have quite the range, anywhere from 25 to 50. Among the berries, the blackberries and raspberries are the safest because they're low carbs, but out of those carbs, there's a lot of fiber that slows everything way down. So, the glycemic index is only 25. Next is strawberries, which have a lot less fiber, but still pretty much the same sugar. So, the glycemic index jumps up to 40. They're still pretty safe, but you don't want to just go crazy on strawberries. Same thing with blueberries. They have a little more carbs and sugar, but not as much fiber as the blackberries and raspberries. So, the glycemic index there is 50. Unless you're a diabetic and you're really trying to make a change, then you would probably want to keep blueberries out, but blackberries and raspberries are going to be a whole lot safer, and strawberries are going to fall somewhere in between there.

Out of the nuts and seeds, the safest are going to be chia seeds at 1 because they're pretty much only protein, fat, and fiber. So, there's nothing there really to trigger a glycemic response. Flax, hemp, and pumpkin seeds are extremely low at 10. Also, we have macadamia nuts, pecans, and almonds, also at 10. Then at 15 we have walnuts, pistachio nuts, and hazelnuts. At the bottom of the list we have sunflower seeds and sesame seeds at 35. So that's still relatively low. It's not like you have to avoid them, but also realize that they're high in omega-6 fatty acids, so they're not going to help you in terms of the omega-6/omega-3 ratio.

Food number eight is dark chocolate, which is high in flavonol and helps the endothelial function and the release of nitric oxide, both good for your vascular system. Endothelial function means the properties of the blood vessel... how elastic it is, how well the muscles and the signaling works to distend, to dilate, and contract the blood vessel. The elasticity of the blood vessels is necessary so you can control blood pressure and circulation better. Nitric oxide is a substance that causes vaso-dilation that also helps with circulation. Both of these factors can help improve the blood flow to the brain and the extremities, important as we age. So you can support your cognitive function without the burden of sugar if the chocolate is dark enough.

So let's talk about what that means, because we said as you age you tolerate carbs less. So let's look at the total carbs. Let's look at fiber. Net carbs because total carbs is not what is absorbed in your bloodstream. The fiber is not digested and the fiber slows down the uptake. So we subtract the fiber from the total carbs to get the net carbs. And then what we really also want to know is how much added sugar is there? because the added sugar is 50%, fructose which is going to work toward creating a fatty liver.

So let's start with milk chocolate which has a total of 26 grams of total carbs and only 1 gram of fiber. Therefore, when we subtract the 1 from the 26, we get 25 grams of net carbs that can become blood glucose. And out of that, 15 grams is added sugar, which means fructose, so the difference here is going to be mostly lactose because we add milk.

Next we have real dark chocolate, which is 50% cocoa in that chocolate. You can't really tell the difference in appearance between 50 and 100 because they all look very dark, but it has 18 grams of total carbs, 3 g of fiber, or 15 gram of net carbs, and 11 grams of added sugar, which again is fructose. But the difference here between 15 and 11 is that there are some naturally occurring carbohydrates in chocolate. So they're not going to be as bad as the added sugar and there's not a whole lot of them and they're sort of slowly absorbed.

Then we get to 70% cocoa in the chocolate. Now we're at 13 gram of total carbs, 4 grams of fiber, or 9 grams of net carbs, and 7 g of added sugar. The way we're going to understand these numbers between 50 and 70 and 85 and so forth is that once it gets dark and we don't have any milk added, then whatever isn't chocolate is basically added sugar, more or less... that's the rough rule of thumb.

What happens when we get to the darker chocolates is that all the fat is basically in the cocoa butter and therefore, as the percentage goes up, the fat percentage goes up which slows down the absorption of the sugar... plus, these are very filling and satisfying, whereas with milk chocolate, it's very very addictive.

With a 100% chocolate, like a baking chocolate, you get 7 g of total carbs, 6 grams of fiber, and 1 gram of net carbs, with zero added sugar. So the 85 and above chocolates are the really safe ones. A lot of people are not going to enjoy the 100%. But the more you get away from sugar in your foods, the better you're going to like the higher percentages.

Food number nine is fermented vegetables, things like kimchi and sauerkraut... any vegetable that you can ferment is going to produce very much the same effect. The reason you want these fermented foods is that when you ferment them, they grow bacteria and these bacteria are very friendly to your gut, to your microbiome, and they help restore your microbiome and your microbial diversity, which is very important for health. Our microbial diversity decreases dramatically both with age and with antibiotic exposure. When our guts work better, we notice an improved digestion, improved immunity, and improved nutrient absorption... because what the gut bacteria do is they basically digest and repackage and pre-package a lot of the nutrients for us.

Your gut is super important for the production of neurotransmitters. Most of the neurotransmitters are actually produced there. And this is especially true when it comes to serotonin. And a healthy gut also improves the bioavailability of magnesium and zinc.

Food number 10 to eat as you age is grass-fed liver. And if you can't stand the taste of liver, then you can buy it as a supplement as desiccated liver, which just means dried liver pressed into little tablets. If that still has too much liver flavor for you, then you can buy it in a capsule so you don't taste it at all. The reason that we want to consider liver as an important food is that it's not only very rich in certain nutrients, but also these nutrients are highly bioavailable - iron, vitamin B12, folate (which is vitamin B9), and vitamin A.

Understand that these are very common deficiencies in the population, but especially for those over age 50. And these nutrients support methylation and detox in your liver. They also support the production of red blood cells. So we can't have totally healthy and mature red blood cells without enough of these nutrients, especially the B vitamins. And the reason red blood cells are important obviously is to distribute oxygen throughout the body, and as we age and our circulation might suffer that becomes more important than ever.

And the nutrients that we talked about in the liver also support your mitochondria and your overall energy production. So all the foods that we've talked about, you want to think about them not just as foods, but as powerful resources that if you eat a wide variety and you get good quality foods, they can address all the systems in your body that tend to break down as you age to 50 years and beyond.

from YouTube @drekberg on July 11, 2025