As an accessible source of health-related information to my coworkers, friends, and family, I am constantly asked what is healthy and what isn’t, whether food or exercise can improve or diminish health. Unfortunately, the answers aren’t as clear as a commercial or nutritional label may lead you to believe. Instead, the health of a food or behavior may be hidden and, counter intuitively, dependent on the microscopic damage it causes.
Wanting to be able to more succinctly and accurately answer these questions, I’ve spent the last few years developing a a hypothesis that aims to define where specific foods and activities fall within the spectrum of health, whether they add or detract years from your life, called the Health Enhancement Spectrum.
Certain behaviors improve health, adding years to life and some reduce health, taking years away. Let’s say an average person will live to the age of about 70 if the status quo is maintained and adequate nutrition is achieved. But humans don’t all live to 70–some live longer and some shorter. While genes play a significant role in human longevity, I believe certain foods and activities can actually extend life, rather than just reduce disease.
Health of foods is not based on antioxidant content
While it is virtually unanimous that more fruits, vegetables, and exercise are important for health, my evidence-based hypothesis contrasts the current thinking as to what makes these activities healthy. Most people label foods as “healthy” based on their nutritional content, which includes vitamins & minerals and whether they contain “free-radical annihilating” antioxidants. Although certain vitamins and minerals are needed for optimal health, basing the healthfulness of foods on these components is misguided.
If vitamins and antioxidants are the most influential components of foods, supplementing with them should bring increased health, not increased harm. The negative effects of supplementing with high dose vitamins emphasize that foods shouldn’t be reduced to its individual components. Instead, something else within foods must be causing its health benefits.
The vitamin and mineral content is merely a proxy for the “health factor” of a food. A more accurate way to think about a food’s healthfulness may be to ask what is it doing to your body and cells, specifically if it is stressing your body. And usually, the foods that stress the body also contain the most vitamins and antioxidants.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
Stress and challenge are important for the body to grow and become more resilient. Exercise stresses and damages muscles in the short term but forces repair and growth over time. Challenging math problems can increase brain growth despite the desire to quit mid-calculation. Even reactive oxygen species (free radicals), suggested to damage cellular machinery, are potent and essential messengers in the body that coordinate the production of antioxidant defense mechanisms. To enhance health and add years to life, a little bit of physical stress is needed.
The Health Enhancement Spectrum was built on this knowledge and the theory of hormesis, which proposes that certain toxins and stressors in low enough amounts can actually improve health by strengthening cells and increase lifespan.
While the stresses of exercise are known to act in a hormetic fashion, plants and dietary fasting have also been shown to produce similar effects. For instance, plants make toxic chemicals that may be necessary to improve health.
Unlike humans who are able to walk away from a dangerous situation, plants are immobile and instead defend themselves by other means. If a plant wants to stop a pest from devouring itself, the plant needs to produce deterrents or pesticides–which is exactly what it does in the form of chemicals. For insects who consume these chemicals, their fate is dire and are usually no longer around for a second attempt.
Humans on the other hand are larger and more complex, able to withstand greater insults that would take out lesser organisms. So when a human eats a plant that produces chemical deterrents, as long as we don’t die or become overly ill, over time our cells begin to defend against these chemicals, making us more resilient to future exposures. It’s like a microscopic weight room for your cells.
One of my favorite examples of a chemical deterrent that produces health benefits in a hormetic fashion is caffeine, synthesized by multiple species of plants including coffee and tea. Caffeine is a neurotoxin to many insects which prevents them from consuming the plants’ leaves and fruit. To humans though, low doses of caffeine stimulate the nervous system and may reduce the risk of many different types of neurological disorders.
The Health Enhancement Spectrum
My hypothesis takes the science of hormesis and the most up-to-date evidence on nutrition and places foods and activities within three categories based on their actual and proposed effects on human lifespan and longevity: detractors, essentials, enhancers.
The core part of your diet should abundantly include high fiber foods in the Essentials category. These contain key nutrients your body needs to function smoothly, like beneficial fats, proteins, and micronutrients. Foods that stress your body (Enhancers) should be consumed at least daily, as this will help force cells to build up defense mechanisms and potentially add years to your life. Foods in the Detractors category should be consumed on an infrequent basis, as they may reduce health and remove years from your life.
Who knew a soft and comfortable life would take years away. Instead challenge yourself and stress your cells.
Enhancers – directly stress cells to increase health and longevity
- Kale, broccoli, brussel sprouts, other cruciferous vegetables
- Onion, garlic, etc.
- Lentils and beans
- Coffee, green tea
- Olives (unprocessed olive oils)
- Spices: turmeric, cayenne, ginger
- Citrus fruit
- Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries
- Moderate red wine
- High intensity exercise
- Intermittent fasting (dietary restriction)
Essentials– needed to keep you alive and functioning but may not directly stress the body and increase longevity
- Whole grains: oats, buckwheat, quinoa. Be wary of lightly processed grains like breads and pastas.
- Nuts and seeds
- Colorful fruits and veggies: (bell peppers, tomatoes, carrots, beets, apples, etc.)
- Greens (lettuce, spinach, etc.)
- Fish
- Lean meats: chicken
- Eggs
- Tubers: sweet potatoes, etc.
- Minimally processed plant oils (stick to coconut oil and lesser to canola oil)
Detractors – take away from health and lifespan
- Fried foods
- Charred foods
- Excessive meat consumption, especially red meats. My guidance is red meat no more than once per week and having at least 1 or 2 days per week meat-free.
- Cakes, cookies, sweets
- Preservative-containing foods
- Sugary drinks
- Overly processed foods
- Hydrogenated oils
- Smoking
- Frequent endurance, marathon-like training
- Pollution
- Chronic psychological stress
The Healthy Pharmacist 
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