This is our third extract from "AgeLess". It continues Dean Edward L. Schneider's discussion of nutrition as a major factor in your control of aging. Robert Griffith, Editor.

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My AgeLess diet is similar to the traditional Mediterranean diet, which, compared to the average American diet, features more green and root vegetables, more whole grain bread, more fish, less red meat, fruit at least once a day, lots of olive and canola oil for cooking, and wine in moderation. Some of the first hints we had of the power of diet to optimize longevity were statistics coming out of Mediterranean countries. Though residents of these countries were hardly paragons of good health - they smoked more and exercised less than Americans, for example - they had lower rates of heart disease and cancer. The key longevity factor appeared to be diet. Since the scientific community first took note of the Mediterranean diet, epidemiological studies and controlled interventions alike have proven its health benefits. Here's my 'Dean's Dozen' good foods for increasing your longevity:

The Dean's Dozen: 12 Top Foods for Longevity

Food	AgeLess Advantages
Olive oil	Monounsaturated fats
Nuts (pick from: walnuts, cashews, pecans)	Can lower risk of heart disease, raise HDL and lower LDL cholesterol levels, provide vitamin E, fiber, and plant protein
Salmon	Omega-3-fatty acids and vitamin D
Fat-free yogurt	Calcium and vitamin D with little lactose
All-Bran cereal	Cereal fiber
Legumes (pick one: beans, lentils, peanuts)	Folate, fiber, plant protein
Cruciferous vegetables (pick one: broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage)	Carotenoids, flavonoids, and indoles; vitamin C; fiber
Spinach	Lutein, zeaxanthin, folate, fiber
Cooked tomatoes	Lycopene, fiber, vitamin C
Oranges	Vitamin C, fiber, folate
Berries (pick one: blueberries, strawberries, raspberries)	Vitamin C, fiber, antioxidants
Dark chocolate (in moderation)	Flavonoids, great taste!

Take Only the Supplements You Need

Notwithstanding my New Rule to toss your multivitamin and most supplements, there are three important nutrients that are just too hard to get from food in adequate amounts, no matter how carefully we plan our diets. They are calcium, vitamin D, and folic acid, and you can thank modern pharmacology for making them available as supplements.

Calcium: You Never Outgrow Your Need for It

Because calcium has so much work to do, we need a lot of it, and most American adults fall short of the recommended dietary allowance of 1,000 to 1,500 milligrams, depending on gender and age. The average American adult obtains only 50% to 70% of this much calcium through food. It takes five glasses of milk a day to make a calcium target of 1,500 milligrams, and most of us choose something else to drink instead, so this shortfall isn't too surprising. Lots of great foods contain calcium, however. Dairy products - milk, yogurt, cheese - rank number one, followed (after a steep drop-off) by foods such as oatmeal, almonds, soy, and leafy greens.

The best way to get enough calcium is to eat plenty of calcium-rich foods. Choose low-fat or fat-free dairy products, since whole milk contains saturated fat. If you're lactose intolerant, take the enzyme supplement Lactaid® when you eat dairy products, or look for Lactaid® milk. You may be able to tolerate yogurt or cheese (semisoft to hard), since they are made using a fermentation process that eats up most of the lactose sugars.

Vegans who avoid dairy can get calcium from oatmeal, legumes (especially soybeans and tofu), leafy greens, or nuts. Unfortunately, the bioavailability of calcium from plant foods is low. Spinach, for instance, is full of calcium but contains a compound that inhibits its digestion, as does wheat bran. These are great foods in other regards, so eat them - but don't include them in your calcium calculations.

My AgeLess recommendation is to meet your calcium requirement with food and supplements. By all means, eat plenty of calcium-rich foods - but most of you will need to take a supplement in order to get 1,000 to 1,500 milligrams daily. There aren't many downsides to taking extra calcium, and the upside can be significant, so I recommend calcium supplementation with some important caveats.

First, consult with your doctor before taking calcium supplements if you take prescription drugs or have kidney stones. Like many supplements, calcium can interfere with other medications, particularly tetracycline, so be sure to check on the effect of calcium on all your prescription drugs. Certain types of kidney stones can be made worse with calcium supplements, though recent evidence indicates that there's no problem if you have the most common kind. Those free of this painful condition will be glad to know that consuming calcium is one of the best ways to help prevent kidney stones in the first place.

Next, because calcium is available in a variety of forms, choose the type of calcium to take. I recommend calcium citrate. It's the most easily absorbed form of supplemental calcium, and it doesn't cause constipation, as calcium carbonate can. Unlike some other forms, calcium citrate doesn't reduce the absorption of iron.

Finally, look for the amount of elemental calcium in your supplement, not the number on the front of the bottle. This is the figure that counts in fulfilling your AgeLess recommendation. You can absorb only 500 milligrams of calcium at a time, so space out your supplements and calcium-rich foods through the day. And don't forget to get enough vitamin D, which is critical to calcium absorption. (More on this coming up.) You should take extra calcium if you regularly consume large quantities of caffeine, sodium, or protein. Each of these speeds calcium loss.

Vitamin D - Calcium's Best Buddy

Vitamin D transports calcium from the intestine into your bloodstream. Without it, you would absorb a mere 10 percent of the calcium you ingest - which is why we now fortify milk with D. Misnamed long ago "vitamin," D is actually a hormone. Like other hormones, your body can manufacture D, but only with a little help from the sun.

Vitamin D is the most common vitamin deficiency in the United States. And present and future, this deficiency is a threat to your healthspan. In addition to keeping bones strong, vitamin D may play a role in preventing cancers of the breast, prostate, and colon. Low levels of D have been associated with risk for these diseases.

Why such a widespread shortfall? Indoor work deprives us of regular exposure to the sun, and vitamin D is virtually nonexistent in food. The only significant dietary source of vitamin D isn't even natural - it's milk fortified with synthetic D. It was a great idea when the dairy industry decided to team up vitamin D with the calcium in milk, but you'd still have to drink eight glasses of milk a day to make the AgeLess recommendation for vitamin D. Cod-liver oil (ick!) and lots of oily fish are your only other options.

Vitamin D deficiency is even more widespread among older adults, as the body's ability to synthesize sunlight declines. At age 21, just 3 to 5 minutes outside three times a week with your face, arms, and hands exposed can deliver your full D dose - and at that point in life you're probably catching plenty of rays. By age 65, however, depletion of the skin chemical that is converted to vitamin D means that you may need a total of 45 minutes outside on the week's sunniest days to synthesize adequate amounts of vitamin D. And no matter what your age, no one who lives as far north as New York, Chicago, or Seattle can get adequate D during winter.

The dietary reference intakes (DRI) for vitamin D start at 200 IU and range up to 600 IU in older ages. Prominent researchers on vitamin D, however, recommend a daily intake of 1,000 IU to prevent deficiency and provide vitamin D's important health benefits. Few people reach this goal through sun exposure and fortified foods and need to take D in supplemental form. Since toxicity doesn't set in until doses well over 2,400 IU, I've set the AgeLess recommendation for vitamin D at 1,000 IU for all ages unless you're getting adequate sun exposure. Most multivitamins provide 400 IU, which might work if you're young and on the sunny side of the street, but falls short for many folks, especially seniors. It's important not to oversupplement with vitamin D. Cap your dose at my recommendation of 1,000 milligrams per day.

Folate: Great Stuff

Recent evidence suggests that one of the clearest markers for heart disease is a high blood level of homocysteine, an amino acid used in the building of proteins. Believed to promote the formation of arterial plaque, homocysteine is such a bad guy that people whose blood homocysteine levels are in the top 10% have twice the risk of heart attack and stroke as the general population. In fact, people born with a double dose of a defective gene that overproduces homocysteine are generally dead of heart disease by middle age. At this point it's not clear whether elevated homocysteine is a cause or a consequence of heart disease. It is clear that controlling homocysteine levels is important to your health. Here's where folate is invaluable: You can lower your homocysteine levels by getting enough folate from your diet and folic acid supplements. Unfortunately, folate in its natural form is not well absorbed by the body, and most people have a hard time getting enough of it from food. The solution to take is folic acid supplementation.

The amount of folic acid found to lower homocysteine levels has ranged from 650 to 10,000 micrograms, well above the RDA of 400 micrograms. In 1998, after a USDA estimate of average daily intake of folic acid came in at 200 micrograms a day, the federal government required that folic acid be added to all enriched grain products. This initiative has had some welcome success. A follow-up study that showed the effects of fortification found an average increase in blood folate concentrations from 4.6 to 10.0 nanograms per milliliter, while homocysteine levels in the study group were slashed in half - from 18.7% to 9.8%.

Don't count on enriched grains, however, to take care of your full folate requirement. Few people eat enough fortified grain products to obtain the AgeLess recommendation for folate. To make the mark, focus on folate-rich foods (listed elsewhere in the book) and make up the difference with a folic acid supplement. My AgeLess recommendation is to get 800 micrograms of folate/folic acid per day from food and supplements.

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The next extract in this series is from Dean Edward L. Schneider's discussion in "Ageless" on the importance of fitness.