EAT your citrus fruits, vegetables, tofu, green tea and soups?simple as that.

Two days before we bade 2008 goodbye, CNN?s ?Vital Signs? host Dr. Sanjay Gupta featured the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa, determined by the scientific community as having the highest percentage of centenarians anywhere in the world. He cited the Okinawans? staple menu and their lifestyle and culture as the root of their remarkable longevity. Gupta described villagers well into their 80s and 90s dancing, working and generally remaining active.

Okinawans? diet, and how much they ate them, was discussed at length in the program. ?Volumetric? eating is how Gupta called it. Nutritionist Barbara Rolls, PhD, told ?Vital Signs,? ?you?ll eat better and lose weight if you focus on the energy density of foods.? Her volumetric eating plan explains how low-density foods like fruits and vegetables, as well as soups and stews, ?fill you up without overloading you with calories.?

All this isn?t breaking news, however. Dr. Dean Ornish wrote in his book ?Program for Reversing Heart Disease? that studies by Dr. Roy Walford at University of California-Los Angeles, Dr. Edward Masoro at the University of Texas and others are finding that animals that consume fewer calories can extend their life span by 50 percent or more. Ornish further wrote that a diet lower in calories greatly retards most forms of cancer and forestalls many signs of aging in animals.

Tips to healthy aging

In the Philippine Daily Inquirer?s previous interviews with Okinawan-based health experts, further tips to healthy aging include: getting enough sleep; taking a stroll in the park; walking the equivalent of 10,000 steps a day; and going meatless. Okinawans have been known to live on a plant- and fruit-based diet (with the occasional fish and seafood).

Avoid foods with trans fats (normally found in cookies, crackers, icing, potato chips, stick margarine and microwave popcorn). About 80 percent of trans fat in American diet comes from factory-produced partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Drink eight glasses of water at proper intervals. Embrace spirituality. Stop smoking.

The book ?Medicinal Fruits and Vegetables? by former Health Secretary Jaime Galvez Tan and wife Ma. Rebecca couldn?t have put it more clearly: ?Evidence-based medicine has proven that daily intake of fruits and vegetables prevents many chronic diseases such as heart disease, hypertension and cancer. Their generous consumption contributes to the slowing down of the aging process.?

The Okinawan?s social cohesion combined with physical activities like singing and dancing have kept Okinawa?s elderly not only healthy but happy as well.

In a previous interview with the Inquirer, Ramesh Sharma, professor of the Department of Biochemistry, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong, India, says: ?Dietary restrictions, the way Okinawans do it, could be enforced even if one lived in the city. A person should eat only 80 percent of what he or she is used to eating.?