The immunologist talks about it to Corriere della Sera presenting her latest book, The Way of Balance. Science of aging and longevity (Feltrinelli)
“I’m 53 and I’m getting old. Not only the calendar tells me, but also and above all my changing body. Inside and outside. I’ve had a new pair of glasses for a few days and I realize I can’t do without them anymore to work on the computer. We can’t fight against time. It’s a lost war from the start. But we can learn to inhabit our body better… the point is not to do everything to lengthen the years of life, but to age in a healthy way”. Antonella Viola it starts from the story of the longest-lived person ever, the French Jeanne Calment, who died at 122 years and 164 days, and from her personal experience to analyze the mechanism of aging and the factors that affect it. She does it in her latest book of hers, The way of balance. Science of aging and longevity (Feltrinelli), in which he underlines how “when it comes to understanding why we age and how we can protect our health, the only reliable voice we have available is that of science”. And with the opportunity to present it, in an interview with Corriere della Sera, the immunologist, biologist and professor of General Pathology in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Padua, also talks about her private life, revealing some simple precautions that she puts into practice to protect her health and prevent cellular ageing.
“For a couple of years I started incorporating fasting hours into my food routine – he reveals in the book – at first 16 – and this has become a habit that I follow at least 4 days a week – and then occasionally extend to 20 or 24. After the removal of the thyroid gland and the subsequent menopause, I have seen, as it happens to many women, my body change. My waist circumference began to grow like never before… I had tried diets, I bought a treadmill but I couldn’t feel like I used to before… my metabolism had changed. And a new approach was needed. I was familiar with intermittent fasting… And so I started fasting 16 hours a day, every day, but I also stopped drinking any alcoholic beverages and changed my diet. Within 4 months I had lost 11 kg and was back to my usual size. Since then, I only drink one glass on special occasions and try to fit in 16 hours of fasting at least 4 times a week. And I feel so fit that I’ve started training again.”
And so he returns to talk about the toxicity of alcohol, which in recent months had sparked controversy: “To say that a couple of glasses of wine a day isn’t bad is false and dangerous – Viola reiterates -. Ethanol, the alcohol that is used in all types of alcoholic beverages, is carcinogenic. An English study has calculated that out of 1,000 women and 1,000 men who consume an average of one bottle of wine a week, 14 women and 10 men will develop cancer due to alcohol… Not surprisingly, already in 1988 the International Agency for cancer research and the World Health Organization have included ethanol in the list of tier one carcinogens”.