"Whether it's a wrinkle on your skin or a wrinkle on your heart, it's the same process, it's your arteries getting old, and blood pressure is the leading cause of your arteries getting old," says Roizen, who is also a Division Chair at the Cleveland Clinic. In this video, Roizen talks about some of the nutrients that are key to keeping blood pressure under control: potassium, magnesium and vitamin C, found abundantly in fruit and vegetables. 

High blood pressure takes a toll on your heart, your kidneys, your brain -- even your skin and your love life. Anything above 140/90 mmHg is considered high blood pressure; the normal range is below 120/80 mmHg. Check out our Nutrition News section to learn how vegetable protein can help you manage blood pressure.

Bonus: Dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa content) may help lower blood pressure and improve arterial flexibility. 

While previous studies on smoking and wrinkling have focused on facial complexion, a recent paper published in the Archives of Dermatology looked at the skin near the underarm, which is normally protected from photodamage. After examining 82 test subjects, including smokers and non-smokers, ranging in age from 22 to 91 years, researchers found significantly more fine wrinkling and skin laxity among those with a history of smoking. In fact, the major predictor of skin aging -- after controlling for age and other factors such as ethnicity -- was the number of packs per day and years of smoking.

Smoking suppresses the production and accellerates the breakdown of collagen, the connective tissue that provides skin its elasticity. In addition to constricting capillaries, and thus reducing blood flow to the skin, smoking also ravages DNA, undermining the fundamental processes of cellular repair. Years of research have demonstrated the dangers smoking poses to the lungs, heart, throat, bones, cervix, and many other parts of the body. Thus, it's no surprise that the largest organ -- the skin -- is just as vulnerable to cigarette damage.
 
Picking up fruit may help you put down the cigarettes -- while lowering your cancer risk and also protecting you against weight gain, which in the case of obesity, also presses the gas pedal on the aging process. Superfoods for your Skin provide targeted nutrients, such as vitamin A (from beta-carotene) and vitamin C, to help nourish your epithelial cells, but the importance of choosing whole fruit and vegetable sources over supplements applies especially to smokers. 

While dietary beta-carotene (e.g., from cantaloupe, carrots and spinach) can enhance sun protection, beta-carotene pills more than double the risk of developing tobacco-related cancers among those with a history of smoking. 

The study assigned 110 male and female seniors to either waltzing classes, exercise training (cycling, treadmill) or a control (no exercise) group. Eight weeks into the regimen, researchers found that the dancers had a slight edge on the exercisers in terms of cardiopulmonary fitness, including aerobic capacity and arterial flexibility. Where the waltzers really came out ahead of the exercisers (not to mention the non-exercisers) was in enhancing quality of life -- especially emotional aspects, like reduced anxiety, depression, etc.

What most impressed lead researcher Romualdo Belardinelli, M.D., was not so much the medical statistics, but the possibility that patients would stick with waltzing because they regarded it as a fun activity, not an arduous chore. "Exercise compliance among patients with chronic heart failure is very low," Dr. Belardinelli bemoaned. "We have to find something that captures their interest." Turns out that tripping the light fantastic just might do the trick.  

So, stop dragging your feet, twinkle toes. Whether you're nursing a broken heart or hoping to avoid one, sign up for salsa lessons, check out local dance clubs, or crank up your favorite tunes to turn your den into a disco. 

Bonus: Dancing may also help ward off dementia, according to researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Dietary intake data was matched against blood pressure measurements for 4,680 middle-aged and older subjects over a six-week period. What emerged from this analysis was a strong inverse relationship between higher intakes of plant-based protein and lower rates of blood pressure. These results may help explain why a previous Mayo Clinic analysis found a 30% lower risk of death from heart disease among post-menopausal women who consumed high amounts of vegetarian protein sources.

How much protein do you need -- and what are the healthiest plant sources? The general rule of thumb is 8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, which works out to about 44 grams for a 120 pound woman, or 55 grams for a 150 pound man. When you think of "veg protein," soy products probably spring to mind -- and indeed, a cup of cooked soybeans provides a hefty 28 grams of protein. But you might be surprised to learn that a cup of wild rice provides 7 grams, a cup of white beans provides 19 grams, a cup of cooked spinach provides 5 grams, an ounce of peanuts provide 8 grams, while a cup of cooked broccoli (or Brussels sprouts) provide 4 grams. Try our featured Superfood Recipe, "Fettuccine with Figs and Chiles," which provides a whopping 12 grams of vegetable protein.

While your chances of developing hypertension increase with age, blood pressure is also on the rise among America's youth. African-Americans are at higher risk of developing blood pressure than other ethnic groups. Diet, lifestyle and activity levels greatly influence hypertension risk. Lose excess weight, increase exercise, reduce salt intake, and reach for potassium sources such as dates, raisins, potatoes and bananas.

Bonus:  Japanese researchers found that walking just an hour and fifteen minutes per week -- the equivalent of three 25-minute walks -- was enough to lower both systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

What’s the best defense against another outbreak of food-borne pathogens? While politicians, scientists and farmers strive to come up with new technological solutions -- ranging from electromagnetic processing to radio frequency identification tags -- a simpler, far healthier solution is close at hand.

The simple defense is stocked in the produce aisle of your local supermarket: Good old dietary fiber, found in a myriad of healthy fruit and vegetables.

Hold on, you ask, isn’t produce part of the problem? Not necessarily in the way you think. It’s the lack of vegetables in our diets that starves the healthy bacteria in our guts. In other words we’re not feeding our intestinal defense team the fiber they need to fight the bad bacteria. 

So, what makes up our intestinal defense team? As you read this, there are trillions of tiny microbes (including billions of harmless strains of E. coli) living throughout your continuous gastrointestinal tract. These tiny evolutionary hitchhikers have been with you every minute of every day from the moment you entered this world and will be so until you die. And then they will eat you. But that’s the good news.

The bad news is our so-called modern diet of highly-processed fiber-poor grains, in addition to added sugars and fats, is literally starving our “friendly” bacteria and putting us at increased risk. The friendly bacteria in our bodies are the first line of defense against invading pathogens, such as E. coli 0157:H7. Like any good soldiers, they require nutrients to fight the good fight and dietary fiber is an important part of that nutrient base.

Simply stated: Fiber is not food for us, it’s food for bacteria that live in our gut.

Our not-so-distant ancestors regularly consumed between (and often more than) 50 and 100 grams of dietary fiber from diverse sources every day. This is the nutritional reality upon which our modern genome was selected and the symbiotic relationship which the trillions of bacteria in our gut evolved to depend upon.

However, the average American today consumes about 12 to 15 grams a day –- roughly half of what the government recommends and only a fraction of what our gut bugs need in order to resist infection and disease caused by a steady stream of pathogenic bacteria and viruses that enter our gut every day.

No amount of government oversight will ever completely remove the threat of pathogens in our food supply. There are too many variables from plow to plate -– not to mention that the bad bugs have us out numbered.

The important symbiotic relationship we share with our friendly microbes and their role in our natural resistance to infection should be taking center stage in the debate about how to best protect “the people” from the inevitable food-borne pathogens associated with produce, and specifically, how to deal with this monster E. coli 0157:H7.

The irony is that the rash of media coverage of recent outbreaks of food-borne viruses may have made the problem worse by paving the way for an additional decrease of fiber in the American diet, resulting in poorer gut health and reduced ability to resist infectious agents.

However, the crisis also provides an opportunity for industry and the government to highlight the importance of increasing fiber intake via fruits and vegetables.

To resist E. coli 0157:H7 specifically, our diet needs to support the growth of a group of healthy bacteria in the human gut known as bifidobacterium. We can fortify our natural resistance by increasing our intake of dietary fibers known as oligosaccharides -– found in plants such as bananas, onions, leeks, garlic, chicory, and artichokes.

Bifidobacteria exert powerful effects against pathogens through competition for colonization sites and nutrients in the gut, acid excretion, production of antimicrobial peptides and overall reduction in colonic pH. If properly fed and stimulated, these good bacteria will do their evolutionary job and make life a living hell for invading pathogens.

Interestingly, bifidobacterium dominate the gut of breast-fed babies, but are known to decrease significantly as people get older. This may explain why even though a number of age groups were sickened during the 2006 outbreaks, two out of three of the deaths were elderly women. The third was a 2-year-old boy. A similar pattern was seen in a deadly outbreak in Scotland in 1986 that affected hundreds and killed 20. All deaths were among the elderly.

At a time when researchers are finally acknowledging that nearly 20% of all cancers are caused by infection -– up from zero just a few decades ago -– and with hints that infection may play a causal role in such big-time killers as breast cancer and atherosclerosis, it may be time to start asking who or what opened the pathogens' door.

Ignorance of evolutionary biology and the nutritional landscape upon which humans and our microbes evolved should not preclude lawmakers and industry from exploring the role of dietary fiber in reducing our casualties in this evolutionary arms race. Continuing to ignore this simple and easy-to-implement strategy will only result in further human suffering.

I, for one, will be having a salad tonight.

Jeff Leach is a science writer, anthropologist, and health advocate. He is the co-founder of the newly formed and developing International Fiber Council. Jeff was recently tapped by the World Health Organization to further develop his theory for reducing human exposure to food-borne pathogens in the global population by reintroducing certain dietary fiber sources in human diet.

Folic acid: One study from the 1970's showed decreased levels of folic acid (or folate) among aspirin-taking arthritis sufferers. While folic acid is key to preventing birth defects, it may also play a role in maintaining emotional balance and mental acuity, preserving heart health, and protecting against fractures. Top sources of folate are lentils, many varieties of beans (cowpeas, pintos, black, navy), spinach, orange juice and corn.

Vitamin B₁₂: A recent Dutch study found that lower levels of vitamin B₁₂ were twice as prevalent among hospitalized cardiovascular patients with a history of regular aspirin usage when compared to those with infrequent intake of the drug. The mechanism may be found in aspirin's gastrointestinal effects, reducing the amount of stomach acid available to metabolize dietary sources of B₁₂ so that nutrient can be absorbed by the body. As vitamin B₁₂ is only available from animal sources, strict vegetarians often rely on fortified cereals to meet their nutrient needs, however healthy sources include clams, oysters, crab, salmon and halibut.  

Vitamin C: One study showed that taking two aspirin tablets every six hours for a week can reduce the vitamin C found in white blood cells by 50% -- with increased urinary excretion being the likely factor. Vitamin C is a potent antioxidant that promotes skin health by encouraging skin cell turnover and spurring collagen formation. Vitamin C also supports the immune system by enhancing white blood cell function.  Natural top sources of vitamin C include: red bell peppers, kiwi fruit, Brussels sprouts and strawberries. 

Zinc: Scandinavian researchers found that intakes of 3 grams of aspirin per day decrease blood levels of zinc, again via increased urinary excretion. Zinc plays a vital role in maintenance of healthy skin, eyes, reproductive and prostate health. Unfortunately, one-third of Americans over 70 years old are zinc deficient. Natural top sources of zinc are: oysters, white beans, oat bran, lentils and clams.

Researchers tested 8,000 ten-year-olds for mental ability back in 1970, then followed up with the subjects 20 years later to ask about their diet. It turned out that the adults who had become vegetarians were more intelligent as kids -- about 6% smarter, at least as measured by IQ points.

Study authors speculate that smarter folks may think through the consequences of what they eat. The fact that the study found no childhood IQ differences between strict vegetarians and those who consumed chicken and fish would tend to support the hypothesis that health awareness (as opposed to ideological considerations) motivated the choice to go meatless. On the other hand, vegans had a childhood IQ score that was nearly 10 points lower than other vegetarians.

If you want to reap the rewards of a plant-based diet, but aren't ready to go, well, whole hog, try going meatless on Mondays -- a simple step that could help you reduce saturated fat intake to within dietary guideline limits. For more motivation, consider that vegetarian women weigh less. Children who eat more fruit and vegetables also tend to have lower body mass indices (BMIs).