Ageless woman?

Ageless woman?

Posted: 02/22/2012

• By: Tania Rogers

Annette Larkins shows off her garden in her Miami-Dade County backyard. It's full of fruits and vegetables. Every corner of her garden has something that is edible. She also collects rainwater to drink and water her plants.

Annette says the food in her garden is her 'Fountain of Youth.'

"I am very vibrant, I have lots of energy, as I told you before, I am up no later than 5:30 in the morning as a rule, and I am ready to go," she said.

Annette's husband owned a meat store in the 1960s. That's when she became a vegetarian. But as the years went by, she became a raw vegan. A

Annette says she does not eat animal products-- her food is unprocessed and uncooked. "My diet consists of fruits, nuts, vegetables and seeds. I do a lot of sprouting of seeds and as you can see from my garden and of course these are the raw foods that I eat."

Annette also juices fruits and veggies. You name it, she can juice it. Grapefruits, pineapples, even spinach. But not everyone in the Larkins family eats and drinks this way.

Annette's husband Amos of almost 54 years chose to continue to eat the way he did when they were first married. "I really wish I would have done what she did," he said.

Amos says people even wonder if Annette is his wife. "They will ask me 'what am I doing with a young girl? or they will say 'you've got your granddaughter with you,' things like that."

Amos takes prescription medicines daily for high blood pressure and diabetes. Annette says she does not even take an aspirin.

Annette says because friends and strangers kept asking her questions about her health and youthful appearance, she decided to publish two Journey To Health booklets, and she produced a DVD 12 years ago.

"The Discovery Channel, they took sections of the booklet and translated them into Spanish which is, by the way, my second language."

So how old is this size 4 beauty? Annette just turned 70-years-old.
 
Annette says friends her age see the difference in her quality of life. "This one lady who is my age, she was telling her friend, that I used to tell them about eating and they would not listen and her response to that was look at her now, and look at us."

Her husband says she is vibrant person. "She is an amazing person, she does everything. I mean she builds computers, makes all of her own clothes, grows her own food, speak three languages, it's amazing."
Annette Larkins: www.annettelarkins.com

Read more: http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/ageless-woman#ixzz1p1UXjtHB

Increase Carotenoid Containing Fruits and Veggies To Improve Your Skin In 6 Weeks

Increase Carotenoid Containing Fruits and Veggies To Improve Your Skin In 6 Weeks
 Thinking about improving your skin with plastic surgery. Skip it. Increased consumption of carotenoid containing fruit and vegetables is associated with measurable and perceptibly beneficial effects on skin appearance within six weeks, say researchers.



The study -- published in PLoS ONE -- investigated whether the amount of fruit and vegetables eaten affects skin colour. Led by Professor David Perrett of the University of St. Andrews, UK, the research team monitored the fruit and vegetable intake for 35 individuals over six weeks, finding that skin redness and yellowness increased with increasing fruit and vegetable consumption.
Changes in skin colour associated with increased fruit and vegetable consumption were also found to be correlated with higher levels of attractiveness, said the researchers who suggested that the skin tone changes could be perceived as reflecting improved health.
"In addition to a positive correlation between fruit and vegetable intake changes and skin yellowness changes, we find that when all measured skin areas are combined, an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption correlates with an increase in skin redness," said the researchers.
"Such coloration is held to contribute beneficially to the appearance of health in human faces as is the case with skin yellowness," they added.
The research was supported by the UK Economic and Social Research Council and Unilever Research and Development USA. The authors noted that neither funder had a role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Carotenoid colour
Carotenoids are yellow-red phytochemicals that are abundant in, and impart colour to, many fruit and vegetables. The pigments have also been suggested to be beneficial for health by offering protection against oxidative stress that could contribute to a variety of age-related degenerative processes, cardiovascular disease, and possibly some cancers.

"As antioxidants, carotenoids are important for skin health, serving a protective role by virtue of their relatively high concentration in all layers of this organ," said Perrett and his team, who noted the presence of carotenoids in the skin also reduces ultraviolet light (UV) sensitivity.
Study details
Perrett and his colleagues conducted two studies to investigate the effects of fruit and vegetable consumption on skin-colour.
In the first experiment, the authors followed the fruit and vegetable intake of 35 participants over a six week study. The team found that fruit and vegetable consumption changes over a six-week period were "sufficient to confer measurable skin-colour changes over this interval."
The second experiment investigated the level of skin-colour change required to improve the apparent healthiness and attractiveness of a person.
"Results from this study showed that the changes in skin tone associated with fruit and vegetable consumption are seen as 'healthy and attractive', and are detectable even at a relatively modest levels of dietary change," said Perrett and his team
Source:
PLoS ONE