Is (The End of) Death Inevitable?

At a dinner party nearly two years ago, I made a passing comment about the inevitability of death. The host, an Israeli-Danish economics professor, took exception to my statement. He responded that one can only speak with certainty about what has happened, not what usually happens. At first blush, I thought he was either a wacko or was just being ornery. How could anyone assert that death was not a fact of life? How could anyone deny the inevitability of death?

After the dinner, I began to ponder his statement, and over the ensuing months gave it ever greater reflection. After reviewing the burgeoning body of research tackling anti-aging and longevity, I have reached my own conclusion. You may think I am also a bit looney, but please indulge me for a moment.

Car analogies are useful tools for explaining the function and longevity of the human body.  Everyone knows that the better you treat your car, the longer it will last.  However, despite utmost care, if the car is regularly used, at some point, the engine will need to be rebuilt, the tires replaced, the exterior retouched, etc. A car functions based on the quality of its fuel and replacing actual fuel with non-combustible liquids means the car can't function (except for electric cars, a scientific breakthrough in its own right).  Humans similarly need the right care and fuel to function.

However, car buffs will tell you that even though most cars are useable for at most a couple of decades, there are cars out there that are nearly a hundred years old and there are plenty of cars still functioning after many decades.  Yes, they need extra-special maintenance, but their useability is extendable indefinitely with continued care. Cars, like humans, also require the interoperability of multiple parts to be useful. Without a steering wheel, you can't meaningfully use the car even if you have a wonderful engine. Similarly, humans need their hearts, brains, livers, etc. to all function in unison and the failure of one is the failure of all.

Of course, cars analogies are of limited utility because the human body is far more complicated.
Unlike cars, replacing human parts is still a challenge. Yes, we can transplant some parts like hearts and livers, when they are even available, but parts like brains and thyroids still remain beyond our abilities. In fact, the human body is so complicated that many metabolic processes, parts of the microbiome (the bacteria, good and bad, that share our body space), and both human and microbiome genes and their related proteins have yet to be either fully understood or even identified. Even worse, when the body malfunctions like with auto-immune diseases and cancer, we are still mostly defenseless.

Nevertheless, what is unknown is ripe for the finding, analyzing and manipulating.  When smallpox was killing hundreds of millions of people, I am sure many wondered if a solution would ever be found. It was and the disease and the plague it caused are now mostly history. When the HIV virus was first discovered, the prognosis was sure death. Today, many live with the diagnosis due to effective interventions.

That is why I now believe that the difference between life and death is only a matter of undiscovered science. This means that the end of death as humans now understand it (another essay in its own right) will require scientific advances and breakthroughs that are only a matter of time. No one can tell you exactly when these life-altering discoveries will be made, but I suspect it will happen sooner than expected.  Why?  Because of the three "Ps": (Scientific) Progress, People and Purse.

Real progress is being made. Research into understanding what causes death is accelerating.  Universities across the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Israel are actively engaged in finding the root causes of death and related processes that accelerate and impede it.  Research into fruit-flies, worms, rodents and monkeys have already identified a number of gene variants whose presence and/or manipulation has been proven to extend life by as much as five times (in worms). Human gene studies have already identified multiple gene variants associated with super-centenarians, those aged above 110. Scientists recently created the first living semi-synthetic organism made from synthetic base pairs after long believing such a feat was impossible. As our ability to identify genes and proteins grows, so does the possibility for targeted gene therapies to control their actions. The accelerating progress to date offers the great promise of much more to come.

The solution to death will require great effort and that will require people capable of mustering such effort. Last year, Google announced the formation of a new company called CALICO, for California Life Company and hired Arthur Levinson, the former CEO and current Chairman of the pioneering Genentech, arguably one of the most successful and innovative biotechnology companies of all times. He is also Chairman of Apple, another technology bellwether. Levinson has begun assembling a team of leading scientists including recently adding Cynthia Kenyon, the UCSF molecular biologist and biogerontologist who has done the groundbreaking research into worm life extension. Not to be outdone, Craig Venter, the biologist and entrepreneur credited for winning the race to sequence the entire human genome, announced this year the formation of Human Longevity, a company dedicated to life extension. Human Longevity announced that it would first target cancer by collaborating with a UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center to sequence the genomes of between 40,000 to 100,000 cancer patients a year in order to find gene patterns amenable to novel gene therapies.

People like Aubrey de Grey, of the SENS Research Foundation, a non-profit funding work at universities across the world and at its own Research Center in Mountain View, CA,. have been getting much airtime about funding life extension by giving TED talks, writing extensively and circulating widely. Ray Kurzweil, the prolific writer, inventor, scientist, Google director of engineering, and futurist purports that the melding of humans and technology, what he calls the Singularity, will by itself propagate life indefinitely into a new era of Transhumanism, a perspective that argues that humans will enter a new stage of existence by using technology to greatly enhance intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.  Of course, life and death as we know them today would be redefined under this scenario. Think beyond bionics and The Six Million Dollar Man and implanted circuitry and the current TV show Intelligence. Think nano- or even the much smaller femto-technology. Think semi-synthetic humans.

Perhaps the most intriguing persona in the longevity field is entrepreneur Laura Deming.  Admitted into MIT at the age of 14, child prodigy Deming, now 19, dropped out to found Longevity VC, a venture capital firm focused on identifying and funding research into life extension. Deming began researching longevity at the age of 12 in Cynthia Kenyon's UCSF lab.  With an early start into the field, Deming offers real promise. However, even great people usually need resources.

Scientific research is often expensive. To have any real hope for sooner than later anti-aging breakthroughs, purses must open and they have.  On the government front, the National Institute of Aging has been spending wisely. Recently, it announced a ten million dollar grant to University of Rochester, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Harvard to fund such research. Craig Venter is purported to have raised fifty million for his venture, and Ms. Deming is funded to some extent by Peter Thiel, one of the co-founders of Paypal and a successful hedge fund manager.  Although Google has not publicly announced its investment in CALICO, it is estimated to be in the tens of millions.  By my estimates that easily places the current investment north of 100 million dollars. That may not be the billions needed, but its a good start.

So given the progress, people, and purse now engaged in the search for immortality, do you think that (the end of) death is inevitable? Maybe the economics professor was on to something...

When Is Vitamin D A Real Worry?

On March 14, 2014, I wrote a blog titled Vitamin D and Breast Cancer: Are they married or just acquaintances? The blog explained why study results that showed a relationship between low Vitamin D levels and a poor breast cancer prognosis were misleading by suggesting that raising vitamin D levels would change the course of the disease.

Last week, a new study reported that in men diagnosed with prostate cancer, the lower their vitamin D level, the worse their prognosis. As with the breast cancer study, this study implied that if men loaded up on Vitamin D, they would improve their survivability from their cancer.

This was not surprising. Hardly a week goes by without some new study showing a relationship between Vitamin D and some disease. So what's the answer? Should you raise your vitamin D levels to levels above 50 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) as many Vitamin D proponents claim is needed to protect yourself against cancer, osteoporosis, falls. etc.?

I say no. 

The body of evidence is becoming very clear that Vitamin D is more a disease marker than disease causer. That means that your vitamin D level indicates the severity of a disease like cancer as opposed to controlling the severity.

Although vitamin D is commonly called a vitamin, it is not actually a vitamin in the strict sense, as it can be synthesized by exposure to sunlight. It can also be consumed like other vitamins through foods like wild Salmon, certain portabello mushrooms, and almond milk (to which it is added).  Vitamin D is an essential nutrient, which means that your body cannot function without it.  However, there is a growing consensus that as long as your Vitamin D blood level is above 20 ng/ml, you have enough.

When a doctor tests your blood and finds that your level is low, it may mean one of two things. First, you may not be naturally producing and/or consuming enough Vitamin D. Anything below 20 ng/ml should be immediately addressed by either prudently increasing sun exposure, eating more foods with Vitamin D or taking a 1,000 mg supplement.  Above that level, the evidence suggests it's safe.

However, if your Vitamin D level is below 20 ng/ml, there may be a second more nefarious reason for the deficiency. You may have an illness that you are unaware of.  This merits further careful evaluation by your doctor. A low level may indicate an as yet undetected cancer that requires prompt attention.

When my older brother, z"l, battled against kidney and prostate cancer, his Vitamin D level went below 10 ng/ml.  I asked his doctors to try to increase it thinking that somehow that would make a difference. They did; it didn't.  That's because his Vitamin D level was simply telling us how sick he was and within a few weeks he passed.

So the next time you see a headline about the association between Vitamin D and some disease, please remember that although Vitamin D is essential to healthy human functioning, your Vitamin D blood level is one of many indicators on your health dashboard.  Therefore, low levels are typically neither a cause of disease (other than rickets/osteomalacia that happen at very low levels) nor make the disease more severe as so many studies would have you believe.

So have your doctor check your Vitamin D levels at least once every couple of years, but be satisfied if it stays above 20 ng/ml. Think of Vitamin D as your Dashboard Vitamin.

Don't Fall Prey to The Licensing Effect

Although I cannot find the original source of this term, the 'licensing effect' is commonly referred to as the subconscious phenomenon whereby increased confidence and security due to one action tends to lead that same individual to worry less about the consequences of a counter-productive action.  In other words, they think that one action gives them a license to perform a different action.

For example, suppose a person is prescribed a statin, a cholesterol lowering drug, because his physician is concerned that the patient's cholesterol is too high thereby increasing the risk of heart disease.  The reason for high cholesterol can range from hereditary factors to a diet high in fats, such as fried foods, that are capable of raising cholesterol levels.  So following the advice of his physician, the patient fills the prescription and begins to take the statin confident that his cholesterol will be lowered and his risk for heart disease decreased.

Over the ensuing days, weeks, and months as the patient uses the drug, he feels like his cholesterol is no longer a concern.  So when he comes across french fries, pizza, cake creams made with trans-fats, etc., he doesn't think twice of the potential harms of eating such foods.

You may say that's ridiculous. No one could be that foolish to not realize the consequences of eating these unhealthy foods known to cause long term heart issues for many. (I say many, because of the lucky few who seem to get away with eating anything and everything like my friend Steve.)

If you are one of those naysayers, you may have trouble with a new study that showed
that people who took statins in 2009-2010 consumed more fat and calories than those who took the drugs 10 years earlier.

That's right, they experienced a "licensing effect" to eat more.

And in case, you thought everyone ate more, that was not the case. There was no similar increase in fat and calorie intake among people who didn't take statins, according to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers.  Furthermore, their analysis of U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (not always perfect nor reliable, but pretty good) data showed that statin users in 2009-2010 consumed 9.6 percent more calories and 14.4 percent more fat than statin users in 1999-2000.

The clever ones among you may think that people who need statins probably always consumed more calories and fat and that's why they needed the statin in the first place. You would be wrong as statin users in 1999-2000 consumed fewer calories and fat than people who didn't take the cholesterol-lowering medications.

That has clearly changed per the study that was published online April 24 in JAMA Internal Medicine and simultaneously presented at the Society of General Internal Medicine annual meeting in Denver.

This licensing effect is far more ubiquitous than just the statin example.

Many people are under the illusion that taking prescription medications and supplements will somehow protect them from eating too much, especially of foods that are unhealthy for most humans.I saw this with patient after patient.  They thought everything was okay because their blood pressure  was within normal range on blood pressure medication, their blood sugar was within normal range because they took metformin, their cholesterol was within normal range because they took a statin, etc.  They thought that if the tests are normal then everything was okay. They didn't realizing that simply lowering cholesterol doesn't prevent heart attacks. In fact, statins typically prevent one heart attack among every 100 users. That's right, 1 out of 100. That shouldn't give anyone a real sense of protection. (However, don't stop your statin without consulting your physician.)

So please don't make the mistake of thinking you can eat whatever you want, and sit around all day and and do nothing simply because you take some pills and supplements..

Consider this a friendly warning. Your license has been revoked.

Diets Are For Dummies

Just in case you think I meant that I have a diet for you that even a dummy can follow, I don't. My headline really says it all--only a dummy would go on a diet.

Over the past few months, I have spent considerable time reviewing all sorts of diets including intermittent fasting, low carb, low fat, high protein, vegan, gluten-free, calorie counting, calorie restricted optimal nutrition (CRON), paleo, etc. and have come to an educated conclusion that the notion of going "on a diet" is just plain foolish.

What, you may say?  Don't some people need to lose weight? Aren't diets merely a means to an end? What's wrong with trying different schemes to lose weight until you find one that works? These are all valid questions, but unfortunately diets collectively seem to do more harm than good.

First, the science is pretty clear that the more diets one tries, the more likely that person is to never successfully lose weight and keep it off.

Second, as most diets are simply focused on weight loss, they ignore something far more important--your health. In most cases, restricting calorie absorption to less than calorie expenditure will result in weight loss. However, such approaches often are not nutritionally sound and can actually be quite inflammatory to the human body, which can lead to systemic illness.

Third, what often works for one person may not work for you or even be harmful. For example cutting out gluten when you have no gluten insensitivity or celiac disease also deprives you of glucasin, a peptide known to decrease inflammation by reducing interleukin-6. Eating lots of protein in the form of meat and eggs can increase cardiovascualr disease even as you lose weight.

So what did I learn from all the studies and books I read?

Diets don't work but principles do.  So here are my take-away principles of eating healthy.

1. Human beings do not need a lot of food to stay healthy and vibrant. Think like the Okinawans who practice hora hachi bu, which means to eat until you are 80 percent full.  Once your nutritional needs are met, excess nutrients are not only unnecessary, but may be harmful. There is growing evidence that eating less versus more is the healthiest route as it requires your body to exert less effort to break down, absorb and dispose of what it doesn't need.. So it doesn't matter when you eat what, but make sure that the foods you eat contain all the essential nutrients.

2. Although the science is inconclusive regarding organic versus conventional grown, natural versus processed, it appears prudent to avoid chemicals whenever possible.  Everybody reacts differently to different chemicals and the human body is fairly adept at eliminating toxins, but one can never say conclusively that any certain chemical will not have a negative effect on you.  I wouldn't get paranoid about it, but caution is indicated in severely restricting your exposure to chemicals in the foods you ingest. (It doesn't hurt to limit chemicals you are otherwise exposed to as well.)

3. Eat when you are hungry. The conventional wisdom to eat three times a day, or the oft recommended multiple small meals has no irrefutable science to support it.  It is clear that early man could not easily regulate access to food. It is also clear that we don't exactly know what effect this had, but I think it is reasonable to conclude based on the absence of (or conflicting) evidence to suggest otherwise that eating regularly may not have any proven benefit (other than perhaps scheduled toileting for some) as long as nutritional needs are met.

4. You need to get B12 naturally from fish, chicken or meat.  Wild fish is my favorite, but it should not be eaten in excess anymore than any other nutritionally sound foods. Three to four times a week will more than suffice.

5. Nuts are a great source of minerals and far less fattening than most people think because unless the nut is completely grounded, much of its fat is not absorbed due to being tied up with its fiber.

6. Natural food rich in both soluble and insoluble fibers are great, but like everything else should be eaten in moderation.

7. Avoid any overcooked or burnt food.

8. Eat fruits, but don't feast on them as too much fructose may be a problem.  You can eat them at any time of the day or night. Vegetables can also be eaten at any time, but again there is no value in excessive consumption.

9. If you are around foods you want to avoid, expect to eat them eventually. Therefore, limit your exposure to such foods by not purchasing them for others, having them at your home, or staying exposed to them for extended periods of time like a piece of chocolate cake in front of you at a wedding. Push it away or move away, but staring at it is fraught with danger.

10. Limit you exposure to restaurant or prepared food containing unknown ingredients.  What you don't know may be harmful to you in a myriad of ways.

11. If you are a compulsive eater or suffer from an eating disorder like a sugar addiction, consult a health certified psychologist to help identify the root cause of your eating problem and get cognitive behavioral therapy to address the issue. Some people need help and you need to figure out if you are one of them. Repeated dieting and failure to sustain weight loss is a good indicator that you are in need of trained help.

12. Avoid diet pills like appetite suppressants. They are never a good long term-solution and just will add to your total frustration.

The goal with these principles is that dieting, even under best case scenarios, only sometimes achieves short term weight loss results, but is often followed by long-term frustration.

Don't be a fool. Eat (enough) to live as opposed to diet for weight loss. It's the best advice that anyone can ever give you.

Monkeying Around With Longevity

The search to extend human longevity spans the ages. More recently, scientists have repeatedly shown that restricting the intake of calories while continuing to supply essential nutrients extends the lifespan of flies and yeast by as much as 40 percent. An additional research vector that captured much attention were animal studies with rodents that suggested similar benefits from caloric restriction. 

Although positive results were not seen with all strains of rodents, some rodents were shown to live significantly longer when their calories were limited.  As with all animal studies, scientists wanted to know if these benefits extended to more complex creatures that more closely resemble humans--such as primates--better known as monkeys.

When the National Institute of Aging (NIA) completed their studies with monkeys in 2012, the NIA's conclusion was that that caloric restriction made no difference. This hardly put the controversy to bed, but it did seem to dampen some enthusiasm for this approach to extending human longevity.

This past week, a new study from the University of Wisconsin stirs up new hope for reconsidering this strategy. Over 25 years, Wisconsin researchers studying rhesus monkeys, considered by some the best proxies for humans, found a significant reduction in mortality and in age-associated diseases among those monkeys fed calorie-restricted diets. The study, begun at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1989, is one of two ongoing, long-term U.S. efforts to examine the effects of a reduced-calorie diet on nonhuman primates.

The study of 76 rhesus monkeys, reported Monday in Nature Communications, was performed at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center in Madison. When the monkeys were 7 to 14 years of age, they began eating a diet reduced in calories by 30 percent. The comparison monkeys, or the control group, which ate as much as they wanted, had an increased risk of disease 2.9 times that of the calorie-restricted group, and a threefold increased risk of death.

So which study is correct?  According to the Wisconsin researchers the reason for the discrepant results is that the NIA monkeys that were in the control group versus the intervention group were actually already on calorie restricted diets and that's why no difference was found in longevity between the two groups. Also, the NIA monkeys were consistently slimmer (and presumably healthier) that the Wisconsin monkeys, who were allowed to eat what they wanted. (I guess even monkeys, particularly captive ones, overeat when enabled to do so.) The NIA was apparently more careful with all their monkeys to limit their food intake regardless of the study.

How did the Wisconsin researchers reach this conclusion? Through their own experience in monkey research, and by reference to an online database recording the weight of thousands of research monkeys, the Wisconsin researchers concluded that the NIA controls were actually on caloric restriction as well. “At all the time points that have been published by NIA, their control monkeys weigh less than ours, and in most cases, significantly so” stated Ricki Colman, a senior scientist at the Wisconsin Primate Center, who presently co-leads the project.

More importantly, the NIA control group monkeys were also found to live longer on average that most other monkeys, and the Wisconsin researchers theorized that this was due to even a small reduction of calories. The big conclusion was that it seems that the small caloric restriction in the NIA control animals had its own benefits, suggesting that a reduction of as little as 10 percent could meaningfully retard aging.

As these studies were very expensive to conduct and will therefore not be repeated any time soon, the question remains do primates benefit from calorie restriction as long as they get all essential nutrients? The Wisconsin study would suggest that for rhesus monkeys, the answer is yes.

So what does that mean for us humans?

According to the Wisconsin researchers, they were“not studying [caloric restriction]...so people can go out and do it, but [rather] to delve into the underlying causes of age-related disease susceptibility...It’s a research tool, not a lifestyle recommendation."

Although the helpful mechanism of why caloric restriction may be beneficial has not been fully identified, it is believed to have something to do with the "reprogramming of the metabolism. In all species where it has been shown to delay aging and the diseases of aging, [calories restriction]... affects the regulation of energy and the ability of cells and the organism to respond to changes in the environment as they age.”

One of the first break-downs in metabolism results in diabetes, which can be seen as “an inability to properly respond to nutrients.” Diabetes damages a whole range of human capabilities including the functioning of muscle, fat and blood vessels. "The Wisconsin scientists began to see diabetes among the control animals while they were still in the prime of life, within six months after beginning their study. The contrast with the restricted animals could not have been more dramatic" Colman said. “Until two years ago, we did not have evidence of diabetes in any caloric-restriction animal, but we had a significant number of diabetes, or pre-diabetes, metabolic syndrome, in the control animals.”

Although it is generally accepted that very few people can tolerate a 30 percent reduction in calories, the study does merit consideration.  Primarily because “the basic biology of caloric restriction in rodents, worms, flies and yeast seems to carry over to primates," it appears worthwhile to identify the underlying mechanism for this result in order to better understand the potential benefit to human primates who are genetically so closely related to rhesus monkeys.

The bottom line here is that as long as they all get their essential nutrients it would appear across multiple species, from simple worms to far more complex primates, that eating less is better than eating more. It's not a large stretch to extend that logic to homo sapiens. Accordingly, even cutting back on 10% of your calories may have a huge effect on your longevity--adding years of healthy living to your life.  And that's not something to monkey around with.

If Money Grew On Trees...

Many parents like me have often expressed to their children that "money doesn't grow on trees." The point of this admonishment is obvious: money is not something one comes by naturally; rather, making money requires time and effort.

I've been thinking a lot about this old adage lately. What if money did grow on trees? Would that make money any less valuable or difficult to come by? Is there any relationship between money growing on trees and your health?

In the back of my house, I have two fruits trees: a grapefruit tree and a lemon tree. Both were planted by our gardener about seven years ago. The first tree has never so much as produced a single grapefruit. The other tree sprang a few lemons its first year and since then has meagerly grown an annual--wait for it--solo lemon. The problem is obvious. Neither the gardener nor I have properly nourished (trees like humans can't function properly without adequate nutrition) the soil around the trees to enable the trees to effectively grow fruits. True, the trees get a fair amount of rain and more than adequate sunshine.  But if even one component of what is needed to grow fruits is missing--you get no fruits.

Now let's imagine that money was like a fruit that grew on trees.  In order to harvest such money, effort would have to be expended to ensure that the tree was properly taken care of. First, the tree would need to be in the proper climate to grow.  It would need sufficient water and nutrients in its soil. Also, during a certain season (did you think it grew year round?--fruits don't), when the money was sufficiently ripe, it would need to be harvested. This would require physical work. If you let the money just fall to the ground, animals would grab it. If you didn't want to do the work or didn't know what to do, you would have to hire a gardener. That costs money as well.

On the other side of my house there is a loquat tree. (For the curious, the loquat is a species of flowering plant in the family Rosaceae, native to south-central China. It is a large evergreen shrub or small tree that grows yellow fruit.) The loquat is one of my wife's favorite fruits and for good reason. It is truly succulent.  Each year we try to take down as many loquats as possible. However, many are beyond our reach and many of those within reach are grabbed by unknown others (they just disappear). By the end of the season, animals have also joined in the feast by consuming those that fall to the ground. We could hire someone to pick the higher branches of the tree for us, but we calculated that it would be less expensive to simply go to a store and buy the loquats.

Also, if we had a money tree, it would need to be protected against infection. For example, a palm tree near my house recently died. It apparently died because of benign neglect. We recognized something was wrong two years ago when we called in the experts. One told us it was a fungal infection. Two others said it was malnourished. I believed the second two--it was less expensive to go that route than pay thousands for a fungal treatment. So I begged my gardener to feed it. He claimed he did and yet the other day, I noticed it was dead.  My gardener's response: an infection killed the tree and he is not responsible for infections. Ouch. Then without permission, he cut it down.  (Time for a new gardener?)

Now let's imagine if my recently departed palm tree was a money tree.  That's easy to imagine because it was.  This was a beautiful palm tree that I had paid a lot of money to have planted (and would have to pay even more to a new gardener now to replace). It also had great value to me aesthetically as it sat prominently in front of my house.  Despite its value, it still bit the dust. I had tried to do right by it, but let it down. My tree was gone; my money (tree) was lost.

One last fruit tree story.  A neighbor has an avocado (actually a fruit) and mango tree. Each year when the fruits are ripe for picking, she barters the fruits for things she needs. In other words, they have real financial value, similar to a farmer harvesting his own fruit trees for sale.

By the way, it would obviously make a big difference what denomination of money my tree would grow. If it was a mere $1, then a harvest of one hundred would yield an annual $100. That would definitely not justify the cost of growing the money. At $5, it would be $500.  Even at $100, it would only yield $10,000 if they were all harvestable.  But at that value, you would definitely need to employ very effective and costly security measures to keep others away so your expenses would further increase.  Obviously, the higher the denomination the better, but under $100 would still require a lot of trees with plenty of land (which can be expensive) to support them to make a good living.

So when I summed up the costs of successfully maintaining a fruit tree, let alone assuring that it gave a bountiful harvest each annual season, one thing was perfectly clear to me. Fruit trees are money trees and so money does grow on trees.

So the next time you hear or read that money doesn't grow on trees, perhaps you will remember the stories of my fruit and palm trees and realize that it really does. Parents would be wise to teach their children that even if money did grow on trees (which arguably it does), in order to fully realize its value would take much time, effort, and not the least of, money.  The lesson here is regardless if money does or does not grow on trees, in order to make money you have to invest (no pun intended) your time, effort, and even money in doing so.

The same can be said for your health and wellbeing. Like a healthy tree full of fruits, your body requires nurturing and conscious effort to stay healthy.  My palm tree met a premature death. My fruit trees don't live up to their potential. Try not to let the same happen to you by recognizing the value of planting the seeds of a healthy life and harvesting the fruits of your labors...(puns obviously intended.)

Otherwise, you may never live to realize the full bloom of your life.