The Real Secret to Living Longer

19 Jun 2025 · 3 min

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2:49

TJ Walker recounts the story of Maria Spragna Smoria, who reportedly lived to 117 with a gut microbiome described as "as healthy as a newborn's," and highlights her simple lifestyle habits—yogurt, vegetables, daily walks, no smoking or drinking, and staying active. Walker critiques how wellness influencers often promote supplements (pills, powders) for profit despite limited evidence and potential harms, and urges listeners to prioritize basic healthy behaviors rather than commercialized solutions.

Questions this video answers

117 years.

June 19, 2025.

Chapters

Here's a story we'll all read not at and then totally ignore. Maria Spragna Smoria lived to 117 years. Scientists studied her and found her gut was as healthy as a newborn's. Her secrets, yogurt, veggies, daily walks, no smoking, no drinking, no toxic, wasn't eating garbage all day long, sitting around watching TV all day long. She took walks. She was active. Now I can't guarantee you you're going to live to 117. I might not wake up tomorrow, who knows. But as sentient beings, we all have to get better at listening to information and figuring out what's truly important. Where are we getting lost with the obfuscation, the over complexity from people trying to sell us? Because the problem with most people is even people who give a lot of good advice, the wellness experts out there, once they get to a certain level of audience, they get pitched by all these supplement companies and there's just no easier way of making money if you have a show on healthcare, on wellness and living active full lives than to get deals with these AG1s and these other supplement companies which you never see. Anyone who lived to be 100 give that as the reason they lived longer. So that's a fundamental problem. It's a problem with capitalism. And I say this, I'm a capitalist, I believe in capitalism. I don't want to live in a country that's purely socialistic based where there's someone decided no products, no ads can ever talk about supplements. I'm not saying that I don't know what the answer is, but I can tell you it is a real problem when once someone gets enough of a following talking about healthcare issues, the easiest way for them to make money is to sell you potions, pills, supplements and vitamins where there is just no evidence it's actually helping improve your life, improve your longevity, improve your health, and in many cases can cause liver damage and kidney damage. So I'm reminding myself when I see these stories about the person living to be 100, 110, 115, 117 in this case, let's again look at what they're saying is the reason. They may be wrong and it may be pure luck. But if every single person you ever see who lives to be over 100 is telling you walk a lot, laugh a lot, eat sensible portions, eat real food, and they never ever ever talk about pills and powders and potions and supplements, maybe we should take that under advisement.