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I haven't watched this documentary. I did, however, start reading The Longevity Diet by UCLA Biochemist Valter Longo who has made a name for himself by making significant discoveries about how we age and how one's diet can be pro-aging (makes us old before our time) or anti-aging (keeps us looking young and beautiful). I think I may have posted a few videos of his lectures and/or interviews here, but if not, he is easy enough to find on youtube or around the internet.
He recommends a pescatarian diet, which is essentially largely vegetarian but with fish, eggs, some hard aged cheeses, and dairy products made from goat's milk allowed. His is a low protein, low sugar, low saturated fat diet. The emphasis is definitely on low protein and low sugar. He unfortunately does not mention the keto diet, and he lumps all low carb diets (e.g. Atkins, Dukan) as "high protein, high fat, low carb." This is unfortunate, because a keto diet is not high protein/high fat, it is low to moderate protein high fat.
His studies of mice have shown that a plant based low protein low sugar pescatarian type diet leads to the longest life span and preserves health, whereas the high protein high fat yields a less healthy mouse and decreases life span, though he notes that such a diet does control weight and prevent obesity.
So, one question I have is how would a low protein high fat diet compare with the low protein plant based diet? Other researchers, e.g. Dr Ron Rosedale have advocated lowering our protein intake as a means to lengthening our healthy life span, i.e. delay or eliminate diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer.
There are many questions as to what ultimately would be the healthiest diet for humans in general. I know from my own experience that the fatty meat, low to zero carb diet will bring my blood sugars under control, and will promote weight loss in the form of fat loss. Perhaps something to think about is once one reaches one's ideal body weight, look into using a plant based, pescatarian type diet to promote health and longevity.
I don't know the answer. But I do believe we can safely say that any whole foods based diet is better than the standard American diet of soda pop and cookies, cakes, candies, cereals, breads, and french fried potatoes. The one thing almost all of the current generation of researchers - whether vegan, vegetarian, keto, or carnivore - agree to is that sugar is the main cause of disease and pre-mature aging in modern human society.
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