Our hunter-gatherer ancestors certainly weren’t guaranteed to live to a ripe old age. Their time was regularly cut short by various viruses, bacteria, and unfriendly critters that we barely think about today. But when it comes to some of the biggest enemies of healthy aging in modern life, the shoe was on the other foot.

Hunter-gatherers living a traditional lifestyle are much less likely to suffer from chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes. They are also much less likely to suffer from dementia in their later years. Why is that?

You might think the answer is easy. They didn’t sit around all day eating microwavable pizza, Cheetos, and other tasty but wildly unhealthy ultra processed food like so many modern Americans. There is certainly truth to the fact that a sedentary lifestyle and terrible diet will greatly diminish your chances of living a long and healthy life.

But according to one anthropologist who has spent years living among indigenous hunter-gatherers for his research, the biggest lesson in healthy aging we can take from these groups has nothing to do with any trendy “paleo diet” or lifestyle plan. Modern medical research backs him up.

The secret isn’t ‘paleo’ diets

Michael Gurven, a professor and anthropologist at the University of California Santa Barbara, has spent decades living with remote South American hunter-gatherer tribes that continue to live in much the same way as their distant ancestors. His new book Seven Decades lays out the lessons in healthy aging he learned from this research.

Like other scientists, Gurven observed that members of the groups he spent time with had vastly lower rates of dementia and chronic disease than folks of similar ages back in the U.S. Certainly, their built-in exercise and whole food diet helps explain this fact. Though Gurven pushes back against those who would use this fact to sell some version of a meat-focused “paleo diet” or extreme exercise routine.

Not only do the groups Gurven spent time with eat a lot of starchy foods like corn and sweet potatoes, but anthropologists have documented hunter-gatherers around the world eating vastly different diets.

“I think it’s just absurd to think that there’s any single optimal diet,” Gurven tells Business Insider. While the groups he studies certainly get plenty of steps a day, they’re not routinely sprinting away from lions, deadlifting felled trees, or engaging in other extremely strenuous activities.

So if their secret to healthy aging isn’t primitive CrossFit or meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, what is it? The answer is much more about what we feed our minds rather than our bodies. The actual lesson in healthy aging from hunter- gatherers

“On a recent trip to Bolivia, Gurven said he was struck by how tribe members were socializing almost constantly, and everyone was expected to join in across multiple age groups,” Business Insider reports.

This intense focus on socializing among hunter-gatherers was so pronounced that Gurven shifted his own lifestyle to prioritize spending time with others.

“Even as much as I work, it’s rare that I turn down social invitations because in the end nurturing that kind of community and friendships is really what’s important,” he said.

Not only do hunter-gatherers keep their minds active through constant socializing, they are also lifelong learners (and teachers), Gurven adds. The people he studies continue mastering traditional skills and crafts throughout their lives. Eventually, they help to teach these skills to younger generations in their later years. Modern science agrees with anthropology

Gurven’s emphasis on the social and cognitive factors for healthy aging might surprise those of us bombarded by dubious diet and exercise-focused health advice. But it likely wouldn’t come as a surprise to scientists who study healthy aging in the developed world.

The Harvard Study of Adult Development has been tracking the lives of more than 700 participants and some of their descendants since 1938 to learn the secrets of healthy aging. Eight decades of data shows that what matters most isn’t how much kale or protein you eat. It’s how strong your relationships are.

Social fitness, one of the study’s directors, Robert Waldinger, told The Harvard Gazette, is just like physical fitness. You need to work to maintain it. “We think of physical fitness as a practice, as something we do to maintain our bodies. Our social life is a living system, and it needs maintenance too,” he said.

The researchers even developed something called the 5-3-1 Rule to help people make sure they’re channeling their inner hunter-gatherer and getting enough social connection in their lives.

There is similarly strong evidence that lifelong learning has a massive impact on how well we age. When psychologists Rachel Wu and Jessica Church signed older Americans up for evening classes for a recent research project, their subjects performed startlingly better on cognitive tests.

Just three months of learning ballroom dancing or basic Spanish, “enhanced participants’ memory and attention so drastically that their abilities came to resemble those of adults 30 years younger at the program’s end. And amazingly, they continued to improve long after the classes were over,” the pair reported in Scientific American. The real ‘paleo’ lifestyle hack for healthy aging

So next time some wellness influencer tries to sell you on some “paleo” lifestyle for healthy aging, remember Gurven’s book and these studies. Moving more and eating real food are definitely good moves for all around well-being. But specific diet and exercise routines aren’t the primary lessons to take from hunter-gatherers when it comes to living a long, healthy life.

Instead, what our ancestors had that many of us lack is strong social ties, lifelong learning, and purpose. Before you worry about cutting carbs or throwing truck tires around at the gym, focus on making sure you have these two essentials for healthy aging nailed down.