Dan Buettner has urged anyone who wants to live a longer and healthier life to follow these three top tips. 

The National Geographic fellow recently summarised three ways people can lengthen their lives in an interview with CBS News's Norah O'Donnell. 

The author advised viewers that they should eat a big breakfast, add beans to their diet as well as snack on nuts and stop eating by 6pm. 

O'Donnell asked the explorer: "So if you had three top tops for someone who said: "Look I want to live longer, I want to live healthier, incorporate what into my diet?"

Buettner replied: "The first thing is to eat a big breakfast, ideally savoury breakfast.

"Number two, learn how to incorporate beans into foods you like because beans are a great protein substitute for unhealthier.

"Snack on nuts. You know we say eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.

"Quit eating by five or six o'clock at night and do your body a favour."

The educator has become well known for his research into five "blue" zones across the world where inhabitants regularly live well into their old age.

Buettner regularly shares lifestyle advice on his platform based on his studies of these zones including tips on diet and exercise to promote life longevity.

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Recently, the health expert advised that people who want to live until they are 100 should 'make better friends'.

He advised: "If you really want to live until you're 100, you need better friends because, at the end of the day, the only way you're going to live a long time is through long-lasting changes to your life.

"Diets and exercise programs generally don't live a long time, friends tend to be long-lasting adventures, and they have measurable impacts on your health behaviours for the long run".

The author suggested that people should "re-curate" their "immediate social circle".

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The expert continued: "Those three friends who you count on when you're having a bad day or people with whom you can have a meaningful conversation.

"Those people are going to have a measurable and long-term impact on how active you are and what you eat".

He concluded with a warning: "It's counter-intuitive, nobody can make any money off you but be very careful about who you let in the room."