CHAPTER 27
Not long ago, I ran into someone whom I hadn’t seen in over twenty years. “Wow,” he said, “you haven’t changed a bit!” My temptation was to say what I silently thought, that he looked much older than his age. But that wouldn’t be fair to him. The real point I want to make is that we all age differently, but not randomly; we have a lot of influence about the process. I personally made the choice to follow a path of healthy aging, and my friend had taken a much different path.
Graceful aging can only occur in a healthy body. This is the answer to the age-old puzzle of restoring youth—it’s also not to lose it so quickly. It’s not just about wrinkles, but having healthy skin and hair, a youthful body full of vigor and a vibrant, alert brain. Yet the marketplace is full of antiaging scams: powders, pills, and potions that claim to stop aging, which, of course, can’t be done. Cosmetic companies make products with chemicals that attempt to cover the effects of aging. These companies make billions of dollars on products that don’t work. Instead, they actually can increase aging because of the body’s insult to the dangerous synthetic compounds contained in virtually all of them.
Research shows that more than half of all babies born in non–third world countries since 2000 have an excellent chance of living to age one hundred. No doubt modern medicine is keeping people alive longer, but the problem is that not nearly as much attention is paid to quality of life along the way.
Healthy aging requires that your immune system is working well, since that helps prevent or slow the process of disease and regulates how fast or slow the aging process will proceed.
But the immune system is not like the muscles, hormones, or gut, which has well-defined physical and chemical parameters. The immune system is not isolated in a single organ, but is bodywide; the brain, gut, heart, muscles all play key roles as does stress. And so does food—carbohydrates, fats, and proteins to phytonutrients and eating patterns—play a key role in aging.
There are two different ages. Chronological age refers to how young or old one is by the calendar; physiological age refers to how young or old one is relative to average chronological ages. When comparing a person’s physiological with their chronological age, some are younger and others older than their age in years. No one can control the years as they pass, but one can control their physiological aging.
All the issues I’ve addressed in this book relate to physiological aging. The balance of fats, controlling chronic inflammation, adequate protein intake, aerobic fitness, and other issues all can keep one’s physiological age much younger than what the calendar says.
Overall, one of the most important ongoing issues regarding aging is oxygen. Too much of it, or too little, and you age faster. Most people are aware of oxygen’s benefits, but many people don’t realize its potential harm. It’s in this simple chemistry lesson: the conversion of the stable O2 molecule we take in during each breath to its very unstable and destructive cousin, the superoxide or free radical molecule. When this occurs inside the body, it can lead to serious health problems. Scientists now associate the destruction by oxygen free radicals—a process also called oxidative stress—as a contributor to every major chronic disease, including cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and diabetes. Free radicals also play a major role in the aging process.
Aging is the result of continuous reactions of the body’s cells with free radicals. It is important to become aware of these potentially harmful substances, what increases their production and how to control them, in order to reduce the devastating effects of disease and control the process of aging.
Normally, the body produces free radicals to protect against harmful bacteria, viruses, chemical pollutants, and even toxic substances produced within the body. However, in a chemical-saturated world, it is possible to produce too many free radicals. When this occurs, free radicals can react with and damage any cell in the body. The most vulnerable area of the cell is the part containing unstable polyunsaturated fatty acids, as these fats are easily destroyed by free radicals. This destruction is called lipid peroxidation, and it’s particularly associated with chronic inflammation. Together this is the first step in the disease process for most chronic illness. For example, before LDL cholesterol can be stored in the coronary arteries, damage from lipid peroxidation first occurs. Lipid peroxidation can even produce toxins capable of traveling throughout the body, creating damage anywhere. These toxins are known to be carcinogenic and even have the potential to cause genetic mutations.
SHOULD AGING BE VIEWED AS A DISEASE THAT CAN BE TREATED OR DELAYED?
This question may sound rather odd, but there are many scientists who have been addressing it for years, and most answer with a definitive yes. This same question is the title of a newly published editorial (in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, February 2011) by Dr. Ruth Elaine Nieuwenhuis-Mark of the Department of Medical Psychology and Neuropsychology at Tilburg University, the Netherlands.
This groundswell of support for calling aging a “disease” is undergoing the process of re-educating both the public and health authorities. Many research specialists in aging are lobbying the world’s biggest drug regulator, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, to consider defining the process of aging as a disease. This will most likely take place because this has already happened with other conditions such as obesity, which is a preventable lifestyle problem and not a disease in the real sense of the word.
By considering aging a disease, researchers are making the claim that it can be treated and delayed. Most importantly, branding age as a disease would speed the development of new drugs that treat many of the effects of aging—including diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s. Currently, scientists argue that they are being hampered in their efforts by the FDA, who approves drugs only for specific diseases, not for something as general, natural, or normal as aging.
Do we really need a whole new line of drugs that attempts to increase longevity?
Dr. Ruth Elaine Nieuwenhuis-Mark’s editorial concludes by claiming that making the jump to call aging a disease is “at the very least, questionable, and indeed, worrisome.” She asks, “Do we really need to feed the already negative stereotypes which exist of the elderly in society? Should we not be celebrating how much the old bring to the world and have still to offer not only to close family and friends but also to society at large?” She closes with, “Labeling aging as a disease may or may not help research funding but it can only hurt public opinion of what it means to age.”
The damage from free radicals, oxidative stress, results in the negative signs of aging. This includes physically and mentally slowing down, loss of strength, and bone loss, to name a few problems. The more of this damage, the more physiologically older we become.
Fortunately, the body has an effective way to combat oxidative stress: our antioxidant system, which controls free radicals by chemically changing them to harmless compounds. This system has two important requirements. First, raw materials are needed to chemically reduce free radicals. These are the many nutritional antioxidants from healthy foods—the various vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients previously discussed. Second, the process requires an effective location in the body to perform this task—the aerobic muscle fibers.
Too much free radical activity, too little antioxidant activity, or both speeds the aging process, sometimes significantly.
Throughout this book I’ve mentioned the importance of antioxidants. They’re sometimes called free radical scavengers because they gobble up, chemically speaking, dangerous oxygen compounds. There are two key groups of antioxidants that accomplish this task. The first group includes various vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients—there are many, probably thousands, and scientists have yet to discover all of them. They include vitamins A, C and E, beta-carotene, selenium, the bioflavonoids, and groups of phytonutrients such as phenols. As powerful as these are, there’s a more potent antioxidant: glutathione.
Glutathione is not found in food and can’t be taken in a pill (it’s broken down in the stomach), although now intravenous and transdermal (a patch) forms have been developed for use in research and hospitals for patients with circulatory disorders, tumors, and other inflammatory-related diseases. The very best way to get enough glutathione is to give your body the raw materials it needs to make it: certain other antioxidants from a healthy diet. These include the following:
• The amino acid cysteine found in animal protein (especially whey).
• The phytonutrient sulforaphane, high in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, kale, and brussels sprouts. The highest content is in young, two- to three-day-old broccoli sprouts (before their leaves turn green)—these you can sprout yourself.
• Lipoic acid is an important antioxidant found in many bitter-tasting dark vegetables (spinach, broccoli, brussels sprouts, whole peas) and even beef (lipoic acid can also be made in a healthy body with similar nutrients).
• Gamma-tocopherol and alpha-tocopherol, parts of the vitamin E complex. These are found in raw nuts (such as almonds and cashews) and seeds (such as sesame and flax) and, in smaller amounts, in many vegetables. (Beware: popular doses of alpha-tocopherol—such as 100 IU or more of vitamin E—can reduce the levels of these other vitamin E components.)
• Food sources of vitamin C that include a variety of vegetables and fruits.
While antioxidants such as sulforaphane, lipoic acid, and cysteine head the list of potent glutathione precursors, many other popular antioxidants are less effective. The list at the top of the next column notes the most potent antioxidants in order of their effectiveness—the most powerful being those that help the body make glutathione. As you can see, these are not the most popular versions as companies making synthetic vitamin C, unnatural doses of vitamin E, and relatively low-potent antioxidants such as quercetin and Co-Q10 push their products to unsuspecting consumers.
It’s not necessary to remember the names of these antioxidants, but you do need to remember to eat as many antioxidant-rich organic foods as possible. These include a wide variety of vegetables and fruits, including blueberries and other berries, sesame seeds, almonds, extra-virgin olive oil, green and black tea, and red wine are excellent sources of antioxidants. Meats, especially beef, contain significant amounts of certain antioxidants as does whey. Of course there are now hundreds of antioxidant products available in pill, liquid, powder, and other forms. If needed, be sure to take only supplements made from real, raw foods.
| Most Potent Antioxidants | |
| Sulforaphane | Lipoic acid |
| Cysteine | Alpha-tocotrienol |
| Gamma-tocopherol | Alpha-tocopherol |
| Vitamin C | Lycopene |
| Beta-tocopherol | Beta-carotene |
| Zeaxanthin | Delta-tocopherol |
| Lutein | Canthaxanthin |
| Astaxanthin | Quercetin |
| Co-Q10 | |
Early signs and symptoms of the need for more antioxidants may include immune problems such as lingering cold or flu, sensitivity to chlorine or other chemicals, and chronic inflammation.
Poor immune function can be elusive, as evidenced in one of my former patients whom I will call Alice. Despite being in her midthirties, she had a variety of vague problems. One of her previous doctors told me that he thought Alice was a hypochondriac. She experienced joint pain, but only on some days; was sensitive to perfumes, soaps, and other substances containing certain chemicals; and when she got a cold, typically a half dozen of them a year, it would last two to three weeks. In addition, she had skin rashes that the dermatologist could not identify, burning eye pain several times each week, and looked about fifty years old.
Alice’s diet was chronically void of fresh fruits and vegetables, except for a salad of mostly iceberg lettuce twice weekly. Her unusual history alone was enough to lead me to recommend increasing her antioxidants. My dietary recommendations included immediately eating six to eight servings of fresh vegetables and a couple of low-glycemic fresh fruits each day, including blueberries. Within ten days, Alice started feeling better. A year later, she reported only one cold, lasting three to four days. And her friends were telling her she looked much younger, and she certainly felt that way.
A well-developed aerobic system is a key to making your antioxidant system work best. Even if you obtain all the necessary antioxidants, they need a place to do their job—these are the aerobic muscle fibers. The free radical breakdown by antioxidants occurs in the cell’s mitochondria (where fat burning occurs) contained within aerobic muscle fibers. Improved circulation that accompanies aerobic fitness is the vehicle that helps antioxidant activity—in particular, in getting these nutrients into the aerobic fibers. Therefore, people in better aerobic shape, who have more aerobic muscle fibers and mitochondria, are more capable of controlling free radicals compared to those who are out of shape.
But exercise itself produces free radicals. Different levels of exercise intensity can produce varying amounts of free radicals. Easy aerobic exercise, especially at the heart rate determined by the 180 formula, produces little or insignificant amounts of free radicals, and this smaller amount is most likely well controlled through the body’s natural defense system, especially if enough antioxidants are present.
However, exercising at higher intensities or lifting weights—any anaerobic exercise—can have the opposite effect. Anaerobic activity can produce more oxidative stress—some studies show a 120 percent increase over resting levels. This is the result of physical damage to muscles, lactic acid production, and higher oxygen uptake, which may increase tenfold during the activity.
In addition to eating foods that contain antioxidants and becoming aerobically fit, you can also reduce free radical production by simply avoiding exposure to certain toxic substances in your environment. Consuming chemical pollutants via your lungs, skin, or through food increases free radical production by the body. Keep your home and work environment as free from pollutants as possible. Here are some tips to accomplish this important task:
• New building or home furnishing materials, including carpet, can quickly pollute the indoor air you breathe. If you’ve just done some remodeling, redecorating, or if you have tightly sealed your home to save on heating or cooling costs (thereby sealing potential pollutants inside), keep two windows open (preferably on east and west sides of the home) just a bit to let in fresh air and vent your environment. Pay attention to the items you bring into your house—plastic bags, boxes, new building materials, etc.—they all probably contain chemicals that will gas out as part of the toxin-releasing process. Keep as many of these materials in an outdoor shed or other location.
• Clean out your attic, basement, closets, or other areas in which you may have stored potential pollutants such as old cans of paint, aerosols, and cleaners. There is constant leakage of vapors from these products. Store all needed chemical products in an outside detached garage or shed and discard the items you don’t need or want and those too old to use.
• If your garage is attached to the house, try to vent it, or at least leave the door slightly open. Your car constantly leaks fumes from gasoline, oil, and other chemicals. In most homes, these chemicals from the garage can easily find their way into your living areas.
• In addition to proper ventilation, an effective method to filter your indoor air is nature’s way—houseplants. Besides being attractive, they are effective at filtering the air, often more so than any mechanical filtering device. Through photosynthesis, plants absorb carbon dioxide along with other gases, including the chemicals given off from furniture, cleaners, and insulation. The plant’s leaves filter the air, and the roots break down toxic chemicals into less harmful ones with their natural bacteria and fungi. The best plants for the job include elephant ear and lacy tree philodendrons, golden pathos, and the spider plant. Any green plant will work well. About ten plants per 1,000 square feet of living space are adequate. That’s one to three plants per room, depending on room and plant size.
• Dietary pollution is another factor to consider. Avoiding the use of processed and packaged foods usually reduces chemicals and other additives in these items. Buying organic does the same for fresh foods.
• Certain natural foods in large amounts can also increase free radical production. These include sassafras (used in root beer) and black pepper.
• Reduce—ideally eliminate—cosmetics and toiletries that contain fragrances (most are synthetic chemicals) and other potential toxins. These include most types of soaps in your house and office; deodorant; before-, during-, and after-shave lotions and foams; hair spray, and mouthwash. Use only plain organic soaps without fragrance.
Cleaning up your environment does not mean being obsessive, which can introduce even more stress to your life. Just do your best to make your environment clean and safe. This, coupled with adequate intake of antioxidants and a regular aerobic exercise program, will help keep oxidative stress from speeding up your aging process.
Virtually all mammals on earth have a life span six times their skeletal maturity. If we apply this animal model to humans, who reach skeletal maturity at about age 20, one should expect to live, on average, to age 120. In fact, scientists have isolated the genetic blueprints that allow us to live into our hundreds. Following our understanding of gene expression, it may simply be that most individuals don’t allow that particular gene to keep them alive because diet, exercise, stress, and other factors impair the genetic process.
In our society, the average human animal barely reaches four times his or her skeletal maturity. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only about 23 out of each 100,000 people reach birthday number 100. But with modern technology, natural hygiene, and the awareness of chemicals that speed the aging process, there will soon be hundreds of thousands of people in the United States over the age of 100. The bureau estimates that by 2050, there will be between 265,000 and possibly four million centenarians.
Wearing Your Free Radicals
Among the most common toxic substances you may be regularly exposed to is the solvent used in dry cleaning. This chemical, tetrachloroethylene (also known as perchloroethylene, or perc), is classified as a hazardous air pollutant by the Environmental Protection Agency. It has been associated with cancer and kidney problems and has a detrimental effect on the nervous system. Wearing freshly dry-cleaned clothing can be a danger since the residue of this chemical can remain in your clothing long after you leave the dry cleaner. As such, you continue to inhale perc, and bringing home your newly dry-cleaned clothes brings perc into your house. This can be a significant free radical problem for your body.
To avoid exposure to perc, avoid dry cleaning whenever possible. Many garments that say dry clean only can still be hand-washed. Buy clothes that don’t require dry cleaning. If you must dry-clean, hang your garment outside for as long as possible—at least one or two days or more—to allow the perc to escape or until the dry-cleaning smell is gone. If you’re lucky enough to have in your neighborhood a professional wet cleaner, which uses only detergents and water, use this alternative—it’s the future of the cleaning industry. (Beware: perc is also used for metal degreasing and to make other chemicals and is used in some consumer products—read all ingredient lists and label warnings.)
Your Final Day: A Great Way to Go
An old proverb says we should approach death with dignity. While living a long and healthy life past age one hundred, your physical and mental activity should be relatively high right up to the time of death—an event that should also be optimal. Perhaps on that day, you wake with the sunrise to a freshly made cup of organic coffee. You settle in for a vegetable omelet and, after reading e-mail from your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and their younger ones, you correspond to all. You spend some time writing in your diary, then head out for a short hike through the woods. After returning for a healthy lunch, you nap for an hour or so. You dally in the garden that afternoon and follow that up with a short walk. You watch the sunset with your significant other during a fine dinner complemented by a glass or two of Bordeaux, then share a healthy but delicious homemade dessert. You head to bed, fall asleep by ten thirty. Just past midnight, you die peacefully during a sound sleep.
Will you be one of them? And if so, will you welcome it, considering what your quality of life might be? While there is a genetic aspect to how long you will live, there also are many lifestyle factors that may be even more important. How well you care for yourself from the earliest age has a significant impact on both the length and the quality of your life.
Unfortunately, most people don’t think they’ll live that long, and many actually hope they won’t. Others, however, welcome the challenge and excitement of seeing a fifth-generation descendant graduate from some futuristic high school, perhaps home-schooled by a certain wise old great-great-great-grandparent.
But who wants to attend this celebration in a wheelchair, unaware of where you are, what the name of the descendant is, or who his or her parents are? If you do happen to live to 100—or 120 years young—you want to be fully functional. Throughout this book I have offered information and insight to help you improve and maintain health and fitness, to achieve optimal human performance, and to avoid or postpone disease. It’s no coincidence that all of these concepts also apply to successful and healthy aging.
The term “successful” or “healthy” aging is not a catchy phrase or new program. It’s a real concept with practical applications for people of all ages. Scientists note three common paths for people as they age. “Successful aging” results in a higher quality of life. “Usual aging” would be considered “average.” Finally, “diseased aging” results in low quality of life and slow death. Average is unacceptable, and diseased is no way to live or to die. The better you age, the higher your quality of life, the more productive you are throughout life, and the less likely you will die a slow, lingering death.
The younger you are, physiologically, the more you can do to control how well you age. The older you are, the more you want to control aging. Regardless of your age now, your current actions can have significant impact on the way you age.
In my years of practice and research, I have identified several key factors that can have a direct and powerful impact on how successfully you age. As you read this list, you’ll notice it’s a review of many concepts that I have put forth all throughout this book. Return to those chapters that address each item for a more complete picture of what you should consider for a “new you.”
ON ETHICS AND DIGNITY AND TAKING CHARGE
In 2003, Frederick Fenech, director of the United Nations International Institute on Ageing, wrote in the journal Clinical Medicine that “persons over the age of eighty are the fastest growing age group in developed societies; this is the group where physical frailty and diminished mental capacity are common, rendering them most vulnerable to abuse and where ethical dilemmas related to death and dying are frequent. This decline in functional capacity may lead to inability to take responsible decisions. This might require another person to act as proxy with all the attendant moral responsibility. The most critical cases of proxy decision-making arise when withdrawal of life support is being contemplated. The overriding principle is for the proxy decision-maker to show the maximum possible respect for the known or likely wishes of the patient. The formulation of so-called living wills may be of great help in the exercise of proxy decision-making.”
Chances are, you’ve been making these tough decisions for a long time. In particular, you make the important ones, often after gathering information from others who may have certain levels of expertise on a particular subject. You want to continue that process through your life to include the issues surrounding your death and even how your body will be treated. And even plan for the possibility that you’ll be unable to make decisions for a time before you pass.
Everyone won’t have an optimal death, where a person passes away during sleep. But you can plan for one by enjoying a healthy and fit life and make sure you leave instructions for your children or caretakers should you be unable to function like you want. It’s important to create a legal document that takes effect if you are not able to effectively communicate your wishes directly. Otherwise, you may have no control over important decisions that may be required. This includes the use of life-support remedies to keep you from dying or strong medications for severe pain. It’s nice to think your loved ones and doctors will know what you want and follow them, but this does not always happen. This is where a legal document is important.
A document that I’m referring to is beyond a living will. It addresses more than the medical and legal issues but covers how you will be cared for should you be unable to communicate your wants and desires—from the foods you’re given to the place you live, other comforts, any spiritual issues, and memorial matters, all are addressed.
Consider addressing these important issues now, on paper, and update them as necessary. Make them available to those closest to you, especially children, health care professionals, a legal representative, and perhaps other caregivers.
These documents should be in original and copied formats, signed and witnessed.
It’s important to include the people you trust the most. And the laws of each state vary, so be sure your directions abide by these laws. Over time, you may want to make changes to your document. When this happens, be sure to make a new document the same way and replace those that others have with the latest version and destroy all out-of-date copies.
1. Brain nutrients and brain stimulation
2. Anti-inflammatory foods
3. Antioxidant foods
4. Blood sugar control (and avoiding refined carbohydrates and sugars)
5. Eating protein foods
6. Physical activity to get aerobically fit
7. Mental and emotional health—controlling stress
Successful aging also includes the issues involving a person’s need to love, have fun, socialize, and feel good about life. While volumes have been written about this subject, my contention is that when people take the necessary steps to better health, they feel better mentally and emotionally and tend to socialize and enjoy life more, which leads to better overall mental health.
Lynn Peters Adler, a former lawyer who founded and runs the National Centenarian Awareness Project, has been working with centenarians for twenty-five years and sees certain similarities among them, including the following:
• A positive but realistic attitude
• A love of life
• A sense of humor
• Spirituality
• Courage
• A remarkable ability to accept the losses that come with age but not be stopped by them
You can influence aging as much as you can influence disease prevention and most other factors associated with fitness and health. It’s less about the information—there’s enough in this book to keep you busy for some time—and more about another important factor: taking action. The first step in this whole process is entirely in your hands—you decide to increase your fitness and health or, often through inaction, decide not to pursue fitness and health. Yet it’s my hope that you follow through on the affirmative. It’s never too late to make important lifestyle and dietary changes. And once that decision is made, you will happily discover that you have only just begun the exciting journey through the rest of your life.