Most women think aging happens like this: we live happily through life, until one day we start to feel old, and the symptoms domino right before our cataract- clouded eyes. Our bones creak, our backs hurt, we “space out” on the names of our neighbors, we hate driving at night, we can’t play golf anymore and we can’t hear what our spouses are saying. Soon, we’re eating dinner at 3:30 p.m., and our primary goal of the day is to stay up long enough to catch Wheel of Fortune.
To us, that approach means you’re drowning in life—not bathing in the beauty of it. We’re here to challenge that perception of aging and create a new way of thinking about “anti-aging medicine”, to add serious years to your life-and life to your years- and lower your risks for diseases. The only way to do this is to slow the rate of aging on the cellular level. After all, aging may be inevitable, but the rate of aging is certainly not.
Nature’s Best Anti-Aging Medicines
Embracing a diet you love, increasing your strength and getting quality sleep, are three of nature’s best anti-aging medicines. Together, these activities-as well as the other actions we recommend in this article-control 70 percent of how well you age.
Here Comes the Sun
By keeping your bones strong with activities such as lifting weights, you can achieve the same kind of longevity. But that’s not the only key to healthy bones. Avoid alcohol and cigarettes in excess, especially when you’re young, because the aging process starts at age 20. Take vitamin D, which by the way, is our favorite vitamin. Eighty seven percent of people who live in Chicago, who are older, have a vitamin D deficiency. A lot of the things we link to the sun result from the fact that we don’t have enough vitamin D. For example, if you live north of Atlanta, you should be conscious of your low vitamin D levels. Let’s do the math. If you sit in the sun for 15 minutes, which is what most folks ought to do, you’ll make 10,000 units of vitamin D3, the good kind that you really want. For Americans who can’t get into the sun as much as they need to, they should take vitamin D3, which can have a dramatic impact on many different walks of life.
Alphabet Soup
A, C and E are antioxidant vitamins that are critically important in keeping our membranes healthy. To remember them, just think “ACE.” If we don’t have the right amount of antioxidants, we don’t have the right kinds of fats in our diet; therefore we don’t actually allow our membranes to maintain their healthy structure.
B vitamins are metabolic-boosting vitamins that are present in many leafy green vegetables. But most of us don’t consume anything even close to what we need, in part, because our food supply has changed, and we’re not eating what we should be. So taking vitamin B as a supplement makes sense. So A, B, C, D, E-take them any way you wish, but you need to get those five vitamins. By the way, if you’re tired of taking pills every day, you may want to try taking a complete liquid nutritional supplement formula like we do. It’s easier to take and it may enhance your body’s ability to absorb the nutrients.
Cutting Calories
Another avenue to increasing longevity is calorie restriction. Scientists think we can increase life spans up to 50 years with calorie restriction by understanding why it works. There’s something called S.I.R.T. (rhymes with shirt), which is the mother of all anti-aging proteins. It’s a protein that tells your body to preserve what calories you’ve got because your body detects the calorie reduction you’ve introduced to your diet. As a result, your body says, “In order to live longer, I need to preserve what I’ve got because I can’t afford to waste it.”
Your body understands those preserved proteins are the key to “turning on” all your body’s systems. That’s why, for example, red wine is good for you. Because red wine has something called a resveritrol in it; this chemical “turns on” your various systems and mimics calorie restriction.
We need to take our clues from our environment and the environments we create for ourselves. Not just stress, but also how much sun we get, the kind of foods we eat, how we exercise…… it all reflects back on us. The thyroid takes the biggest hit, which is why over and over again, especially in women, we see the thyroid gland not functioning correctly. And when this happens in severe cases you actually fall apart. The good news is that you control much of your health destiny, and with this mantle of responsibility, you owe it to yourself to become the world expert on your body.
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