Tripping Father Time: Anti-Aging in the 21st Century

The answer to the "fountain of youth" question posed by the above headline is a qualified "yes."

First there's the obvious. If you smoke cigarettes, drink heavily, abuse drugs or engage in other forms of reckless behavior, and you simply stop, the odds are good that you will live longer and be healthier. And because you'll have more energy and be more alert, in a real sense, you'll be younger.

But suppose you don't have any bad habits, what else can you do?

Many people believe that simply restricting the number of calories you eat to 1500-1800 daily will assist in the anti-aging process. The "calorie restriction" diet came into being after Dr. Roy Walford, M.D., who pioneered the field of anti-aging, discovered restricting the calorie intake of laboratory mice increased their lifespan compared to mice on a normal diet. A follow-up study on humans at Washington University's School of Medicine in 2002 found several potential anti-aging benefits in the diet including lower cholesterol and blood pressure, less body fat and much reduced levels of inflammation.

But very few people have the discipline to live on such a meager diet.

The Calorie Restriction Society, based in Southern California, has received an immense amount of publicity--one of its leaders, Joe Cordell, even appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." Yet it only has 2,000 members.

There are two main reasons for this. First, you have to cope with constant hunger and second, it is difficult to eat so little food and at the same time meet all your nutrition requirements.

A much easier path, albeit expensive, is to take daily treatments of injectable human growth hormone (hGH).

While it is only suppose to be prescribed for treating a hormone deficiency, the truth is thousands of people are using hGH as an anti-aging therapy. Studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine show human growth hormone may reverse aging in at least a dozen, measurable ways. Here's a few chief examples:

Restoring muscle mass, lost hair, and size of the liver, heart, and other organs that shrink with age
Decreasing body fat
Increasing energy, sexual function, and cardiac output
Thickening skin and reducing wrinkles
Normalizing blood pressure

Costing $10,000 or more a year, hGH therapy is probably not covered by your health insurance. And there are risks of side effects, including increased insulin resistance, carpal tunnel syndrome, joint aches, and edema among woman. Some doctors think there is also an increased cancer risk.

So, if you don't want to starve yourself and you can't afford or don't want the risk of using human growth hormone, what can you do to give yourself a chance to live longer?

Actually, there are many steps you can take. Here's a list of ten of the more effective ones:

1. Eat Little Or No Meat: A recent 10-year study of more than 500,000 middle-aged and elderly Americans financed by the National Cancer Institute found participants were 30 percent more likely to die if they ate just the equivalent of one small hamburger or more a day. Eating processed meat such as sausages, bacon, and lunchmeat increases the risk even more.

2. Build Up Your Aerobic Capacity: The amount of oxygen your body can process within a given time typically declines by 30 to 40 percent by age 65. Regular aerobic exercise, three or more times a week, will slow down this decline. If you step it up to five or more times, you can actually increase this "biomarker."

3. Build Muscle: No matter what your age, you can increase the strength and mass of your muscles through weightlifting or other forms of resistance training. Otherwise, your muscle mass will decline in an accelerating fashion after age 45.

4. Control Your Blood Pressure: Many studies, including a very recent study of older people by scientists from Imperial College London, link high blood pressure to a 20 percent or higher mortality rate as well as to a higher rate of strokes and non-fatal heart attacks. If you don't want to take medication, develop an alternative strategy and stick with it. Test yourself regularly.

5. Drink Lots of Water: People who drink two eight ounce glasses or less of water a day have 50 percent more heart attacks and strokes than people who drink five or more glasses. Water reduces the risk of bladder cancer, helps you control your appetite, keeps your kidneys functioning properly and even keeps your skin from sagging if you lose a substantial amount of weight. Drink eight glasses or more a day.

6. Avoid Sugar: In addition to diabetes, eating too much sugar leads to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, obesity, depression, allergies, and most significantly, premature aging.

7. Eat Super Foods: Super foods are specific fruits, vegetables, nuts and fish packed with antioxidants and other nutrients which helps you resist diseases as well as memory loss. There are many sources where you can read up on these foods and learn about their benefits. Some of the more common: blueberries, almonds, olive oil, wild salmon, and kale.

8. Get Plenty of Sleep: Just by getting seven hours or more of good sleep most nights will profoundly enhance your mood, cognitive capability, productivity, overall health and immune system. If you are an excessive snorer, get yourself checked out for sleep apnea. An estimated 30 million Americans suffer from this mostly undiagnosed disease, which can lead to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and strokes, to say nothing of fatal automobile accidents.

9. Eat Enough Fiber: A Harvard University study showed that the risk of colon cancer is reduced by as much as 40 percent in people who eat the recommended amount of fiber. By eating more whole grains, fiber rich vegetables such as broccoli, and beans you can also reduce your risk of diabetes, heart disease, and prostate or breast cancer. It's even good for your teeth! A Canadian study found that people who ate the most fiber over a 14-year period were 23 percent less likely to develop periodontitis.

10. Take Juvenon: A combination of two supplements--the amino acid nutrient acetyl-L-carnitine and the antioxidant lipoic acid has been shown to "slow down the clock on aging cells." Based on research by the world-famous biochemist Bruce Ames, Juvenon repairs and strengthens mitochondria. The recommended daily dosage is 200 milligrams alpha lipoic acid and 500 millgrams acetyl-L-carnitine.

Anti Aging Information - Anti Aging Information is a health and beauty guide that will help you look younger and feel great. Fight wrinkles and turn back time with the best anti-wrinkle creams, nutrition, exercise and much much more!.

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