I don’t believe I was the first to use the expression’age-related functional decline’, but I believe it an superb descriptive overview of what happens as we age. Aging, as we encounter it, is the result of several related physiological processes slowing slowly, or in some instances rapidly. Everything that used to operate at full tilt gradually slows to a crawl, and finally, at least one of those processes gets so broken that we die.

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All of us age, we will all perish; these are the inevitable facts. The only thing we have some control over is if, by our way of life and activities, we slow down the process or speed it up. Over the social history of culture, our amazing writings and traditions have preserved norms of behaviour and action that appear to lead to fuller and more life, warning us from these things which make life less worth living and shorten it.

We have a tendency to neglect or dismiss this wisdom in our childhood, then wish we had followed it when we’re older. At some point we get worried about our health and fitness and opt to start from there on to get our act together. That happened for me when I was 30. But at 33, I got serious, and made it a life priority. I decided that I didn’t just want to prevent disease; I wanted to understand how to maximize my fitness and health, and keep it during the aging procedure. Research on aging has discovered four big mechanisms that bring about this decrease.

These are…

OXIDATIVE DAMAGE – damage by free radicals at the molecular level, GLYCATION/GLYCOSYLATION – bonding of sugars to proteins which stiffens cells and destroys their function, INFLAMATION – a repair/immune process which becomes more prominent, damaging and indiscriminant as we age, and SENESCENCE – cells stop dividing because of lack of telomere length; this appears to set maximum lifespan limitation.

Maintaining physical capacity (and psychological capability) is an issue of delaying and diminishing the effects of the aging mechanisms for as long as you can. The advantages are worthy of effort, and as science advances, technology may enable us to outrun aging altogether. I’m not holding my breath on this, but it’s interesting to ponder that we might someday be able to reverse-age as we grow old.

I don’t know what the world would be like having a massive population of kids over 200 years young, but I would not mind being one of those to deal with the issue. The tools we must combat these aging mechanisms aren’t well understood by the ordinary citizen.

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Most know that we should eat right, exercise some, get sufficient rest and have a positive, constructive attitude. Some understand that there are nutritional supplements which slow the aging process or protect against disease. But, the devil is in the details and the details are presented to us with of much confusion.

Two examples: We had been told for the past 30 years that fats were bad and carbs were great, clean burning, etc.. But the less fat as well as the more carbohydrates we ate, the fatter we obtained, and the greater the incidence of type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer increased in our population. Thenwe were told that we had anti-oxidants and among the best was vitamin-E. But the vitamin-E we were advised to take was alpha-tocopheryl. Vitamin-E turns out to be composed of four tocopheryls and four tocotrienols, all which have anti-oxidant properties and are synergistic in how that they de-energize free radicals in various cells of the body.

Taking large doses of alpha-tocopheryl really produces a vitamin-E deficiency, increasing free radical damage in several regions of the body. How can one find lasting truth in the middle of shifting knowledge? The best way, in my mind, is to listen carefully to the discussion; listen to all of the perspectives, new and old, read all of the arguments, and then select what make the most sense to you.

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Ultimately, you are solely responsible for the lifestyle choices you make and their influence on your wellbeing. Still, the tools for combating age-related functional reduction are really NUTRITION, EXERCISE, REST and a POSITIVE ATTITUDE. At some age, for each of us, we must compensate for the deficiencies of aging with the addition of SUPPLEMENTS and HORMONAL ENHANCEMENT if we would like to remain in the game as a way to perform hard into the last inning (period, place, quarter, etc.). In the pages below I shall do my very best to distill the facts of what promotes health, strength and energy into advanced age, as I have come to understand and experience it in my past 34 years of study and self-experimentation.

Start with food

The fundamental substances that build and sustain the body. In our prime we could apparently eat anything and digest it, absorb it, assimilate it and use it. But as we get older, stomach acid and enzyme production reduction, digestion worsens, absorption and assimilation of nutrients becomes less powerful. Mechanisms for getting nutrients into our cells, and waste products out, become less powerful. The fundamental starting point for any anti-aging attempt is to consume all the vital nutrients and improve the mechanisms for digestion, absorption and assimilation.

We are inclined to think of our own body as a self indulgent object like a chair or possibly a car, and we will need to input water and food or we get messed up, but the trend is to consider oneself as the exact same now as we were yesterday. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We’re constantly tearing down and rebuilding every organ, cell and DNA molecule we have. Our bones are constantly replacing themselves.

The material for this renovation is food. Any deficiency in the needed materials, even short term, and our body will sacrifice 1 part to fix another; such as scavenging muscle for protein to fix sunburned skin. The body is an amazingly intricate system; its nutrient requirements are both intricate and humanity has been flourishing on a broad assortment of regional diets for quite a long time.

Typically, primitive regional diets make the best of what’s foods are available and the physical conditions that prevail, and for possibly centuries, have enabled us to reach reproductive age and live long enough to rear children to replace us. The present purpose, however, would be to eat so well that we get all of the nutrients we will need to maximize our health and life , and also to steer clear of functional decline (and pain) as long as you can. Eat mostly what is plucked from the groundoff a tree or bush, or has been walking, flying or swimming lately, and its corollary – Eat nothing that comes in a bag or a box. Our whole evolutionary history has been spent eating foods explained in the first line. It makes immense sense to me that we evolved to flourish on these foods.

Real food

Eat real, whole, unprocessed foods! We people have recently rediscovered the blue and red fruits are filled with anti-oxidants, the cabbage family vegetables are abundant in cancer-fighting sulforaphanes. Are you aware that grass-fed beef is high in omega-3 fats, and really reduces inflammation such as fish and fish oils? Make baked goods (cakes, cookies, desserts and white breads) a rare portion of your diet.

Fat is absolutely necessary for survival, but there are Fats that Heal and Fats that Kill – that’s the title of an remarkable book by Udo Erasmus – a’must read’ for anybody interested in optimal health. If you do not eat enough of the right fats, almost every cell in every organ of your body is going to be compromised. Fats, however, require bile, produced by the liver and metered from the gut, for digestion in the small intestines.

Poor bile flow or an obstructed gallbladder will make digesting fats an embarrassing job. The liver manufactures approximately 1 quart of bile daily, which functions as a carrier for poisonous substances to be efficiently removed from the body. Additionally, the bile emulsifies fats and fat-soluble vitamins in the gut, improving their absorption. When the excretion of bile is inhibited (cholestasis), toxins remain in the liver more with damaging consequences.

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The young stomach produces abundant hydrochloric acid for only that purpose. Starches need an alkaline stomach for the starch-digesting enzymes (amylases) to do their own stuff. Combining them slows the process badly for the aging gut. Hence the standing of beans and chili as gas-builders; legumes are high in starch and protein – tough on older stomachs. Many nutritionists will insist that you ought to consume a balance of protein, carbohydrates and fats in every meal. I say they ought to try that at 60-plus and see how bloated they feel for another 3 hours.

Stomach acid and enzyme production decreases as we age – digestion worsens, absorption and assimilation of nutrients is less effective. Acid indigestion or heartburn is a clear indication that we’re generating insufficient hydrochloric acid (HCl) and/or pepsin. It means food is remaining gut as it’s not digesting. The issue isn’t too much acidity, but too small. The press (and the medical community) will have you believe you need antacids or Prilosec to shut down acid production, but these approaches make proteins almost indigestible and inaccessible for assimilation.

Take an HCl with Pepsin capsule with any protein meal and find out how much quicker your meal digests, with no heartburn. There are lots of digestive enzyme formulations available that will make digestion a breeze. For those who have frequent heartburn you’re priming yourself for esophageal cancer.

Заключение

With proper sized foods, sufficient HCl and digestive enzymes that you should overcome most digestive problems, and enhance virtually all physiological functions as a consequence of increased nutrients available in the cellular level. The upcoming significant aid to digestion is a supply of friendly bacteria or Probiotics. If you’ve ever had a course of antibiotics, you’ve decimated the flora which should beneficially occupy your digestive track. These bacteria, that we’ve developed with symbiotically, are a significant part of the digestive process, and create certain enzymes and vitamins for us. They play a very important role in our immune function.