Health and Longevity
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Health and Ageing
Life expectancy has tripled over the course of human history. While the life span of 120 years appears to be the maximum, it is clear that given the remarkable breakthroughs in longevity medicine, the rate at which we age can be modified.
It is possible to live a longer life, with a greatly reduced risk of developing age-related illnesses if you know the major age-accelerators and how they can be neutralized. Longevity medicine uses the latest findings in genetics as well as proven alternative therapies to detect and prevent age related illness and extend life span.
Health and AgingAgeing is a progressive deterioration with time that makes our bodies less responsive, less viable, and more vulnerable to disease. Ageing is part of the human condition. People have often wondered why we age and, what’s more, if there is anything that can be done to slow the process.
Longevity medicine is uncovering the reasons why people age. The most common factors are: Defective genes, chronic stress, lower levels of hormone production, an increase in free radicals, an accumulation of body toxins, clogging of the arteries and lymph vessels in the body, and a tired or overactive immune system.
Whatever the forces at play that cause a person to age, what cannot be argued with is this: as we get older, not only is our physical appearance altered, but other changes take place inside us which leaves our cells, tissues, organs and systems less vital. Longevity medicine aims not only to add years to your life, but life to your years.
How long can we live?There are currently around 24 people in the world who are more than 110 years old. Meanwhile, a more recent focus on disease prevention and healthier lifestyles has produced reduced rates of heart disease, and other illnesses. Longevity medicine focuses on diagnosing imbalances in the body before the onset of age related diseases, plus some tailored methods of enhancing the body’s systems to increase average life expectancy further.
Four decades of research has led to the following conclusions :
Research has found that prior to 1970, maximum age increased by 0.44 years per decade; since 1970, it has been increasing by 1.11 years per decade. The increased rate is due to declining death rates from heart disease and cancer, among other factors. This trend is expected to continue.
What is Longevity Medicine?Longevity medicine is concerned with:
The aim is for a person to live as healthy a life in their fifties and sixties as they were in their twenties and thirties. There have been claims in the media that longevity medicine enables a person live to live to be 120, 140 or even 150. However, this gives the whole field of longevity medicine a bad reputation. Researcher talk instead of an “optimal health span” rather than “anti-ageing” since nobody can stop the ageing process, just slow it down a bit.
The roots of longevity medicine date back to the 1950s when Denham Harman of the University of Nebraska first announced his “free radical theory of ageing”. In 1958 came the inauguration of the field of “biogenerontology”. During this period the National Institute of Ageing was formed.
A scientific landmark occurred when it was found that the cells in the human body – with the exception of cancer cells – could multiply up to, but no more than, 100 times. Leonard Hayflick, Ph.D., whose findings these were, also said that this was the reason that the body could not regenerate itself and placed a ceiling on how long a person could live.
Longevity medicine is built upon methods of diagnosis and treatment that meet the unique needs and objectives of each person as an individual. This is in contrast to conventional medicine which focuses on treating disease by way of surgery and drugs and a “one size fits all” approach.
The whole field has its roots in preventative medicine, which focuses on reducing risk factors associated with illness. It also concentrates on reducing toxic exposures and detoxification, and extends beyond both of these aims.
What are the aims of Longevity Medicine?Longevity practitioners are especially interested in the factors that cause accelerated ageing from those that are just the causes of ageing. Hormones, for example play a very important role in the ageing process, as they play a part in many processes of the body.
Hormones affect cells, the body’s PH balance, how the immune system responds, and the ability to withstand stress, the digestive process and much more. Concluding that ageing is caused by depleted hormone levels is misleading however. A decrease of hormones IS a consequence of ageing but – once it is decreased – it accelerates the rate at which we age.
There may be an even more basic process happening that causes not only hormone levels to decline, but also other organs and systems of the body to degenerate over time. Therefore, to achieve optimal health and results, the root causes, rather than the symptoms need to identified and addressed.
Looking at the causes of ageingCompared to their counterparts in the U.S, who live an average of 76 years, residents of Okinawa live an exceptionally long life, typically past the age of 100 years. At the same time they live an exceptionally healthy life with a low percentage of illness and disease.
Hoping to find the secret of their long life, researchers have pointed to their low fat diet of mainly rice and fish, a stress free environment, a sense of community and belonging the people have and the fact that the elderly are active, working in the fields even into their nineties.
But what is responsible for their long lives? Is it diet, environment or lifestyle, or all three? Or is it simply the good fortune of good genes? According to some biologists, every human being has a potential life span of 120 years. Life expectancy however, is a different matter. Life expectancy is the additional number of years a person can expect to live at any given age.
The “wear and tear” on the body caused by environmental factors, exposure to toxins, lifestyle choices, diet, stress, and lack of exercise is closely linked with life shortening diseases and the discrepancy between actual life span and a potential life span.
How Genes influence LifespanIt is known that the activities of cells on a biochemical and genetic level cause changes in the way cells act and work. These changes can tip the scale from repair and health to degeneration and disease. Aging, therefore, proceeds according to a genetically determined, biological timetable. Current scientific research is trying to find out what is happening biochemically in the cells to cause degeneration and to find specific genes that govern this process.
Various theories have been developed to explain how genes may place a limit on life span. A single gene that affects the production of an enzyme known as helicase has been identified as a possible factor in ageing. Helicase plays a part in the repair of DNA, making it an important part in the body’s ability to repair itself from ongoing damage.
Researchers have also found defects in DNA repair in people susceptible to cancer. If DNA repair processes decline with age, while damage accumulates, it helps to explains why cancer is more common amongst older people. Repair rates also vary among cells, with sperm and egg cells being the most efficient and those that regulate cell growth being the quickest.
Another theory is that the body may have certain “suicide genes” that, when activated at a specific time, cause cells and tissues to waste away. This eventually causes organ degeneration and aging. Nobody knows at this stage what genes or how many are involved in this process.
The idea is to identify the genes that are associated with the ageing process and find a way to turn them off. While in theory this sounds straightforward, the practical implications are not, and at the present time the answers may be years in the future.
What can teach us about living longer?We have far more control over the ageing process than we previously thought. We know that certain genes are associated with a greater risk of lung cancer. Yet, as smoking rates have fallen, so too has the incidence of this disease. Heart disease rates have also dropped by 45% since the 1950s.
Ageing happens when the body’s ability to maintain health declines. The body becomes less able to bring itself back to a state of balance when it is overwhelmed by stress (physical, chemical, emotional and structural) Not only is there a loss of function as we age, but a loss of the healing ability to draw upon in times of need.
These reserves are vital for health, as they are there called upon to help us recover from physical illness. A number of factors accelerate the ageing process. This includes nutritional deficiencies, excessive stress hormone production such as cortisol, hormone imbalances, toxins and immune system malfunctioning. As we age, these stressors combine to produce changes in a cell’s membrane and DNA.
The Role of Free RadicalsFree radicals, when produces to excess is also regarded as the hallmark of ageing. A free radical is an unstable, toxic molecule of oxygen with an impaired electron that steals an electron from another molecule and produces harmful effects. Free radicals damage cells, which cause bodily changes to organs and systems. They also damage the parts of the cells that relate to renewal and repair.
Although the body produces certain free radical neutralizing enzymes, it may be unable to prevent ALL free radical damage and this gradually causes organs to degenerate. Free radicals also lower oxygen levels in the body and create an acidic environment, and since high acidity increases free radical production, it is a self – perpetrating cycle.
Perhaps 80% of chronically ill adults have too much acid in their tissues and about 20% are severely acidic. People with acidosis which is what this condition is called, are more prone to diseases such as heart disease, arthritis, strokes and cancer.
Excessive free radicals are associated with a loss of collagen in the body. Collagen is an essential part of the skin and bones in the body and its loss results in the ageing of these tissues, like wrinkles in the skin and brittle bone disease, or osteoporosis.
Underlying factors that make us AgeAnother process found to accelerate ageing happens when excess glucose (sugar) molecules attach themselves to proteins in the blood. This results in the production of glue-like substances called AGEs (advanced glycosylation endproducts) which accumulate in the blood and stick to organs and tissues whilst accelerating the production of free radicals.
These organs and tissues then stiffen, like leather that is cured. In the skin, AGEs cause wrinkling; in the brain, AGEs play a role in the development of Alzheimer’s and other mental impairments. Diabetes is regarded as a model of accelerated ageing since diabetics typically have high glucose levels – and are more vulnerable to certain disorders such as neurological degeneration, kidney problems, and heart disease, which occur in non-diabetics much later in life.
Hormones are important in the activity of cells. Insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas, has profound effects on ageing. Some foods that are digested enter the bloodstream as simple sugar glucose, which the body used for energy. Under the direction of insulin, glucose is able to pass from the bloodstream through the cell membrane and into the cell, where it is burned as fuel.
Poor regulation of glucose in the bloodstream can result from the pancreas not making enough insulin, or through the cell’s inability to utilize insulin properly. This causes high levels of glucose to remain in the blood. The body then triggers the pancreas to produce more insulin.
Elevated insulin levels sets off a cascade of disturbances in the cells and increases biological ageing. Insulin is a hormone with global actions can cause high blood pressure, blood fat abnormalities, an impaired immune system and accelerated ageing.
The Role of Nutrition in AgeingMany of us eat too much of the wrong kinds of foods, such as those that cause allergies or processed foods high in sugar and “bad” fats. At the same time only 9% of people in the U.S and the UK get the correct amount of health vitamins and minerals from their regular diet.
There are many reasons to believe that the RDAs (recommended dietary allowances) are set too low in many cases, and do not address unique nutritional needs due to ageing, genetics, lifestyle, stress levels and many other factors.
What we eat plays a major role in our risk of developing diseases such as diabetes and insulin resistance. Diet also affects the acid/alkaline balance of the cells, which plays a role in our level of health and wellbeing.
We live in a toxic age, in which high concentrations of toxins are in the food we eat, the air we breathe and the water we drink. This can cause our bodies to accumulate toxins faster than we are able to neutralize them
It is therefore sensible to get as many nutrients into our bodies and improve our diets to help this process. Some superfoods for health are explained here and should be part of a healthy diet
The Future of Longevity MedicineAs the world population continues to grow older, longevity medicine will become an increasingly important part of health care. This trend is being driven by people seeking higher vitality in their advanced years. Hopefully, the Government and insurance agencies will join the movement, as there is proof that preventative medicine is much more cost effective than the crisis-management model of health care today.
There may soon be new ways of early detection and treatment of illness. Gene therapies may be able to correct DNA mutations before they manifest as illness. Scientific health research continues in the use of nutrients for prevention and treatment of age related diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
Supplementing with antioxidants, coenzyme Q10, melatonin, growth hormones, “smart drugs” for memory enhancement, natural hormone therapies, phyto-chemicals, and vitamins and minerals will continue to grow in popularity. Science and medicine are beginning to come together to embrace longevity medicine techniques such as dietary changes, nutrient supplementation, lifestyle changes, stress reduction and exercise. Long may it continue.
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