Take Care of your Body

Aging is not an ailment, however, ailments tend to manifest themselves more readily as one ages if you haven’t taken proper care of your body during your more youthful years.  The body can only take so much abuse and some of us are more resilient than others but sooner or later, our negligence will catch up to us, hence giving “old age” the bad rap it now has.

Anyone who’s been sick or is dealing with an illness knows and appreciates the value of good health.  When you loose your health, whether temporarily or long-term, you quickly realize what you were taking for granted.  Life kind of stops when you are sick as you focus all your energy to getting your health back or maintaining the best level of health possible.

Don’t get side-tracked by Poor Health

There are many wonderful benefits to reaching our senior years if you’ve got good health on your side.  Start taking proper care of yourself now and you’ll get to find out what those wonderful benefits are when you get there.  The following list provides you with natural products and suggestions to help replenish your body with nutrients that it can no longer produce at the same rate it did during your youth.

  • avoid butter
  • can consume one glass of red wine per day: it contains resveratrol which is a powerful antioxidant, as well as catechins & procyanidins which can help reduce blood pressure, neurological disorders like macular degeneration, stroke, cognitive deficit and Alzheimer’s
  • consume probiotics
  • drink lots of water
  • Reishi mushrooms have anti-aging qualities
  • take Fish Oil to improve cognitive health
  • Topical Green Tea Extract diminishes wrinkles
  • Zinc should be taken after 50 years of age as it helps fight infection

Telomeres

These are like the plastic tips at the ends of your shoelaces; they are the caps on the ends of our chromosomes that keep us from developing disease and dying prematuraly.  Without proper care, telomeres get shorter as we age and short telomeres lead to chronic diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease, alzheimer’s, arthritis, osteoporosis, risk of stroke, infectious diseases, parkinson’s, etc…

  • Telomerase is the enzyme that produces telomere DNA and can reverse telomere shortening
  • Omega 3 fats help activate telomerase
  • Astragalus helps boost the production of telomerase in cells
  • Folic Acid is also important for telomere length
  • those with the highest levels of Vitamin D have the longest telomeres

*Check out the book “Lifelines” by Elaine Chin, M.D.

Free radicals

As a result of oxidative stress, cause mutations in cellular components & DNA, resulting in altered & compromised cell function, a decline in cellular energy and ongoing production of free radicals.  Eventually, oxidative damage to tissues leads to inflammation.

Antioxidants deactivate free radicals to neutralize them before they attack cells

CoQ10

  • CoQ10 protects the skin from stress-induced oxidative cell death and promotes growth of cell membrane components in these cells.
  • CoQ10 is fat soluble so must be taken with a meal containing a healthy fat for proper absorption
  • Long-term supplementation of CoQ10 may prevent DNA breakage
  • best supplements are oil suspensions and soft gel capsules

Also, check the out the role of Ketones with regards to aging.