Welcome to my website and my first blog installment. A good friend once asked me to give her some practical tips on anti-aging and I thought that list would be a great first installment in my blog. As I get further into this venture I become more excited about the things we are learning to help turn back the clock. From natural hormone replacement to nutritional supplements, proper diet and exercise, each of us has areas of our life which we can improve upon that will add years to our life and life to our years.
Longevity… .Much of what it takes to live a long healthy life is not rocket science and you are probably doing much of it now. In my professional and personal opinion, the single most important thing you can do for your health is to exercise regularly and by that I mean an hour of exercise on most days. It needs to be varied, it must include resistance training, and it must also include some high intensity days. To be more specific, if you like to spend time in the cardio room at the gym, make use of the various equipment by biking one day, stair stepping one day and rowing the next. If you always use resistance machines in the weight room, try out some free weights or vice versa. For a real challenge, try a boot camp style class or log on to crossfit.com to see a whole new world of athletic training techniques.
Resistance training becomes more important as we age because without it we inevitably, slowly lose muscle mass over the course of our lives. Muscle mass drives your metabolism so loss of muscle mass = slower metabolism. Contrary to years of preaching from the so-called experts, weight training is much more effective than aerobic exercise for promoting weight loss. Metabolic rate remains elevated far longer after a 30 minute high intensity weight training routine than it does after a 3 mile run. A word of warning, changing up your routine, while having many benefits, also opens the door to injury so always go easy on new exercises for a few weeks before turning up the intensity to allow your body to adapt to the new forms of stress. The benefits from exercise dwarf just about anything else you can do to improve/maximize your health and preserve your age and looks.
Start taking fish oil supplements NOW. The amount of research pouring in about the benefits of omega-3-fatty acids is astounding. If you just look at fish oil consumption versus all cause mortality (anything you can possibly die of) you get about a 30% reduction just by taking fish oil. The recommendations say 1-2 grams per day but we give heart patients 4 grams per day because of its proven ability to reduce cardiac arrhythmia, lower triglycerides and increase HDL (good cholesterol) as well as an a staggering 81% reduction in sudden cardiac death in one large study1,2. The root of its benefit is the anti-inflammatory effect. Inflammation is the root of aging and many of the medical problems we have. Decrease inflammation and you decrease disease and the aging process, period. I take 2 – 3 grams per day, I would take more but I get a fishy aftertaste if I increase much more that that. I know anti-aging docs taking 10+ grams per day. You tend to get what you pay for in Omega-3-supplements. I like a brand called Barleans – which you can get at Publix®. I also carry my own brand in our Vitality pack (see below) which is a high potency purified oil. If the health benefits don’t convince you to start this amazing supplement, it also does wonders for your hair and skin.
Take a good high-potency multi-vitamin/multi-mineral every day. Health care experts who tell you that you can get everything you need from your diet are living in the dark ages. I speak from experience as I have a degree in nutrition and was fed that same line of BS throughout my training. When was the last time you ate 5-7 servings of any combination of fresh fruit and vegetables in a single day? Get my point?
You need to make sure you are getting sources of Calcium and Vitamin D every day. You’re goal should be at least 1000 mg of Calcium and 800 mg of Vitamin D daily. This recommendation goes way beyond strong teeth and bones. Calcium and Vitamin D-rich dairy products have solid evidence that they not only promote weight loss but when eaten before exercise, have been shown to cause the body to burn more fat during exercise in women.
If you’re not using a daily facial moisturizer or make-up with SPF in it, you need to start now. It’s not the long days at the beach that cause most of the sun’s aging effects, it’s the accumulation of minutes walking to your car, to the store, etc., that causes the most damage over time. Make it a part of your morning routine to apply some sort of sunblock to your face and neck to reduce wrinkles, blemishes and cancer risk.
Read the book SuperFoods Rx, written by Steven Pratt MD and Kathy Matthews, and incorporate as many of those foods into your diet as you can. The book outlines 14 power foods that have evidence-based benefits for health and longevity.
Eat something everyday that has active cultures or take a supplement that gives you these vital nutrients. You need to fortify your gut daily with these good bacteria to combat all the other junk we put into our bodies. Stress, toxins and antibiotics reduce the number of the good bacteria in our digestive system, whose job is proper digestion and absorption of the food we eat and is one of the first lines of defense in our immune system. There are more and more foods on the market that are including these nutrients including cereals like Kashi’s Vive. Most yogurt is fortified with active cultures. I like a product called Kefir cultured milk that I make fruit smoothies with. It’s kind of a yogurt on steroids with 10 strains of active cultures versus the typical 3 you find in most yogurt.
Eat as many servings of fresh fruit and veggies daily as you can. The government dietary recommendations are generally a joke but most people don’t even get close to the minimal recommend daily consumption of fruit and veggies. This recommendation ranks a close second to exercise but beats it in terms of cancer prevention. Fruit smoothies made with yogurt and whey protein are a good way to get a few servings of antioxidant rich fruit, active cultures, Calcium and Vitamin D in one dose. Like exercise, your fruit and vegetable intake should be varied to obtain the variety of phytochemicals they have to offer. Avoid canned fruit and vegetables and if you cook your vegetables, steam them for less than 5 minutes to avoid breaking down the vital nutrients they contain.
Drink green tea and eat blueberries. These 2 superfoods are some of the most antioxidant (i.e., anti-inflammation) packed foods available. I like Stash Green tea, which you can get at Publix®. Testing has shown it contains some of the highest levels of antioxidants in many of the commercially available teas. There is an abundance of research confirming the cancer preventing abilities of a diet rich in antioxidant containing foods.
Sleep is one of the most important things you can do for your health. If you don’t sleep well for 7+ hours per night you need to figure out how to get there. If my patients don’t sleep well I recommend the over the counter supplement Melatonin, which is one of the major anti-aging supplements and is naturally produced by your body to induce sleep. It comes in 1 – 3 mg doses, and I prefer the sublingual versions that are absorbed under your tongue.
If you are over the age of 35 and have experienced any of the symptoms listed on our anti-aging section, have your hormones levels checked by an anti-aging specialist that can guide you on potential bio-identical hormone replacement treatment that can improve your health and help you turn back the clock.
Check back frequently to my blog and I will keep you up to date on the most current health, anti-aging, and weight loss information available. Next up, practical tips for weight loss. Thank you for taking time to read, now get out there and get to work on getting healthy.
– Dr. Mike
Available now exclusively through our office: The Vitality Pack. This is a nutritional supplement pack which is manufactured exclusively for my office by Prothera Pharmacy and contains many of the supplements discussed in my blog today including: high potency multi-vitamin/multi-mineral tablets, Purified, pharmaceutical grade Omega-3-fatty acids, digestive support enzymes and probiotic supplements. This combination of supplements includes all of the anti-aging nutrients you need in one package and can be shipped directly to your home. If you are interested, call our office for details and pricing.
- Albert CM, Campos H, Stampfer MJ, Ridker PM, Manson JE, Willett WC, MA J Blood levels of long-chain n-3 fatty acids and the risk of sudden death. N Engl J Med. 2002:346;1113-1118.
- Marchioli R, barzi f, Bomba E, Cheiffo C, Di Gregorio D, Di Mascio R, Franzosi MG, Geraci E, Levantesi F, Maggioni AP, et al; (GISSI) – prevenzione. Circulation. 2002;105:1897-1903.
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