Is Aging a Disease You Can Reverse? A Look at the Science Behind the Longevity Movement

 

Is Aging a Disease You Can Reverse? A Look at the Science Behind the Longevity Movement

By Jancee Dunn & Donald J. Porter  October 22, 2020

Whether we will be able to live forever as some Silicon Valley types desire remains to be seen. Exponential technologies will certainly impact lifespan over the next few decades, but it is more valuable for us to consider enhancing our “healthspan-NOW”- versus our lifespan.  The healthspan is the measurement that allows us to spend time with family, maintain memories and be physically active without pain. With simple lifestyle changes, dietary interventions, and even supplementation, we can leverage the investments from Silicon Valley executives to live better and perhaps even longer.

Decades of Research (BILLIONS of dollars invested) has demonstrated that aging is a disease—one that can be targeted, treated, and perhaps even reversed. Longevity—a quest as old as humanity itself—is one of the most complicated and challenging endeavors brilliant minds have ever examined. The Huan immune system is COMPLEX and COMPLICATED. Think about migration routes by fish, birds, add in million of years of survival evolution, meat eating carnivorous animals, vegan eating animals, and emotional adjustments based on stress adjusting and related. Is the wellness world’s latest buzzword, appearing everywhere from specialty gyms such as Longevity Lab NYC to NutriDrip’s $600 “Nutriyouth” IV formula (which promises to “turn on ‘good genes’  ”) to the Victoria Beckham–sanctioned supplements Basis NAD+. David Sinclair’s Book ‘Lifespan” etc. Meanwhile, big-name investors (Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel) are backing companies that are designing drugs to stave off the impairments associated with growing old: Thiel’s Breakout Labs is intent on the modest goal of “reprogramming nature.” The longevity sector, according to some industry analysis, is on track to be a multi-trillion-dollar industry.  Combining key components of Herbs with older proven expired drugs is creating low cost NEW drugs that actually benefit this MASSIVE longevity industry.

Examples of current efforts:

Nir Barzilai, M.D., founding director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Affable and bespectacled, the 64-year-old author of the new book Age Later has suggested exercise as being one of the magic bullets for a long and vibrant life, or “health span,” as he and other experts term it. (When it comes to health span, Barzilai says, genetics account for only some 20%. The rest is environment and lifestyle.) On this morning, he has not yet broken his 16-hour life-lengthening daily fast. Research has also shown that “stressors” such as intermittent fasting may prompt your body to activate the genes that help repair broken DNA and protect chromosomes.  Along with his fasts and exercise, Barzilai takes a daily dose of metformin. An inexpensive diabetes medication that’s been around since the 1950s, metformin is thought to mimic the calorie restriction of fasting by limiting the amount of sugar the body absorbs (side effects are generally mild, among them abdominal pain, nausea, and loss of appetite). A 2017 study of more than 41,000 male metformin users found that it reduced—by a significant amount—the likelihood of dementia, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. A growing number of doctors are prescribing it off-­label, but Barzilai wants the medication to be FDA-sanctioned for every elder adult. He’s about to undertake a six-year national trial (called TAME, for “Targeting Aging With Metformin”), partially and anonymously funded by a noted tech billionaire.

Most Popular:

If fasting is not exactly your speed, diet is still tremendously important. As for what you should eat, the gold standard remains the Mediterranean diet—one that is high in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds, and olive oil, and low on red meat—the only diet, says Barzilai, proven by clinical research to decrease cardiovascular mortality. A recent study in the medical journal Gut found that following it for just one year slowed the development of age-related inflammatory processes.

David Sinclair, Ph.D., Harvard geneticist and author of the bestseller Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don’t Have To, says the Mediterranean diet essentially “tricks the body into thinking we’ve been doing exercise and fasting.” Of course, this is not a permission slip for bottomless bowls of rigatoni; too much of a good thing is too much. Dan Buettner, the National Geographic Fellow who helped popularize the idea of the “blue zones”—the five areas worldwide with the longest-lived denizens—says he follows a rule practiced by the residents of Okinawa, Japan, and stops eating when his stomach is 80% full. And perhaps consider occasionally skipping dessert: Research shows that sugar intake accelerates age-related inflammation. “The more sugar you eat, the faster you age,” says Robert Lustig, professor of pediatric endocrinology at the Univ. of CA, San Francisco. (The American Heart Association recommends that women keep it under six teaspoons per day.)    Other crucial life practices: adequate sleep and stress management. In blue zones, says Buettner, “people downshift all day long, through prayer, meditation, or just taking naps.” And scientists are also coming to more fully understand the role that other people play in prolonging life. A 2019 study in the journal SSM-Population Health found that social relationships significantly increase life span in older adults. Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, author of this year’s Successful Aging, has found that friendships at age 80 are a bigger predictor of health than cholesterol level. Friends and even neighbors, he writes, protect your brain, while loneliness “has been implicated in just about every medical problem you can think of.”

But what about the factors you can’t control? Most of us don’t know what’s lurking in our genome and are not often aware we might inherit some disease until we see the symptoms. That is changing, with tests that are leagues beyond 23andMe. The new Preventive Genomics Clinic at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston is the first academic clinic in the country to offer comprehensive DNA sequencing and interpretation of nearly 6,000 disease-associated genes, ranging from common cancers to the rare Fabry disease, which impairs fat breakdown in cells and affects the heart. “Roughly 20% of people will be carrying a variant for a rare disease, such as hereditary heart problems,” says director Robert Green, M.D., medical geneticist at Brigham and Women’s. Where a full panel of tests used to cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars, the clinic charges $250 for a smaller panel and $1,900 for full sequencing and interpretation. (These costs are not yet covered by most insurance.)

“In the near future,” says Barzilai, “we can be healthy and vital in our 90s and beyond.” He laughs. “It may sound like science fiction, but I promise you, it’s science.” While I can comprehend the misgivings about prolonging life, I’ll admit that I’m still programmed to crave those extra years, and will adopt what changes I can to make them more vibrant.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Certain quality Essential Oils, proven herbs, exercise, deep breathing, minimize stress, quality Diet, etc. is beneficial to maximizing “HEALTHSPAN” !

 

Examples of supplements that have STRONG backing:

GOOD Foods for Arthritis relief

·        Strawberries, cherries, blueberries, oranges

·              Omega-3-rich fish include salmon, tuna, mackerel and herring. 2x week

·              Soybeans (tofu or edamame). 

·              Avocado, safflower oils shown cholesterol-lowering properties, walnut oil has 10x the omega-3s of olive oil. 

·                  Broccoli        Green Tea        Garlic

·                  Oatmeal, brown rice and whole-grain cereals, sources of whole grains. 

·                  Red beans, kidney beans and pinto beans.

·                  Walnuts, pine nuts, pistachios and almonds. 

Suggested Daily intake to improve “HEALTHSPAN” !

David A. Sinclair,PhD is a highly respected  man with acclaimed  book – “Lifespan”

Single drop doTerra oils:       

·        Myrrh

·        Peppermint

·        Copaiba

·        Lavendar

·        Frankinsense

·        Clove Bud

 

·        Lemon

·        Ginger

·        DDR Prime 4-5 drops

Astragalus Oil  

Theracurmin

Aloe

D3

Coenzme Q10

Garlic  

Resveratrol-w/ Quercetin-Vit C

Pomegrant

Astaxanthin

Magnesium

Zinc

Fisetin

Multi Vitamin of quality

 

 

 Disclaimer:   Although many alternative medical treatments have been successfully used for many years, they are currently not practiced by conventional medicine and are therefore not "approved" & legal (in some States) for medical professionals to prescribe for their patients, although it is legal for individuals to use them at their own discretion. It therefore becomes necessary to include the following disclaimer:  The offerings made by this publication are to be carefully considered by the user. All responsibility regarding the use of alternative treatments rests with the patient. If you have doubts regarding these things, rely on your conventional doctor. What Don Porter & others (books written 40 years ago) have done & accomplished is their story & may be achievable by others doing the exact same protocols.