Anti-Aging Secrets

Copyright By Dr. Danielle West, ND

Ponce de Leon claimed to have found the famed fountain of youth centuries ago? since that time, hundreds of expeditions have been launched in search of the sacred fountain, yet no one seems to have found it. It?s the stuff legends are made of.
Then there?s the infamous Picture of Dorian Grey. How many people do you know who never seem to age? For decades, it seemed like Dick Clark had a magical mystical picture of an aged version of himself in his attic somewhere hidden behind covers.
But, my friends, there is no such thing as a Fountain of Youth. There is no such ?magic spell? that will keep a person young forever. But, there is the ability to naturally significantly slow down and even reverse the effects of aging that we?re all subject to. With all the current hype on Anti-Aging, for the most part, most of it has been so costly (and not covered by our traditional forms of medical insurance) that it?s been almost prohibitive for the majority of us. Anti-Aging was thought to be something only the rich and glamorous could afford, helping to make them even richer and certainly more glamorous. That?s no longer the case. Anti-Aging protocols can be as expensive or as inexpensive as you want them to become. You can even work on your own Anti-Aging protocol for free!

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE AGE

Blame it on your hormones or call it pre-planned obsolescence, but that?s the crux of the situation. Our hormones control more than our sexual appetite, they actually control our entire body and virtually all associated functioning in one way or another. As we naturally mature our endocrine system both slows down in both it?s production and it?s ability to produce various hormones. There are only three hormones that actually increase as we age: insulin, cortisol and cholesterol. (Ever wonder why there is such a dramatic incidence of Type II Adult Onset Diabetes? Our insulin levels rise as we age and individuals don?t modify their lifestyle or dietary practices to compensate!)

If we look at a hierarchy of hormonal control, the pituitary gland is considered the master controller. Among other essential hormones, it produces HgH (Human Growth Hormone). This is the hormone that essentially controls the production and release of all other hormones in your body. From our late teen years on, HgH production begins to decrease. By the time we graduate from high school, we are on the HgH downslide, like it or not. I tend to stress: If one hormone is out of balance, the rest are.

The body robs from Peter to pay Paul. It?s just the way our bodies are programmed to function. If HgH is out of balance, so are all the other hormones in our body. We don?t just slow and become more susceptible to disease or illness, to weight gain, etc. because of our chronological age. We slow down because our hormones aren?t functioning the way they did in our youth. There isn?t enough HgH in our systems to keep up with the demand we place on ourselves. If the HgH isn?t there, as I said, the rest of the hormones aren?t balanced either.

There is considerable thought, which this writer also believes, that the pineal gland which sits above the pituitary controls the pituitary itself, so pineal support is an essential part of anti-aging protocols. Both sleep and mood disorders can be traced back to the pineal gland. If your circadian rhythm is off, the rest of your hormonal production and processing naturally has to be negatively affected.
Other main hormones you might be familiar with that ?shift? or decline as we age are:
thyroid hormone(s)
estrogens (estradiol, estrone and estriol)
progesterone
DHEA
melatonin
testosterone
A reminder: women also produce and require testosterone (produced in the adrenals) just as men produce and require progesterone and estrogen in their bodies; the amounts required obviously differ by gender.

WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT?

I WANT TO STAY YOUNG!
Let?s examine what goes into Anti-Aging protocols. Although you can find practitioners who will only prescribe hormones; for Anti-Aging protocols to be successful, you need to incorporate several things into a total lifestyle change, including but not limited to: proper nutritional intake, weight management and care of your body, exercise and fitness, perhaps certain lifestyle changes, i.e., stress management, quitting smoking, cutting down or eliminating alcohol, etc. Even without hormones, incorporating these areas into a comprehensive wellness plan will improve the quality of your life and definitely add healthful and quality years.

You can even naturally increase your production of certain hormones, including HgH without supplementation. If you should chose to also add hormones (and I?ll get into the typical hormone and supplement protocol), only after altering your lifestyle as mentioned about, will the hormones you might take be optimally effective.

Healthful Nutrition and Weight Management

The body is naturally producing more insulin as we age. It also produces more cholesterol. Working with the natural flow of our body by adjusting our dietary practices should only be a natural outcome. Our bodies don?t function the same as when we were teenagers or young adults, so why treat them the same? We need to adapt; otherwise we?re creating a frightening downward spiral.

First of all, let me say a quick word about cholesterol. It is essential for the proper functioning of our entire body. Our nervous system, our muscles, our hormone production, our mental functioning and our vascular system are all dependent on cholesterol. Excess cholesterol production is a direct result of aging! However, extreme excess is often a result of vascular disease, not necessarily heart disease.

Cholesterol comes along to form a protective ?patch? on an irritated area of a blood vessel, much like a scab forms on your skin when you cut yourself. When the skin heals, the scab falls off. Same thing with cholesterol. When the vessel tissue repairs itself, the cholesterol patch falls off, is naturally broken down and reabsorbed or carried out as waste. Cutting down on dietary cholesterol is only part of the problem; maintaining or achieving vascular health is more important.

Eating a diet rich in essential fatty acids but avoiding ?trans-fatty acids? and ?saturated fats? can make significant and healthy differences in your life, working with the natural cholesterol production in your body. In the same breath, let me stress I am suggesting a low-fat or controlled-fat dietary regime, not a NO FAT eating plan. A NO FAT diet can negatively impair you, causing potentially irreversible damage; especially for females.

As with cholesterol, insulin production also rises as we age. We need to similarly modify our diets to accommodate the changes in our hormonal production, especially cognizant of the rise in insulin, or we can fall into the trap most aging individuals do: Type II Adult Onset Diabetes.
(It is estimated that 16 Million individuals in the US alone suffer from Adult Onset Diabetes!) This doesn?t necessarily mean cut down on your sweets, although that?s a good idea. Refined sugar is not necessarily healthful for anyone.

We should all be watching our consumption of saturated fats and simple carbohydrates. A lighter diet, consisting of fewer calories that is higher in proteins, higher in complex carbohydrates, higher in fiber, and higher in fresh vegetables while eliminating saturated fats and trans-fatty acids and simple carbohydrates is healthful for us all! This lighter diet will work with our bodies as opposed to against it.

Most individuals I see have thyroid issues. Many don?t even know their thyroid is deficient. (The thyroid is part of the endocrine system controlled by the pineal and pituitary glands. The resulting decline in controlling hormones naturally affects the thyroid!) Ever wonder why we tend to gain weight as we get older and it?s harder to get off? The thyroid controls our metabolism.
As the thyroid slows down and it?s production and ability to utilize various hormones decreases with age, so does our metabolism. A weight management program that will incorporate supporting the thyroid is critical to working with the body, not against it. This also is all the more reason to eat lighter, more easily digestible meals.

Exercise/Fitness

Oh no, the E word. With the decline of HgH in our bodies (and other equally essential hormones) we no longer have the ability to build and develop lean body muscles; they become marbled with fat. The heart is a muscle. Without adequate exercise our bodies deteriorate even further with the accumulation of toxins in the lymphatic system. Without adequate exercise essential hormones and even critical neural transmitters are not produced or released. Without adequate exercise, we lose the ability to function at our optimal potential. Exercise CAN train our bodies to work as well-oiled machines. Exercise CAN increase our metabolism. Exercise CAN reduce your weight.
Exercise CAN reduce your excess cholestrol. Exercise CAN reduce the excess cortisol in your system. Exercise CAN even naturally increase the production of HgH in our bodies! (Think of all the other benefits you receive from that alone!) And, exercise WILL give you a natural ?high? with the release of the much talked about endorphins, those wonderful neural transmitters that do so much? I strongly recommend a healthful exercise plan for everyone. If you can afford it, a personal trainer is wonderful to assure that you are exercising properly. Not all trainers are alike, though. Do your research. Health clubs provide equipment, but the motivation has to be yours. Even walking every day will make a difference. If it takes getting a pet dog to assure you take it on walks, do it. Bottom line, why leave out one of the essential ingredients in an integrated anti-aging protocol? They are all equally important.

Stress Reduction

When we are stressed, our bodies naturally go into fight or flight mode. Your body doesn?t know or care that you are under pressure from your boss or finances or in-laws or whatever the problem might be. Your body thinks there is a lion at your back about to eat you and you have to run across the jungle to escape. Our more primitive instincts and functions take over. Nothing we can do about that.
It?s how we are designed, period. All other functions shut down except those that are most critical to get us across the jungle at top speed to outrun that lion. In order to get us there alive, our bodies release cortisol form our adrenal glands. Each time we are stressed, more and more cortisol is pumped into our bodies. While cortisol plays an important function as a hormone, it is also a dangerous hormone that can influence anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, AIDS, cancer, obesity, osteoporosis, diabetes and cardiovascular disease if out of balance in our body.

Each time we are stressed, we tax our adrenal glands. If you are under constant stress, cortisol is being pumped into your body in unrelenting amounts. Now, add to that, cortisol naturally increases in production as we age.
In our day and age we can?t avoid stress. It?s all around us. We just can?t hide in a bubble or become a hermit. There are stresses associated with that approach too! What we need to do is alter the way we let stress affect us, how we interpret stressors. Some people are stress magnets. If you have difficulty with stress, I strongly urge you to explore various stress management programs that are available.
And no, I am not recommending going to your doctor for a prescription for valium or paxil or any other anti-anxiety medications! The change of how you interpret stress has to come from within you! Even if traditional stress management programs don?t work for you, with the wide variety of approaches now available, one approach is bound to work for you. Many practitioners, including myself, offer a number of different approaches to accommodate the unique emotional makeup of the individual they?re working with.

Anti-Aging Hormones

If you want to further compliment your natural approach to anti-aging by supplementing with hormonal support, the most typical approach would be to supplement with a fully integrated approach including:
Estrogen (depending on your metabolic makeup and/or familial history of breast cancer, either a tri-estrogen, bi-estrogen complex or just estradiol)
Progesterone
Testosterone
Melatonin
Pregnenalone
Thyroid Hormone
And of course, HgH
With proper blood or saliva testing, qualified practitioners can assess the specific requirements for you and the associated doses. There are several approaches to hormone supplementation and this is the area you need to explore. The most common is prescriptive based, with all but the HgH coming from a compounding pharmacy. The HgH alone is approximately $240- $300 for a one month supply of injectible solution which is not covered by prescription or medical insurance plans. Individuals with diabetes or cancer in their lives should weigh all the risks associated. Some approaches are herbal, to support the individual endocrine glands.

There are still risks with the herbal approach, since herbs carry their own associated risks. Herbs used in combination with each other carry the same potential risks that taking various medications with one another have. A third approach to hormonal supplementation is what I use in my practice. Homeopathic hormones. There are no risks associated with this approach.

Individuals with cancer or diabetes have no risks from the HgH. Women with breast cancer in their families or who are survivors themselves have no risk from the estrogen used. There is also no threat of uterine cancer with using either estrogen or progesterone alone. Compared to the cost of a full prescriptive anti-aging protocol costing between $300-400 per month, herbs and homeopathic approaches are not only safer, but they are much more cost effective, costing approximately $100 or less per month for full protocols.
Anti-Aging is a huge topic. It is difficult to do justice to any of these areas alone in 2200 words, let alone the entire topic. As you can see, however, each of the areas discussed above need to form a fully integrated approach to your anti-aging program. While you will definitely benefit from just modifying your diet, for example, or by beginning a healthful exercise program, to be truly effective, all of the above areas can work synergistically to help you optimize yourself, to slow down and/or even reverse the adverse affects of normal aging.
You can naturally:
Reduce Blood Pressure
Reduce hair loss
Reduce dry skin and wrinkles
Reduce cholesterol
Reduce amount of or eliminate grey hear
Reduce Depression
Increase restful and easy sleep
Increase sense of well-being
Increase your sexuality
Increase energy and vitality
Increase the building of lean body muscles and muscle density
Increase bone mass and density
Increase tissue fluids
Reduce compression of joints in the spine
Modify your metabolism to reduce natural weight gain
Reduce brittle dry nail problems
?and as stated, you can do this as expensively or inexpensively as you wish. It?s all up to you. Call to set up your appointment for afforable anti-aging today.