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Aging – The Final Frontier

We have heard the term, The Final Frontier, in reference to space exploration. In our lifetime, approximately the next forty years (I am rapidly approaching 70 years of age), I believe that our final frontier is aging. How can we control our aging processes to live a better quality of life – now and in the future?

There are two causes of aging. The first is human growth hormone (HGH). The second is the length of the telomere at the end of your chromosome. There are many factors that will accelerate, or decelerate, the aging process. Some accelerators are obesity, lack of exercise, food choices, smoking, etc. Some decelerators are fasting, caloric restriction, exercise and stress relief.

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Obviously, some are related. Stress is a big one. Stress is the genesis of 90% of all doctors’ visits. The vast majority of us have no daily stress relief program. In fact, most of us ignore that we have stress; or, that it adversely affects us. Exercise, meditation, and breathing exercises are all good programs to incorporate into our daily lives to reduce stress.

Our diets help us and hurt us. We live with a diet mentality. We go on a diet to lose some weight, and then we get off of it and go back to eating like we had before gaining weight. We really should look at food choices as a lifestyle. It is something that we should be doing for the rest of our lives.

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It is critical that the foods we choose contain balanced nutrition. Deficiencies in any vitamin, or mineral, can create health issues in the body. For example, a deficiency in vitamin B12 mimics Alzheimer’s disease. A combination of balanced nutrition coupled with a total reduction in calories has been shown to extend the lifespans of many species of animals.