By David Blyweiss, M.D., Advanced Natural Wellness

December 28, 2016

• Start aging backwards in 2017
• Turn on your anti-aging factors
• Feed your body well, but don’t feed it all the time

This weekend we’ll be ringing in another New Year. And I can’t think of a better way to approach 2017 than to make it the year you decide to start holding back the hands of time.

That’s right. It’s time to slow down the aging process and start aging the healthiest way you can.

You see, there are two kinds of aging. Your chronological age is how old you are in terms of years. Your biological age is how old you are in terms of health, fitness and looks.

Now, I’m sure you’ve met plenty of people in their 80’s who are in robust health, physically active and sharp as a tack. I’m sure you also know people in their 40’s and 50’s who are riddled with health problems and look much older than their age.

Clearly, your goal is to become one of those people who are “forever young”.

In this issue, I’ll show you how you can do exactly that. It won’t happen overnight… but in the months to come, some very simple changes in your life could help you reverse years of rapid aging and renew the youth and vigor you crave.

Turn on Your Anti-Aging Factors

How can you become one of those people who always impress others with how young and healthy you appear?

It all comes down to activating all of the anti-aging factors in your body that you can. The top three include boosting positive gene expression, powering up your mitochondria and protecting your telomeres.

Now, there are many ways to do this. But today I’m going to focus on some daily choices you can make to positively influence your body’s ability to turn back the hands of time. Then, in next issue, I’ll show you some specific nutrients that can add a powerful punch to your efforts.

Life is movement. It’s well-known that physical activity helps keep your muscles strong, your body lean, and protects against many of today’s most common age-related disease.

What you don’t often hear about is the effects exercise has on your anti-aging capacity.

Getting regular workouts helps your body make more mitochondria, the energy factories that keep your body powered up and youthful. It also increases the efficiency of your mitochondria, providing more energy to your cells.

Exercise also helps keep your telomeres – the protective DNA caps at the ends of your chromosomes – from shortening. This is important, because shorter telomeres are associated with aging, poor health and earlier death.

Additionally, it can change the expression of your genes and add years to your life. Even a little exercise can lower your risk of a premature death by about 20%. And if you get the recommended 30 minutes a day five times a week, it can lower your risk even further.

(Getting plenty of physical activity also helps relieve stress and can help you sleep better at night. Each of these is also important when it comes to keeping all of your youth factors active.)

So one of the first things I recommend to all of my patients is to GET MOVING! This is especially important if you’re feeling older than your years.

Feed Your Body, but don’t Feed it All of the Time

Food is Medicine. When you’re deprived of food, hunger is a natural response. But today we’re eating too many of the wrong kinds of food… and too much food altogether.

For example, the way we eat here in America has a profound effect on telomere shortening and mitochondrial dysfunction. It also tends to turn off the genes you need for good health, and turn on those that promote disease.

But there is good news. Even if you haven’t been eating an entirely healthy diet, you can still turn things around.

We’ve seen over and over again that people who eat the most fruits and veggies have longer telomeres than those who don’t get enough produce in their diets. They also have more positive gene expression and better mitochondrial efficiency.

Omega-3 rich fish is another winner when it comes to turning back the hands of time. These fatty acids can actually lengthen your telomeres! They also improve mitochondrial function and work at a genetic level to protect against disease.

Give your gut some time off. While it’s important to eat foods that activate your body’s anti-aging factors, it’s just as important to give your gut a little time off.

The easiest way to do this is to designate a window of eight hours each day to enjoy regular (healthy!) meals. Then fast for the remaining 16 hours.

This triggers a process called “autophagy”. It’s basically an internal cleansing system for your cells. The thing is, along with other cellular waste, autophagy breaks down damaged mitochondria and recycles it. This process makes your cells work more efficiently.

It also comes with a big bonus. You see, when your mitochondria aren’t working right, your telomeres will become shorter in response. Conversely if your telomeres are stressed, it can have a negative impact on mitochondria.

This can become a vicious cycle that speeds up the aging process.

So something as simple as taking part in intermittent fasting makes good sense. You don’t have to eat any less than you already do. You just need to restrict it to an eight hour time window.

Good luck getting started and stay-tuned for the next issue, where I’ll share 7 must-have nutrients to turbo-charge your anti-aging efforts.

SOURCES:

Lee JY, et al. Association between dietary patterns in the remote past and telomere length. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2015 Apr 15.

Herbst EAF, et al. Omega-3 supplementation alters mitochondrial membrane composition and respiration kinetics in human skeletal muscle. J Physiol. 2014 Mar 15; 592(Pt 6): 1341–1352.

Vedin I, et al. Effects of DHA-rich n-3 fatty acid supplementation on gene expression in blood mononuclear leukocytes: the OmegAD study. PLoS One. 2012;7(4):e35425.

Dyakova EY, et al. Physical exercise associated with NO production: signaling pathways and significance in health and disease. Front Cell Dev Biol. 2015 Apr 2;3:19.

Cherkas LF, et al. “The association between physical activity in leisure time and leukocyte telomere length.” Arch Intern Med. 2008 Jan 28;168(2):154-8.

Handschin C, et al. The role of exercise and PGC1α in inflammation and chronic disease. Nature. 2008 Jul 24; 454(7203): 463–469.

Arem H, et al. Leisure time physical activity and mortality: a detailed pooled analysis of the dose-response relationship. JAMA Intern Med. 2015 Jun;175(6):959-67.