March 7, 2006
Staying alive and healthy to age 100 or beyond
The 3 simple rules for age management medicine are:
- Don’t get sick
- Don’t get “old”
- Don’t die.
If heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes were eliminated, the
average life expectancy would rise to 99.4 overnight. Preventing
cardiovascular diseaseby keeping cholesterol under 200, your LDL under
100, and HDL above 45, doing 30 minutes of aerobic exercise 3-4 times
weekly results in a gain of 13 years to your life span. Preventing
cancer death through early screening and detection adds 3 more years
because 90% of cancer is curable in the early stages if detected.
Prevention of stroke by keeping BP down, taking antioxidants and
magnesium, keeping homocysteine down with the B vitamins and folate
adds 2 years. Prevention of adult onset diabetes with lifestyle changes
of elimination of concentrated sugars, exercise, and maintaing ideal
body weight adds another 1.4 years. Driving a car that is at least
3500lbs and using your seat belt make your chances of becoming a
centurian very likely.
Hormones and Aging
Biological hormone levels and function decline with aging. Thyroid,
estrogen, and testosterone are frequently replaced and scientific
studies show that these hormones are important in preventing
degenerative disease. What about Human Growth Hormone(HGH), melatonin,
DHEA, and others that are promoted by anti-aging specialists. Are these
just marketing hype to make the well funded baby boomers buy snake oil
in order to achieve their immortality or do they really work?
In 1990, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study of
60-80 year old men given HGH. The results were equivalent to reversing
aging by 10-20 years. When faced with the choice of changing back from
the flabby, fat, hypertensive, weak boned, sick, saggy skinned,
impotent depressed person that we frequently have become, who wouldn\’t
want this hormone that reverses this in 6 months!! The good news is
that over 60% of people can stimulate their own body into making the
growth hormone by proper exercise, nutritional supplementation and
dietary changes without taking this $500/month treatment. We should
consider this treatment for 6 months when people are already too
debilitated with chronic disease, hip fractures or acute illness to get
started. Otherwise, our social security fund and Medicare dollars are
going to run out before our life span ends. It is somewhat ironic that
twice as many generation Xer\’s believe in UFOs than the long term
existence of Social Security!