Feel 20 Years Younger - Book Review Melatonin, DHEA, HGH breakthroughs in ANTI-AGING Medicine
It is not difficult to imagine that many of the people reading this article will live to be 100 years old. This being due to the progress made over the last thirty years in health and nutrition. Much of the research conducted in the interim in the nutritional sciences was either overlooked, ignored or ridiculed.

For health enthusiasts it has been interesting to watch public perception of the topic evolve. What was once the province of matronly women in oversized straw hats with floral arrangements where the band ought to be, became a substantial movement of individuals dedicated to bringing credibility to the promises of Alternative Medicine.

As more and more physicians took note of the work of their peers in this field and incorporated nutritional approaches into their practices it became known as Complementary Medicine. As these complements to traditional practice multiplied a broader more descriptive heading of Preventative Medicine evolved.

All the preventative modalities have one thing in common, however, that is preventing the onset of a degenerative process that leads to disease which ends in death. This process is known as aging. Therefore the vanguards of this movement properly refer to this movement as ANTI-AGING Medicine.

What a breakthrough! Not necessarily in science but in perspective. Too many would be health enthusiasts have thrown in the towel because of the complexity of the endeavor.

One study has you taking Vitamin C to prevent cancer, a doctor recommends antioxidants to prevent heart disease and a health guru insists that flax seed oil will keep your arteries from clogging. Then there’s vitamins, minerals, oxygen, hormones, water filters, juicers, magnets, herbs and aarrghh!

All meant to prevent something that might not happen anyway. After all," Aunt Millie lived to be 82 and never got arthritis and Uncle Gus made it to 87 without having a heart attack, so I don’t need to invest all this time, money and energy because I have healthy genes."

It is because of the negative connotation of prevention that this type of person forgoes the important lifestyle practices that are proven to provide health and longevity. When a problem does develop they expect to undo overnight what negligence allowed to develop over years.

ANTI-AGING MEDICINE: A CONCEPT YOU CAN LIVE WITH

The idea of a positive objective is so novel that it is almost profound. Who wants to grow old, get sick and die? When we gather what we have learned under one umbrella and apply it to the endeavor of living a long, healthy life suddenly we’ve got the attention of every adult in America. Dr. Ronald Klatz and Dr. Robert Goldman have done just that.

Their book Stopping The Clock describes dramatic breakthroughs in ANTI-AGING and rejuvenation techniques. Dr. Ronald Klatz is one of the world’s foremost authorities on longevity medicine. In fact, he is the senior Medical Editor at Longevity magazine and founder of the American Academy of ANTI-AGING Medicine also known as A4M.
Dr. Robert Goldman is a former world champion strength athlete, holding more than 20 world records. He is founder of the National Academy of Sports Medicine and co-founder of A4M. He is recognized as a world expert on drug testing and anabolic steroids and has helped establish international standards in that area.

According to Dr.’s Goldman and Klatz the dreaded deterioration and vulnerability to the "diseases of aging" can be slowed, prevented and potentially even reversed. Memory loss, fatigue, heart disease, circulatory problems, arthritis, stroke, Alzheimer's disease and cancer can be avoided. The time has come: you can stop the clock.

If Americans were to properly apply what we have learned about antioxidants, hormones, diet, stress management and exercise we would not have a health care crisis. For example, if ANTI-AGING medicine were able to delay admission to nursing homes by just one month the U.S. health care system would see $3 billion in savings a year.

The National Institute on Aging recently reported that if the onset of Alzheimer's disease could be delayed by five years, the nation would save $4 billion per year. The healthy elderly population is the wealthiest segment of our population and will undoubtedly continue to pump money back into the economy. This can be seen by the baby boomers being the largest, richest, and biggest-spending segment in the history of American marketing.

It isn't necessary to wait decades for the benefits of ANTI-AGING medicine, however. It is improving the lives and health of thousands of people right now. In this book, you'll read about the latest developments in the new science of ANTI-AGING medicine.

You'll learn about hormone treatments, nutritional supplements, diet, and exercise programs that can help prolong the pleasures of youth. There are multitudes of 70 year olds performing, thinking, and feeling every bit as well as when they were 55. If you follow the suggestions outlined in this book you, too, can expect one or more of the following benefits:

• an enhanced immune system
• improved memory and cognitive function
• remodeling of body musculature and reduction of total body weight
• enhanced sexual function
• an increased rate of wound healing
• increased aerobic capacity
We are forever in search of the cure for old age. Dozens of theories have been proposed, yet science has not produced a universal theory of aging. Generally, scientists believe that aging is a mechanism installed in the human body to insure the continued survival of the species.
From the species' point of view, the most important time of our lives is our period of fertility, the years during which we're able to create new life. While it's socially functional for some people to live longer than that, to pass on the accumulated wisdom that might help the young survive, from nature's point of view, we are not that useful after the age of around 40.
Aging is developmental, as we age, we become more mature adults, growing older developmentally, not chronologically. A 60 year old chronologically may have the physiologic age of a 45-year-old person, a 50-year-old may have the diseases and ill health paralleling the physiologic decline of an 80-year-old person.
Normal aging and pathologic aging are different. Pathologic aging, such as adult onset diabetes or arthritis, which may later bring on cardiovascular disease or osteoporosis, is not considered "normal" aging. These conditions are due to heredity or lifestyle.
Whereas developing cataracts is "normal" aging because if you live long enough you will get them. Living longer is a gift of 20th-century science and technology. The discoveries of vaccinations, insulin, antibiotics, new surgical techniques, hormone replacement therapies and treatments for life-threatening disease all contribute to staying alive longer.
This book describes and debunks a multitude of theories on aging. They are: The Wear and Tear Theory, The Neuroendocrine Theory , The Genetic Control Theory, The Free-Radical Theory, Waste Accumulation Theory, Limited Number of Cell Divisions Theory, Hayflick Limit Theory, Death Hormone Theory (DECO), Thymic-Stimulating Theory, Mitochondrial Theory, Errors and Repairs Theory, Redundant DNA Theory, Cross-Linkage Theory, Autoimmune Theory, Calorie Restriction Theory, Gene Mutation Theory, The Rate of Living Theory, Order to Disorder Theory and The Telomerase Theory of Aging. This lengthy list detailing the various theories on aging is as fascinating as it is robust.

MELATONIN

Imagine a "wonder drug" that extended your lifespan by 25 percent or more, allowing you to live to be 120 years old. Imagine, too, that this drug not only extended your life but maintained your youth, enabling you to enjoy work, sex, and social activities with the same zest and vigor that marked your life at 45.

Imagine, finally, that this drug had no harmful side effects or known long-term dangers, because it was actually not a drug at all, but a substance that occurred naturally in your body. The fact is, we don't have to imagine this "wonder drug" at all. It already exists, in every living substance from algae to humans, and its name is melatonin.

Melatonin is a hormone secreted by the pineal gland. Although research on this substance has been going on since 1958, it is only recently that there has been much interest. To understand more about how melatonin produces its extraordinary effects, we have to consider the aging process itself.

Humans are born with the ability to grow, to develop, to mature sexually and to protect ourselves from disease. These functions are carried out via a complicated system whereby various glands secrete a number of different hormones, which in turn stimulate activity elsewhere in the body.

Previously, scientists had viewed the hormonal activity of different systems as relatively separate. They understood that the endocrine system regulated growth and sexual development, while the immune system protected us from disease. What they didn't realize was that the two systems are interconnected and that both operate under the direction of the pineal gland.

The pineal gland is a small organ behind the eyes that in reptiles is literally a "third eye" a light sensitive organ covered with a shield of clear cartilage. In humans, the pineal is hidden within the brain, although Hindu philosophy refers to a "third eye" that sees more deeply and truly than the other two.

Indeed, the pineal does "see" in a way, for one of its jobs is to respond to changes in light and dark. Many creatures possess a pineal gland which scientists now believe is a kind of natural clock, helping us to synchronize our activities with nature.

HUMAN GROWTH HORMONE

A 60-year-old man becomes Mr. Physical Fitness USA. A 50-year-old college instructor regains the face and figure of her modeling days. A 43-year-old balding, enervated man finds both his hair and his energy restored.

These are only some of the reports of the aging people who claim to have been helped by supplemental doses of human growth hormone (hGH). Human GH is another hormone that is naturally present in the human body when we're young but that tends to disappear as we age.

People who have taken hGH have found it to produce striking improvements in their health, energy level and sense of well-being.

The list of benefits seems to grow with each new study. It now includes: •younger, thicker skin • stronger bones • an average gain of 8.8 percent in muscle mass after six months, without exercise • an average loss of 14.4 percent of body fat after six months, without dieting • a stronger immune system • tissue regeneration, healing of wounds and in recovery from surgery • a higher energy level • enhanced sexual performance • regrowth of heart, liver, spleen, kidneys, and other organs that shrink with age • greater cardiac output • better exercise performance • improved kidney function • lower blood pressure • lower cholesterol • fewer wrinkles • elimination of cellulite • sharper vision • improved mood • better retentive memory

Human Growth Hormone, or somatotropin, is a simple protein made up of a single chain of 191 amino acids. This substance is released by the pituitary gland, starting in childhood and continuing into old age. The hormone enters our bloodstream in pulses, generally in the early hours of sleep (another reason why sleep is so important to growing children!).

The hormone then moves quickly from the bloodstream to the liver, where it is converted into a substance called "somatedin C." Somatedins are messenger molecules also known as "growth factors." They carry hGH's message of growth into other parts of the body.

Like many hormones, hGH is released into the bloodstream in far greater quantities when we're young, peaking in our mid twenties and then beginning a slow, gradual decline. By the time you're 60 or 70 your body has access to only 15 to 20 percent of the hGH that it used in your youth.

Human GH's primary function in childhood and young adults is to help bones lengthen and expand, so that from infancy until our mid-twenties, we are growing, becoming taller, longer-limbed, stronger-boned. Human GH also promotes growth by helping to transport amino acids between cells and by inducing cells to accept and synthesize amino acids.

Amino acids are found in proteins and are used by the body to create muscles and to build and restore organs, including the heart and the skin. Thus hGH helps our bodies to use the protein we ingest for cellular repair and regeneration.

DHEA

DHEA is produced by the adrenal glands. It's been dubbed "the mother of all hormones" because the body uses it to produce the male and female sex hormones testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone, as well as using it to make corticosterone.

Production of DHEA is high even when the fetus is still developing. Our body's DHEA levels continue to rise up to about age 25, when production drops off sharply, so that by age 65, we're producing only 10 to 20 percent of the DHEA that our bodies manufactured at age 20.

As with melatonin and human growth hormone, falling levels of DHEA are closely associated with a number of age related diseases and disabilities. Scientists speculate that if aging men and women can restore their DHEA to youthful levels, their youthful health and vigor will also be restored.

CHROMIUM, SELENIUM & MAGNESIUM

One of the key ways that chromium helps combat aging is by stabilizing your blood sugar levels and improving your insulin's efficiency, so that you need less insulin to process the same amount of blood sugar. In fact, chromium is vital for producing glucose tolerance factor (GTF), the substance on which your insulin depends to do its job.

It is this glucose tolerance factor that aids us in turning carbohydrates into glucose. In a recent study eight people with glucose intolerances were administered 200 micrograms (MCG) of chromium a day for five weeks. Out of those eight, seven showed dramatic improvements in blood sugar levels. Even diabetics may benefit from chromium, but they should consult their physician before taking any supplements

The book includes news about selenium's pro-immune properties and how it is significant for the elderly as well as for people with AIDS. As we've seen, declining immunity is one of the hallmarks of aging, leaving older people vulnerable to cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses.

But a University of Brussels team of researchers found that giving elderly patients 100 daily mcg of selenium for six months caused the lymphocyte response to mitogens (invaders) to increase by some 79 %, reaching levels typically found in the young.

Other studies have also found selenium to strengthen the immune system. The mineral not only stimulates lymphocytes to produce more antibodies, but it also encourages the production of phagocytes-Pac-Man-like entities-that literally gobble up cancer cells, bacteria and viruses.

Selenium is a powerful antioxidant that helps detoxify your body. Along with the antioxidant glutathione, selenium works to bind the toxic heavy metals mercury, lead, and cadmium in a process called chelation, picking them up and carrying them into the urine, where they can be flushed out of the system.

Selenium also helps detoxify peroxidized fats, alcohol, tobacco smoke, and drugs. The anti-cancer medication Adriamycin is often administered with selenium which helps to modify its toxic side effects without diminishing its ability to fight cancer.
Selenium helps to relieve anxiety. A double-blind study conducted by psychologists David Benton and Richard Cook of University College, Swansea, Wales, found that of the 50 healthy men and women who got 100 mcg of selenium a day, most felt less anxious, depressed, and tired after only five weeks.

The subjects who had been most deficient in selenium enjoyed the most dramatic improvements, suggesting that restoring their selenium levels had eased their mental states and increased their energy. Other studies have found that when the elderly are given selenium plus vitamin E or another antioxidant, they notice an improvement in mood and mental ability, as well as receiving better blood flow to the brain.

"Animals starved of magnesium are nearly perfect specimens of accelerated aging," say French researchers, and the symptoms of a magnesium deficiency do indeed read like a catalog of the woes of old age: clogged arteries, irregular heartbeat, vulnerability to heart attack, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, resistance to insulin and the concomitant threat of diabetes.

Researchers point out that only one American in four gets the USDA's Recommended Daily Allowance of this key mineral, an amount that most nutritionists believe is already too low. Some two-thirds of the elderly, who need magnesium the most, consume less than 75 percent of the RDA.

Not only the elderly need to be concerned about a magnesium deficiency; also, diabetics, people on low-calorie diets, alcoholics, people with fat malabsorption problems, those who perform strenuous exercise and those who are taking prescribed heart medications need to be aware of their magnesium intakes and make sure that they are supplementing if they are deficient.

THE ANTIOXIDANTS

According to the late two-time Nobel Prize-winning scientist Linus Pauling, who lived to the age of 93, we could add 12 to 18 more years onto our lives, by taking 3,200 to 12,000 milligrams of vitamin C a day. Dr. Eric Rimm, one of the authors of a Harvard study on the role of vitamin E in heart disease found that "The risk for not taking vitamin E was equivalent to the risk of smoking.

Over a hundred studies have shown that people with a high level of beta-carotene in their diet and blood are only about half as likely to develop cancer in the lung, mouth, throat, esophagus, larynx, stomach, breast, or bladder.

Harvard researchers studying some 87,000 female nurses found that a high intake of C cut the risk of heart disease by 20 percent; high doses of E caused the risk to drop by 34 percent; and high levels of beta-carotene reduced heart disease risk by 22 percent. Moreover, high doses of all three vitamins slashed the risk of heart disease by nearly 50 percent. Coenzyme Q-10 (CoQ-10) helps prevent atherosclerosis, angina, and heart attacks.

Just as supplements of minerals found in your daily diet can improve health and vigor while reducing the risks of aging, megadoses of vitamins can also help stop the aging clock. The most important antioxidant vitamins are vitamin C, vitamin E, and vitamin A, of beta-carotene.

They are called antioxidants because of their unique ability to deactivate harmful free radicals that accumulate in our bodies, in addition to their ability to maintain the structure and function of our cells. In essence, oxygen creates these free radicals, be it through our immune system battling foreign substances, or even through strenuous exercise when we are consuming massive amounts of oxygen into our bodies.

It is these antioxidant vitamins that quench the destructive path of free radicals, and stabilize them back into the state of normal healthy molecules. While the key antioxidant vitamins are C, E, and A, most doctors now recommend supplements of beta-carotene rather than vitamin A itself.

Vitamin A is essential to prevent night blindness and the formation of cataracts. It is also important in the development, maintenance, and repair of healthy bones, skin, hair and mucous membranes. Beta-carotene is a substance that your body can use to make its own A, so that it poses none of A's risk of toxicity. However, it's a good idea to consult with a knowledgeable doctor before taking any kind of supplement.
Scientists don't know exactly how CoQ-10 works, but they do know that it's an antioxidant, like vitamin E. Apparently, it protects fat molecules from being oxidized by the free radicals that continually attack fat cells. CoQ-10 helps to stabilize cell membranes, which keep cells intact.

It also supports the activity of the mitochondria, those tiny entities that burn oxygen to manufacture energy within cells. Our heart muscles need an enormous amount of energy to keep pumping blood throughout the body, which may be why CoQ-10 is in such high concentration in the cardiac region.

Because this enzyme protects the mitochondria, it also seems to protect the brain from damage. Researchers speculate that such degenerative brain diseases as Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's disease are related to low levels of CoQ-10 and might be susceptible to treatment by this extraordinary enzyme.

EXERCISE

As many gerontologists and researchers have found, exercise is the closest thing to an ANTI-AGING pill that exists. People who are physically fit, eat a healthy, balanced diet, and take nutritional supplements, can measure out to be 10 to 20 year biologically younger than their chronological age.

This is what makes an immortal. An immortal doesn't necessarily live forever, but can be free from mental and physical disease and degeneration for years longer than an unhealthy individual. Exercise is an extremely important part of achieving this "immortality."

Remember, it doesn't matter if you were once physically active in your younger years; if you're not currently engaged in a physical activity program on a regular basis, your body is not receiving the innumerable health-related benefits of exercise.
Over 48 million adults in the U.S., who are otherwise healthy and able-bodied, can be classified as sedentary. An inactive life-style only places extra strain on the body, increasing risk for cardiovascular problems, cancer, and many other diseases. More and more, scientists are finding that an adequate exercise program, coupled with a healthy diet, can recapture youthful vitality by slowing or reversing many of the physiologic changes that are associated with aging.

An aging metabolism is less able to use fatty acids properly, thus burdening our systems, depressing our immune system and possibly leading to atherosclerosis. Exercise uses free fatty acids for 80 percent of the calories needed to complete an activity, essentially converting them to energy.

The production of growth hormone improves our immune system, builds up our muscles, burns off fat, and generally contributes to overall well-being. Although our bodies manufacture less of it as we grow older, accounting for a 40 percent loss with a 30 percent decrease in strength by age 70, exercise stimulates and increases production of this vital hormone.

ANTI-STRESS TIPS FOR ANTI-AGING

Numerous studies have shown that your health is greatly affected by how you react to stressful events in life setbacks or deadlines at work, conflicts and losses at home.

By the same token, changing your reactions, learning to meditate or other relaxation techniques and generally committing to a positive, open attitude towards life can help make you younger, reducing your biological age and expanding your abilities to maintain a vigorous and energetic lifestyle.

Stress in itself is not necessarily a negative thing. The term stress simply refers to any situation-physical, emotional or both that requires any bodily response more active than equilibrium. A slight change in temperature is experienced by the body as stress, i.e., a demand from nature to mobilize the body's resources and raise or lower body temperature.

A new love affair is stressful even while it is blissful, as it evokes your intense attention to a new person and creates powerful emotions that demand a new kind of attention to yourself. Playing tennis, negotiating a big deal, planning a birthday party for your child, even reading an exciting mystery novel, are all sources of stress in that they demand physical or emotional responses from you, pleasurable though these activities may be.

Where stress becomes negative is in our responses to it. If your reaction to negotiating a big deal is not pleasurable suspense but a killing anxiety, then your body will probably respond with a headache or stomach ache, and your immune system may become weaker as well.

If the daily drive to work is the occasion for a hundred little explosions of temper, you're creating a level of negative stress that will affect your body quite differently than if you enjoy the challenge of driving skillfully through crowded city streets.

LONGEVITY

One popular aphorism is that success is a journey, not a destination. So is life. Stopping The Clock is a road atlas for making that journey a long, healthy and pleasurable one. This article can only touch upon the abundance of useful and thoughtful information contained in this book.

It is intelligent and upbeat just like the lifestyle that Dr.’s Goldman and Klatz are trying to purvey. Longevity as a concept puts a healthy lifestyle into a perspective that is as compelling as it is compulsory.

There are many people who are living proof that it is possible to live a long, healthy, happy life by following the guidelines described between the covers of Stopping The Clock. Every individual owes it to themselves to become knowledgeable about this empowering information.