Tag Archives: Aging

Post #9 – When it comes to health, vitality, and aging what is really possible?

27 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by in Aging, Reversing Chronic Diseases, Vigor, Vitality

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We have all heard the story. Until Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile barrier, most folks believed that it was not possible to run at that speed. Few years after Bannister demonstrated that it was possible to run a 4 minute mile, even high schoolers were attempting that record. It became not just possible but an achievable goal.

I believe the same is also true in health, vitality and aging. It was not really that long when the first successful open heart surgery was demonstrated. Now, over half a million bypass surgeries are performed every year in the U.S. alone.

So, it is with this expectation of possible becoming achievable and eventually pervasive, I find it very inspiring to learn what is really possible when it comes to health, vitality and aging., without the intervention of “modern medicine”. Is possible to bypass the bypass surgery?

Through my personal and others experiences and documented studies, I have been collecting examples of what is possible in prevention of diseases or restoration of health and even more importantly how.

Here are some exciting possibilities I have discovered, so far:

  1. Allergies can be reversed

Evidence – My personal experience (see my blog post from last week)

How – By changing what we eat, detoxifying colon, liver, and kidneys and taking supplements to rebuild liver, e.g., CoQ10, Milk Thistle.

  1. Cartilage in Joints such as knees (often diagnosed as Arthritis) can be rebuilt

Evidence – My personal experience

How – By realigning joints if necessary, Bikram Yoga, nutritional supplements Glucosamine/Chondroitin, strength training and realigning joint to eliminate the root cause of wear and tear (see item 10 below). 

  1. Early symptoms of prostate enlargement can be reversed

Evidence – My personal experience

How – By taking supplement such as Saw Palmetto Complex

  1. Losing Inches of height as one ages is reversible

Evidence – My personal experience

How – By doing Bikram Yoga              

  1. Coronary Heart Disease can be prevented and reversed

Evidence – “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease” by Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.

How – By changing what we eat and drink

  1. Many types of cancers can be prevented and (in mice) turned on and off by changing diet

Evidence – “China Study”, by T. Collin Campbell, PhD

How – By changing what we eat

  1. Live to 93 years old and still be performing heart surgeries

Live to be over 100 and be disease free, fully functioning, independent, supporting family and community

Evidence – “The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived The Longest”, By Dan Buettner

How – By living certain lifestyle that includes what we eat, how much we eat, who we associate with, having a purpose, staying active, taking time off and managing our perspective.

  1. Reverse diabetes

Evidence – “Blood Sugar Solution”, by Dr. Mark Hyman

How – Changing what we eat and drink, taking appropriate supplements and engaging in physical activity

  1. Make a phenomenal transformation in matter of months, even at 60

Evidence – “The Life Plan: How Any Man Can Achieve Lasting Health, Great Sex, and a Stronger, Leaner Body”, by Jeffry S. Life M.D. Ph.D.              

“Body for Life: 12 Weeks to Mental and Physical Strength”, by Bill Phillips and Michael D’Orso

“The Joe Dillon Difference”, by Joe Dillon

How – Creating a health plan and sticking to it rigorously

  1. Make dramatic difference in back, neck, joint pains through body realignment

Evidence –   Pain Free: A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain Paperback by Pete Egoscue; Egoscue Treatment Clinics; Personal Experience

How – Learning and practicing the appropriate eCises

Are such possibilities not exciting?

Have you run into some exciting possibilities in the area of health, vitality and aging?

Do you have some personal experience of making something considered impossible possible in the area of health, vitality and aging?

I would love to hear your stories and add those to this list to further explore and make them achievable.

Post #7 – Can biomarkers help in the quest for vitality and longevity?

14 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by in Aging, Life-Span, Living to 120, Vigor, Vitality

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How do we die and how do we lose vitality questions so far have focused my attention on the hurdles to overcome. Some of these have to do with challenges that shorten or bring end to our lifespan. Other items are “diseases” that can decrease our vitality and vigor.

All of these items are, of course, important. For the moment, however, let me step away from these hurdles and reframe the questions.

Let us say, I don’t really have any disease, but I want to live a lifestyle to achieve the optimal health and lifespan. How can I objectively assess where I am presently and then either maintain or improve from here? In other words, how to pursue living an optimal health and vitality, not merely trying to be disease free?

Study of Biomarkers has been an area of aggressive research and pursuit in vitality and aging since the 1980’s.

Biomarkers (short for biological markers) are biological measures of a biological state. By definition, a biomarker is a characteristic that is objectively measured and evaluated as an indicator of normal biological processes, pathogenic processes or pharmacological responses to a therapeutic intervention.

In the context of aging, an important focus for biomarkers has been on finding “the clock” that potentially ticks away our lifespan. Discovery of telomere as a potentially genetic clock is one example of a biomarker that won Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California San Francisco a Nobel Prize. More recently, Steve Horvath of UCLA has introduced another important biomarker to measure human aging through epigenetic signatures.

Both of these works have sparked fascinating research into areas of aging and extending lifespans. I would like to explore these topics in future blog posts.

On the other hand, for vitality, William Evans, PhD, and Irwin H. Rosenberg, MD, professors of nutrition and medicine, respectively, at Tufts University introduced a concept of biomarkers back in 1991 through their book Biomarkers (Simon and Schuster, 1991), updated in their book, BIOMARKERS: The 10 Keys to Prolonged Vitality (Simon and Schuster, 1992) and more recently updated in the Tufts University Health and Nutrition Letter.

In these publications, Evans and Rosenberg isolated the following signposts of vitality that can be altered for the better by changes in lifestyle:

  1. Muscle Mass
  2. Strength
  3. Basal Metabolic Rate
  4. Body Fat Percentage
  5. Aerobic Capacity
  6. Blood-sugar Tolerance
  7. Cholesterol/HDL Ratio
  8. Blood Pressure
  9. Bone density
  10. Ability to regulate Internal Temperature

These same 10 biomarkers keep showing up everywhere in preventative care, in strength training, in other training programs, in nutrition/diet plans and so on.

Additionally, other important biomarkers I have seen show up in various medical and scientific literature and studies on health, vitality and longevity are:

  1. Stress
  2. Inflammation
  3. Sleep
  4. Body’s pH
  5. Flexibility
  6. Balance
  7. Musculoskeletal alignment
  8. Physical and mental reaction time

So, the way I see it is this: the goal of achieving optimal health and lifespan should focus on developing lifestyle that optimizes these objectively measureable / observable biomarkers.

Any exercise plan, nutrition plan, lifestyle adaptations, and any medical program for achieving optimal vitality and lifespan thus must be measured against these criteria.

What do you think?

Do you know of other biomarkers that we can impact that are important for attaining optimal vitality and lifespan?

Post #6 – How do we lose vitality?

06 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by in Aging, Uncategorized, Vigor, Vitality

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So, just to be sure, my goal (and hopefully your goal) is to purposely live to 120 (or the maximum possible lifespan) with the highest attainable vitality. To achieve that, I feel, I must understand about anything that might get in the way.

In the posts so far, I have been talking about achieving the lifespan of 120 and thereby about a subject that might have sounded morbid to some of you. That is about death and dying.

Let us change our focus to the second part of the goal: Maintaining Vitality. More specifically understanding the potential hurdles to  maintaining vitality, i.e., answering the question: how do we lose vitality?

A good definition of vitality I have seen is in the Free Dictionary, as “the capacity to live, grow or develop.” A good synonym of vitality for our purpose here is vigor, including physical, mental, intellectual vigor.

You have seen it. A fried or a family member is full of vitality and then you notice that he/she starts “going downhill”. The person used to be out and about all the time, went running, then started merely walking, then walking but not as often, and then stared to just hang around the house, then on the couch more and more and then … – you get the idea. Decline happens, at times very slowly, and other times rather rapidly.

Another scenario could be that someone you know experiences a physical, mental or emotional traumatic experience and then never really recovers from it, with increasing physical pain or mental/emotional aguish rapidly goes downhill.

So, what can cause such a decline?

Well, as I started to compile a list of causes for losing vitality, I noticed that there are three broad categories: 1) acute illness, 2) chronic diseases, and 3) senescence or aging related causes. As you would suspect, there is much overlap between these categories, especially among lists for 2 and 3.

So, a list of acute illnesses may include:

  1. Tuberculosis
  2. Syphilis
  3. Typhoid
  4. Streptococcal
  5. Diphtheria
  6. Whooping Cough
  7. Smallpox
  8. Pneumonia/flu
  9. Depression
  10. Accident or Injury
  11. Heart attack
  12. Stroke
  13. Blood Clot/Thrombosis/Pulmonary Embolism
  14. Rheumatoid Arthritis
  15. Cirrhosis
  16. Kidney failure
  17. Other infectious diseases

A list of chronic diseases may include:

  1. Diabetes
  2. Coronary diseases
  3. Obesity
  4. Cancer
  5. Osteoarthritis
  6. Alzheimer’s diseases
  7. Depression
  8. Kidney diseases
  9. Liver disease
  10. High Blood Pressure

And, finally, the list of aging/senescence causes might include:

  1. Insulin resistance
  2. Hardening of the arteries
  3. Loss of muscle mass
  4. Osteoporosis or Loss of bone mass
  5. Gaining excess fat
  6. Inflammation
  7. Arthritis
  8. Stress
  9. Buildup of toxicity
  10. Loss of flexibility
  11. Loss of balance
  12. Slowing reaction times
  13. Slowing basal metabolic rate (BMR)
  14. Loss of appetite

It is interesting to ponder the implication of the overlaps between the lists.

For example, if you have known someone to have had a heart attack, it was definitely an acute illness event that probably changed their vitality curve and sent that person downhill.

Then again, may be that person was already going downhill since he/she had been losing cardio capacity due to chronic coronary disease.

And, may be the heart attack was in-part the result of hardening of the arteries due to old age.

To achieve longevity and vitality, we must overcome acute illnesses, chronic diseases and also slow the aging /senescence process.

What I am really excited about is first and foremost looking for those lifestyle activities that positively impact items on all three lists at the same time.

And, my search so far, indicates that there are such activities. The most challenging part seems to be picking through the controversies to find the optimal activities.

In any case, I think it will be an exciting journey. I look forward to sharing results of my search in the future posts.

What do you think?

Do you feel there are other hurdles that one must overcome to maintaining optimum vitality?

Post #4 – Is it even possible to live to 120? – Part II

23 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Dying, Life-Span, Living to 120

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In the last post on this topic, I concluded that

“As an optimist, when I look at this data, it looks very encouraging to me. First, it is definitely viable to live to 120. It has already been done! Like the four-minute mile, someone has already shown the way.

Second, an increasing number of people are approaching that age with an increasing rate. So, at this rate, I expect by the time my time arrives, dying at 120 will be as routine as dying at 100 today! It might not be very common, but it might not be that rare.”

While I make this informal and what seems like a rather obvious deduction from the data, some folks disagree.

James F. Fries and Lawrence M. Crapo in their book on Vitality and Aging make a compelling argument: while life expectancy has been increasing over the last many decades life-span has been fixed (for all practical purposes – increasing only by 0.1 year per century).

So, intuitively, the chart below may be how one would be tempted to guess the shape of life expectancy curves.

Figure 1
However, they argue, that it is the chart below that corresponds to the reality.

Figure 2

Thus according to their conclusion, while on an average humans are living longer and longer, we are still stuck at dying by the age of 100.

Presenting the data from another perspective in the chart below, as we graph number of deaths against age of death, we observe a normal or Gaussian distribution around certain age at which number of deaths peak. As the life expectancy keeps increasing the curve would look like the IDEAL curve below.

Figure 3

And, as that happens, graph of percent survial rate against age will become “rectanguar” as shown below.

Figure 4

This implies that as we conquer chronic diseases, we will live a healthy long life after which we will succumb very quickly to the forces of nature, within the bounds of a very few years. And, that will define an ideal “natural” death. As we hit certain time limit, all of the cells in the body may burst together like soap bubbles.

Fries and Crapo wrote their book in 1981. So I thought, with all the new research in the last 30+ years, maybe they have changed their mind.

In a more recent review article in the Journal of Aging Research, Compression of Morbidity 1980–2011: A Focused Review of Paradigms and Progress, James F. Fries, Bonnie Bruce, and Eliza Chakravarty reassert the same conclusion and buttress it with more recent studies.

I really like most everything else they assert, derive or conclude in that book- which I would like to talk about in a different post. However, I am personally not sold on this idea of fixed life-span.

It makes me quite uncomfortable. Yeah, you guessed it. After all, my goal is to purposely live to 120!

What do you think?

Have you seen any data, studies or analysis that contradicts this theory about fixed life-span?

Post #3 – Is it even possible to live to 120?

16 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Dying, Life-Span, Living to 120

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When I bring it up to friends and family members that I am planning to live to 120 years, the kinds of questions and/or comments I get are:

“Wow, that is pretty gutsy to think that you can live to 120.”

“Why do you want to live that long?”

“I would probably not be around past 85.”

“I would not want to be around that long. It would be no fun. All
my contemporaries would all be gone.”

“My money won’t last that long.”

“What is the longest any one has lived?”

“How many people have lived over 100, 110, or 115?”

As I started wondering about these, I thought maybe I would start from the bottom of the list. Those questions certainly look easier.

So, what is the recent record of longevity for humans?

Wikipedia has some real good pages summarizing this information, for example, you can start with Oldest People and  Super Centenarian.

1500 supercentenarians (those over 110) have been documented in history. There are 30 verified over 115 year olds.

The oldest ever lived was Jeanne Calment from France who died on 4 August 1997 at the age of 122 years, 164 days. Sarah Knauss from the United States came closest to 120; she died on 30 December 1999 at the age of 119 years and 97 days. Two died at 117 years, and five at 116 years.

The oldest currently living is Misao Okawa in Japan at the age of 116 years and 11 days. She is the 10th oldest so far.

In 2012, the UN estimated there to be 316,600 centenarians (over 100) living worldwide. The US has the highest number (53,364 per the 2010 Centenarian Special Report ). Per the report:

“In the period from 1980 to 2010, the centenarian population experienced a larger percentage increase than did the total population. The number of centenarians increased from 32,194 to 53,364, resulting in a 65.8% increase, while the total population increased 36.3 percent. Consequently, the centenarian population increased from 1.42 per 10,000 in 1980 to 1.73 per 10,000 in 2010.”

As an optimist, when I look at this data, it looks very encouraging to me. First, it is definitely viable to live to 120. It has already been done! Like the four-minute mile, someone has already shown the way.

Second, an increasing number of people are approaching that age with an increasing rate. So, at this rate, by the time my time arrives, dying at 120 will be as routine as dying at 100 today! It might not be very common, but it might not be that rare.

What do you think? How do you see these statistics?

Post #2 – So, how do we die?

15 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by in Causes of Death, Dying, Living to 120

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So, how do people die?

Setting aside the very first question for now, i.e. what is the object of this game

of life? – which can be an interesting trip down the rabbit hole.

Let us ponder on how do people die?

First, the simple answer: I just look up the World Health Organization (WHO) statistics or US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) data and listed there are the leading causes of death. Of course, the causes vary by demographics.

In 2010, the latest year for which we have complete statistics in the US, 2,468,435 people died. Here are deaths from all the causes and the number and percent from each cause:
1. 597,689 24.2% Diseases of the Heart (heart disease)
2. 574,743 23.3% Malignant neoplasm (cancer)
3. 138,080 5.6% Chronic lower respiratory disease
4. 129,476 5.2% Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke)
5. 120,859 5.2% Accidents (unintentional injuries)
6. 83,494 3.4% Alzheimer’s disease
7. 83,494 2.8% Diabetes Mellitus (diabetes)
8. 50,476 2.0% Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (kidney disease)
9. 50,097 2.0% Influenza and pneumonia
10. 38,364 1.6% Intentional self-harm (suicide)
11. 34,812 1.4% Septicemia (blood infection)
12. 31,903 1.3% Cirrhosis (liver disease)
13. 26,634 1.1% Hypertension & hypertensive diseases (high blood pressure)
14. 22,032 0.9% Parkinson’s disease
15. 17,011 0.7% Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids
16. 438,694 19.6% All other causes ( including “natural causes”)

So, there you have it!

Except, that this data begs several questions,

First, what are “All other causes”? That category is large enough to be the third largest cause of death.

Some of these causes show up when we look at the top mortality causes for low income nations: HIV/AIDS, malaria, diarrhea, tuberculosis, all causes of infant mortality, malnutrition, cholera, meningitis, sexually transmitted infection, etc.

I still have not found a good source of raw data for the US, so I can comb through all causes. After all, it would be useful to know all reasons, when shooting for longevity. Do you have a good source of such data?

Second, what does it mean to die of “old age” or of “natural causes”?

One common answer I have seen cited repeatedly is that all old age (or “natural”) deaths are really caused by traumatic events (may be from the above list) that prove fatal due to body’s inability to recover,

Does someone have another answer to this question?

Post #1 – Questions I have been pondering lately..

13 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by in Living to 120

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May be it is because I am turning 60 this year or may be it is something else… These are the questions I have been pondering lately:
• What is the object of this game of life?
• How do people die?
• How do people lose vitality?
• What would it take to have a life-span and a health-span of 120?
• How do I want to live the next 60 years of my life?
• How do I contribute at a level that is worthy of my life?
• How do I make a major contribution to preventative healthcare – the area that gets my juices flowing?

In finding answers to these questions, I have been reading whatever I can lay my hands on and talking to whoever would talk to me on this topic.

One of my recent thoughts has been to may be to find other kindred spirits – people who are searching for answers to these or similar questions – and may have even already found some answers!

Also, I am going to use this blog to reflect upon what I come across. Through these reflections I would like to share what I have learned and learn from others.

So, I would love to hear your comments:

Are you in pursuit of a goal to live to 120?

Do you wonder what it might take to purposely live a life of vigor to the age of 120?