Healthy Aging

This presents us with a whole new set of problems to solve. In order to solve a problem you must ask the right question. Most will ask "how can I prevent ______." Most of our preventive medicine is aimed at preventing the diseases that are the leading causes of death. So you may be able to answer the question correctly and avoid the dreaded diseases and arrive at 70-80 without any of those diseases but not in a healthy condition. Health is not the absence of disease. Public health has achieved, to some extent, the solution to this problem. Many people are arriving at this age but they are not healthy and not too happy about the condition they have arrived in. The average American at 60 can expect to spend 25 percent of his or her remaining years with one or more serious physical or mental disabilities as a result of unhealthy aging.

Maybe the question should be: What do I need to do to age in a healthy way, so that I can arrive at the age of 70-80 (the first step) and be healthy enough to enjoy being there? This is a much different question and has a completely different answer. We have focused on increasing lifespan and now need to focus on extending health span. The central hypothesis is to have optimal physiological, biochemical, structural and social function. There is no second chance. Jeff Bland said it best: "Life is a non-blinded, non-placebo controlled, non-crossover experiment which washes over our genes to produce the older person we become. The earlier we begin focusing on healthy aging and longevity, the more successful we will be. A Chinese proverb says 'until age 40 man has the face he was born with.at 40 he has the face he deserves.'"

Functional medicine is designed to promote health, anticipate and prevent disease or to correct an existing disease by improving physiological function. Disease is ultimately the end result of environmental influences that have overwhelmed the body's ability to maintain balance. So you may not be sick yet, but you could be out of balance and working on getting to the point where you will be sick.

One of the great discoveries that has come out of the human genomic project is that we have control over 70 percent of our genetic make up. It is true that when the egg and sperm come together you inherit a certain genetic structure. What we didn't know is that each gene comes with an off-on switch. If you don't like the way your life experiment is turning out, then you need to reset some of your switches.

We have also learned that there are eight modifiable risk factors that affect aging. They are:

1. Chronic inflammation
2. Poor nutrition and digestion
3. Dysglycemia
4. Impaired mitochondrial function
5. Impaired detoxification capacity
6. Imbalanced methylation reactions
7. Poor immune function
8. Hormonal imbalances

There are tests for each of these different functions but more important are the healing functions of the body. Inherent in every living being is a healing power that works toward: 1. Self repair 2. Self organization 3. Self actualization. In functional medicine we attempt to optimize this innate healing response using diet, exercise, lifestyle and specific medical intervention.

A short explanation of each of these factors is as follows:

1. Chronic inflammation is the body's response to imbalance and leads to such things as arthritis, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and colitis, autoimmune diseases, eczema, asthma, arteriosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.
2. Nutrition and digestion: You are not only what you eat but what you assimilate and it is important to know what is going on in your intestine.
3. Dysglycemia: Your intake of sugar and how you handle it is related to cardiovascular disease, hypertension, central obesity, insulin resistance, and adult onset diabetes.
4. Impaired mitochondrial function: Mitochondria produce the energy to run your body. They consume 90 percent of the oxygen you inhale. It is used to produce the energy for your cells to carry out their various functions. This is related to free radicals and anti-oxidants. If the mitochondria don't work, neither do you.
5. Impaired detoxification capacity: There are known detoxification pathways through the liver. We can check and see how they are working and what is needed to help them to function better.
6. Imbalanced methylation reactions: Methylation has to do with protein synthesis, detoxification including heavy metals, protecting DNA and protecting the nerves. Methylation is what turns the switches on your genes off and on.
7. Poor immune function: One source of immune system problems is a leaky gut. This can be measured with an intestinal permeability test. Sixty percent of our immune system is located around the intestine.
8. Hormonal imbalances: This is more than just taking more hormones. We assume because you feel a certain way at age 30 and have a certain level of hormones that you should always that level of hormone and you will always feel 30. But life is more than just high hormone levels. There must be a balance to life. There are some reasons why you don't want all your hormone levels high.

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