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Four decades of writing on living long and living well, with 1,000+ posts on functional and longevity medicine.
191 in Healthy Aging
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Jun 14, 2024 · Healthy AgingUnlock Fertility Potential: The Power of Mitochondrial Health
Whether you have personally faced infertility challenges or know someone who has, understanding the role of mitochondria in fertility is essential!
May 27, 2024 · Healthy AgingFinding Ikigai: Your Path to Purpose and Meaning and 10 Ways to Get Yours
For generations, countless words have been written on how best to live a good life. Often these investigations skew one of two ways, toward the mystical, emphasizing an inner search for meaning, or they go outward, as in, how to make it in the material world, witness the reams of books about achieving business success. Recently, I’ve come across a traditional Japanese precept that for me combines the best of both worlds. It’s summed up in a single word, ikigai, itself a combination of two Japanese words, "iki" meaning life and "gai" meaning worth or value. At its core, it’s about discovering what gets you out of bed in the morning, your ‘raison d’etre.
May 20, 2024 · Healthy Aging7 Thoughts on How Strong Immunity Can Help Slow Aging
Aging can bring all sorts of gifts, whether it’s wisdom and experience, new opportunities or connecting in a new way with your adult children and grandchildren. Things can get tough though with some of the physical changes that can take place in our bodies, typically, taking root in early middle age and gathering speed from there. Another change that comes with the gift of years? One of the most important ones concerns our immune system, our body’s defense against threats from the outside world and from inside us as well.
Apr 29, 2024 · Healthy Aging5 Ways Glycine Helps You Age Better – and Slower
Whether you’re in peak form or dealing with conditions that need attention, I’ve got a helpful health hack for you – and it’s called glycine. I like to think of it as the Swiss Army knife of amino acids, an under-the-radar hero that’s capable of doing your health and longevity a world of good without a lot of extra effort. Augmenting your natural supply with glycine-rich high protein foods, healthy supportive behaviors and strategic supplementation and you can easily keep your tank topped up – and help fight off many of the ills that can age you before your time.
Apr 22, 2024 · Healthy AgingThe Body, Brain and Healthspan Benefits of Anti-Aging Wonder Methylene Blue
While restoring health and sustaining wellness remains at the core of everything I do, focusing on aging well is fast becoming central to my approach. While we can’t stop aging altogether, advances in the longevity field are enabling us to put the process of slowing aging well within reach. With this in mind, I want to introduce you to a fascinating substance called methylene blue that’s showing a lot of promise when it comes to supporting a longer ‘healthspan’ (aka, a youthful life for as long as possible), and is a powerful ally in helping our bodies stand up to the health-eroders that limit human lifespans.
Apr 8, 2024 · Healthy Aging16 Ways to Turn Health Around With Bio-hacking
While many hacks are geared towards automating life’s more mundane tasks – better ways to cook, get your steps in, grow more vegetables, etc. – the kind of hacking I’m most interested in is ‘bio-hacking,’ as in, the kinds of hacks that focus on smarter strategies to improve health, wellness and, ultimately, longevity.
Apr 1, 2024 · Healthy Aging6 Ways Nitric Oxide Amps Up Immunity, Muscle Performance and Circulation
So, what is nitric oxide? It’s a gas that circulates in suspension in the blood, travelling throughout the body doing good things wherever it reaches. It helps neurons talk to each other and to the muscle cells. It helps fortify the immune system. And perhaps most importantly, it plays a critical role in ensuring that blood flows easily through the blood vessels, bringing oxygen and nutrients to every corner of the body. So how to help nitric oxide deliver an even greater load of health benefits? I have a few ideas for you.
Mar 25, 2024 · Healthy AgingUnlocking Longevity: Delving into the Final 3 Hallmarks of Aging (Part 4)
Of the hallmarks of aging discovered in the last decade or so, three of them have been added only recently. Previously they had been folded into the original 9 pre-existing hallmarks, not surprising since all the hallmarks affect each other, one way or another. But now they’ve got their own spot on the marquee, in part because they’re especially sensitive to the daily choices we make about diet, physical activity and stress. Here’s how to take charge of the additional three hallmarks believed to be responsible for making us grow old – ideally not before our time, that is, if we follow some sensible lifestyle advice.
Mar 18, 2024 · Healthy AgingUnlocking Longevity: Delving into the Next 3 Hallmarks of Aging (Part 3)
In this four-part series on what scientists call “the hallmarks of aging,” the specific biochemical processes that are happening in your body every day, every second, which, taken together, take us from our physical peak in our twenties right on through to the end of our lives. The idea, as I explained, is “know your enemy,” as in, if we can identify what’s going on in the body, we can take steps to fight back against it, whether that’s healthy lifestyle choices now or, down the line, with the help of new treatments being studied in the lab today. My advice? Get familiar with the hallmarks – and what to do about them now – so you can get ahead of the aging process.
Mar 11, 2024 · Healthy AgingUnlocking Longevity: Delving into 3 More Hallmarks of Aging (Part 2)
In last week’s post, we looked at the first three “the hallmarks of aging,” the specific bio-chemical processes that are happening in your body every day, every second, which, taken together, take us from our physical peak in our twenties right on through to the end of our lives. The idea, as I explained, is “know your enemy,” as in, if we can identify what’s going on in the body, we can take steps to fight back against it, whether that’s healthy lifestyle choices now or, down the line, with the help of new treatments being studied in the lab today. In this post, we’ll take a look at the next three hallmarks, and what you need to know about them:
Mar 4, 2024 · Healthy AgingUnlocking Longevity: Delving into the 12 Hallmarks of Aging (Part 1)
Most of us were raised to think about aging as this mysterious thing that just happens to us. But over the past decade or so, scientists have made great strides in figuring out what’s going in our bodies at a cellular and even molecular level to explain the differences between a 30-year-old and a 70-year-old and why it is the older we get, the more vulnerable we become to the dreaded “diseases of aging.” The good news is that science is now showing us that you have more control over how well and quickly you age than you may realize.
Feb 26, 2024 · Healthy Aging6 Ways Cold Exposure Makes You Younger, Happier and Healthier!
More than just a change of scenery, stepping outside in winter and exposing yourself to cold can help slow your aging roll and extend your ‘healthspan’ (aka, the life in your years), so take advantage now – before it warms up! Think of winter’s chill as your youth-preserving secret weapon – and here’s how and why I encourage you to harness that chilling power all season long.
Feb 19, 2024 · Healthy Aging5 Ways Stress Ages You All Over – and How to Fight Back
It’s no secret that too much stress is bad for your health. However, what is new is that integrative physicians like me appreciate that health is best understood as the ability to withstand the age-related decline in function in every part and system of the body, starting as early as our thirties. And stress? Cutting-edge research is now starting to pinpoint ways that stress turbocharges this aging process – so its up to you to start fighting back a.s.a.p.!
Jan 22, 2024 · Healthy Aging6 Ways Your Biological Age Matters More than the Number of Candles on Your Cake
When we think about age, we should be thinking of it in terms of two numbers: your actual chronological age and what researchers and some forward-thinking clinicians are now calling “biological” age, which captures the differences in how our bodies change over time. The good news? Medical science is in the first stages of being able to measure the biological processes that underlie aging, and clinicians – myself included – who embrace “longevity medicine” and can use that information to tailor therapies and target lifestyle upgrades to slow that process down.
Jan 15, 2024 · Healthy Aging7 Thoughts on How AKG Can Make Aging Better – and Slower
Pharmaceutical drugs. They are, for better or worse, just about everywhere these days, and while they have their place, they’re also wildly over-prescribed – blunt instruments that can sometimes create more problems than they solve. That’s why I’m always curious about promising alternatives and excited by the growing research into natural compounds – and one candidate that may be able to keep health moving in a positive direction is something called ‘alpha-ketoglutarate’ or ‘AKG – which can help the body restore itself when it begins to run down.
Dec 1, 2023 · Healthy AgingOn Aging, Attitude, and Activity
Dreading the idea of growing old? A new study suggests such a view may keep you from engaging in the physical activity necessary to age gracefully.
Oct 9, 2023 · Healthy AgingAnti-Aging with Spermidine – and How It Can Save Your Brain, Heart, and Youth
Sometimes I come across cutting edge information about health therapies that just excites me, and ‘spermidine’ is a case in point. If your first response is: “what the heck is that?” you’ve got plenty of company, even though it was first discovered by the inventor of the microscope, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, way back in 1678. But only recently have scientists come to appreciate that this compound plays a valuable role in all sorts of key physiological processes and anti-aging, which, no matter your years, is a fascinating proposition.
Sep 18, 2023 · Healthy Aging13 Ways Peptides Make Vibrant Health Happen
Safe to say, just about all of us want to remain as vital as possible for as long as possible. To help our bodies do that, our cells, organs and systems need to work in concert, to ‘talk’ to each other to keep everything running smoothly. Helping to keep that communication moving along are peptides, natural signaling agents which go to work inside in our cells and have a host of positive effects on our physiology. In short, they help make good health things happen throughout the body and it’s a big reason why I’m such a fan of putting peptides to work with a number of my patients.
Sep 11, 2023 · Healthy Aging6 Things to Know About the “Miracle” Drug Ozempic And Its Weight-loss Cousins
Ozempic and a handful of similar drugs have been grabbing countless headlines these days, marketed as ‘miracle drugs’ to millions of people who are struggling with weight problems, not to mention diabetes, which these drugs were originally designed to treat. But are these drugs right for you?
Aug 21, 2023 · Healthy AgingMy 7 Point To-Do List for Aging Well – and Slowly!
One of the most frequent questions I get from my patients is: “How do I slow down aging?” I get it. Nobody wants to look, and more importantly, feel like they’re getting old. And by “getting old,” they mean losing the spark and sparkle and wrinkle-free skin they may have taken for granted in their twenties and thirties. What I tell them is, if you follow some basic rules of slowing down aging, you’ll help take care of the wrinkles on the outside of you at the same time you’re addressing the wrinkles on the inside – dysfunctions in the way your metabolism, cardiovascular system, immune system and your brain work, in other words the big things that can reduce both the quality and the quantity of your years on the planet.
Aug 11, 2023 · Healthy AgingThe Secret to Longevity: The Gut Microbiome
Aging is a natural process, and while we cannot control time, there is a remarkable ecosystem within us—the gut microbiome—that might hold the key to aging gracefully.
Aug 6, 2023 · Healthy AgingHealthy Aging and the Brain: 5 Ways to Improve Neuroplasticity
The importance of exercising our brains as we age and advice for easy ways to strengthen cognitive functioning.
Jul 31, 2023 · Healthy Aging5 Health-Enhancing and Life-Lengthening Benefits of Grandparenting
Parenting. As any mother or father can tell you, it’s not easy. Rewarding, for sure, often joyous, but it’s still a job that can sometimes feel overwhelmingly challenging. (Remember the terrible two’s? The teen years?) But, when all those years of parenting give rise to the next generation and you become a grandparent, delight becomes the default. As a very proud grandfather, it is pure joy to watch my young grandson grow physically, mentally, emotionally is a thing of beauty. And, seeing how much he loves having Janice and me spend time with him, fills us with love and gratitude as we nurture this very special, life-long relationship.
Jul 14, 2023 · Healthy AgingUnlocking Your Brain’s Potential: Increasing Neuroplasticity with Functional Medicine
Neuroplasticity enables the brain to rewire itself, supporting memory formation, rehabilitation after neurological conditions, and overall brain health and longevity – discover how to promote it here!