THE BEST GIFT YOU CAN GIVE YOURSELF 
and those around you is to remain a viable, healthy, human being.  This viability, this spirit which permits us to confront the reality of aging, begins in your mind.  It is not a hysterical and unreasonable insistence on remaining twenty-two or some other mythical age.  It will require you to forget the “script” you’ve written for yourself about what age means.  If you think age is Alzheimer’s, arthritis, walkers, heavy wrinkles, heart problems, asexuality, and general debility, think again.  This is age only if you want it to be.  Ancient and modern medicine now make it possible to remain vibrant and viable, not only to enjoy life, but to be able to benefit from the anti-aging strategies which are just over the horizon.

THE FIRST STEP IN ACCEPTING THE GIFTS 
of new research and ancient wisdom, is to realize that you are a pioneer on a frontier.  How many people do you know who are really serious about confronting the disease we call aging?  How many are willing to self-experiment with a new supplement?  How much experimentation and how far is up to you.  But the first step is an open mind.

NUTRITION.  
Am I really going to discuss this facing the season of sweets, turkeys, roast beef, and champagne?  Yes.  I am.  There is a new word on the diet scene – Paleotechdiet.  (For all its ramifications, I refer you to Oz Garcia’s new book, The Healthy High-tech Body.)  It is true that the human body is still right off the drawing boards of the Old Stone Age.  According to Dr. Boyd Eaton, M.D., the foremost authority on ancient diet, the human genome has changed very little in the last 40,000 years.  What has changed is the polluted environment, a carbohydrate-and-sugar laced diet, and the development of the idiotic notion that constipation is nothing to worry about.  The point of all this is that the current “diet” is unfamiliar to our genome and causes malfunctions at every level of health.  We are older, fatter, and sicker than we should be.  That doesn’t mean that you have to try to eat everything cavemen ate (unless you really like insects and worms); it does mean merging the Old Stone Age with the new technical knowledge.

            Basically, the Paleodiet was fruits, roots, tubers, nuts, seeds, herbs, vegetables, and all the meat you could chase down.  If did not include bread, pasta, grain, and sugar which wreak havoc with your hormonal system, especially in the production of cortisol and insulin.

Cortisol and Insulin.  
Cortisol is produced in the adrenals and is critical to handling stress.  Stress, to your paleobody, means a brief, but nasty, encounter with a saber-toothed tiger.  It does not mean the long-term and unremitting stress created by humans – the boss who never stops screaming, a chaotic lifestyle which never slows down, or the phone that never stops ringing.  This man-made stress means overproduction of cortisol and that means premature aging.  Nothing kills brain cells faster than cortisol.

            Insulin either sends what you eat to energy or stores it as fat.  Eventually, given our nightmare diet of carbohydrates and sugar, the system can no longer get insulin from the blood.  Welcome to Diabetes II.  High insulin also produces “bad” eicosanoids or messenger hormones which elevate your blood pressure and destroy your immune system.

SO WHAT DO I DO?  
You take the paleodiet (minus the insects and worms) and dump processed foods (canned, over-sugared, etc. – you really know what they are.)  Give yourself a green tea break instead of sugared, carbonated water (which will leach the calcium from your bones – hello, osteoporosis).  Fight cancer with green tea, apples, nuts, berries, mushrooms, red grapes, raspberries, and peanuts (if you are not allergic to them).

            You need not be limited to Lipton’s tea, if that is what you think “tea” is.  You can get Celestial Seasonings’ Emerald Garden, a lovely fruited green tea, or Sadaf’s Earl Grey in the supermarket.  The Sadaf product is probably shelved with other Middle Eastern stuff.  If you do not receive The Republic of Tea catalog, you can request one from 8 Digital Drive, Suite 100, Novato, CA, 94949, call them at 800-298-4832, or visit their website at www.REPUBLICofTEA.com.  You’ll have so many different kinds of teas to sample you will forget all about carbonated water.

            Consume omega-3 acid: fish, olive oil, nuts (walnuts, pecans, macadamias, pine nuts, hazelnuts, almonds), and seeds.  If a patient comes to the clinic and informs me that s/he doesn’t eat any fat, I am informed that the person has succeeded in depriving the body of omega-3.  Consume lean protein.  The caveman ate meat low in saturated fat – from animals running from predators.  Grain-fed, contented beef is quite different.  There is something called “Smartmeat” sold at Costco which is excellent, low-fat beef and is not, surprisingly, expensive.  Look for it in the freezer. Try also buffalo and deer (venison).  Confine your carbs to those low on the glycemic index (they don’t raise your blood sugar).  Carbohydrates are slowed down if eaten with fat: fish oil, olive oil, sesame seed, butter – not any margarine with transfatty acids.) 

LONGEVITY NUTRIENTS:  
Nucleotides are animal protein, especially fish.  These are the building blocks of DNA.  They repair the lining of the digestive and intestinal traces.  Saponins, basically from legumes and beans, enhance your immune system, lower cholesterol, and prevent cancer.  Protease inhibitors are found in spinach*, peaches, corn, and sweet potatoes.  They protect DNA.  (*Do not eat spinach if you produce calcium oxalate kidney stones.)

            Carnosine, from the exorphin family, is found only in animal protein and protects the brain from free radical damage.  It slows down wrinkling.  This can be purchased as a supplement, Super Carnosine, put out by Life Extension.  A bottle of 90 capsules, 500 mg each, would sell at $75.00 through the clinic.  We do not carry this but will happily order it for anyone who is interested.

            Monoterpines are detoxifiers found in citrus fruits.

            NEUTRACEUTICALS – SUPPLEMENTS:  Some of the causes of the disease we call aging are controllable: chronic inflammation, glycosylation, hormone imbalance, fatty acid imbalance, DNA mutations, immune dysfunctions, excitotoxicity (an aging brain loses control over its neurotransmitters), circulatory deficit, oxidative stress.