Aging How it Affects Us and What to Do About It

No one wants to get old, but it happens to all of us. We’ve made some amazing advances in medicine, particularly in fighting some of the most serious diseases, managing chronic conditions, and vastly improving infant mortality rates beyond anything our ancestors could have imagined even a few hundred years ago. However, there’s more that we can do; and it’s time for medicine to turn its attention to effective anti aging treatments.

How Aging Affects Us

While some of the worst effects of aging have been put off by as much as a decade compared to previous generations, some things have remained unchanged. For example, although life expectancy has increased dramatically, the average age at which a woman reaches menopause has not changed and menopause solutions and more effective menopause treatment are still needed. And while our life expectancy is vastly improved, the great majority of older Americans have to live with one or two chronic conditions for the last few years of their life, at least. Many older people are living with diabetes, arthritis, or heart disease. Doctors have previously concentrated their anti aging therapy on treating the symptoms without yet finding an effective solution for the underlying problem: getting old.

What’s the Goal?

Obviously, the goal is something more than simply living more days or years. Some people have no interest in living a few more years if that life is full of constant chronic disease. The goal instead is to somehow stop the body’s clock so that these sorts of diseases and chronic conditions come much later, or perhaps never. The existence of centenarians gives us hope that this is actually possible to achieve.

Most of those people who outlast the rest of us and make it to 100 years old or more were able to do so because they somehow avoided all of the diseases and conditions that most of their peers fell prey to in their 70s and 80s. Those who live to be 100 or more also typically do not have a long end-of-life decline such as most people experience. They get sick later, and their sickness comes much closer to the end of their life. Studying these people and understanding what made them able to do this could be the key to longer and healthier lives for all of us.

What Promising Anti Aging Treatments Are On the Horizon?

• A new protein: GDF11 Scientists at Harvard University have discovered a protein in the blood that causes faster healing. This protein is far more prevalent in the blood of young mice than old mice, and when this protein is injected into older mice their muscles restore to their previous youthful condition.
• Improved immune response As we age, our immune systems are not able to respond as aggressively as when we were in our prime. Pharmaceutical researchers at Novartis have discovered a compound that greatly improves the effectiveness of the flu shot in older people. Those injected with this compound had more antibodies in their blood and exhibited signs of strengthened immune systems.
• Eat to live Most of us live to eat, but we’ve long known that when we restrict the calorie consumption of laboratory animals to only what they absolutely need to survive, while simultaneously making sure that all of their basic nutritional needs are met, their life expectancy increases by as much as 30%. This has given rise to the intermittent fasting regimen, and it remains to be seen how effective this may be.

Until Then, What Do We Do?

While scientists work on ways to actually turn back time, there are anti aging treatments that can help us look and feel our best. There is hormone replacement therapy, especially to battle the first stages of menopause or for men suffering from low T. There is also wrinkle injection technology, antioxidant skincare, peptides that stimulate collagen production and make our skin look more youthful, and a better understanding of the power of vitamin A and retinol.

Whatever your age, start your anti aging treatments now by taking care of your body and your skin and by getting advice from your local anti aging clinic on how to look and feel your best as you go through life.